Fern @ LifeOnTheBalcony's Profile

Thanks for the shout out Rochelle!

"It is much easier to enjoy a glass of wine in London, Paris or New York than it is in LA or Dallas."

You must be a serious light weight if you are not safe to drive after a glass of wine. ;-) One glass of (California!) win with dinner seems pretty common among my circle of friends. You can even get wine and beer at several "quick service" restaurants in So Cal (Chipotle and Pei Wei to name two). I don't think very many people are having a hard time enjoying one drink with dinner here.

It is really hard to grow citrus trees indoors year round. They need full sun (citrus need 8 hours of direct, sunlight), and even in a south facing window, that's really hard to provide indoors, especially in urban areas where buildings often shade one another.

A lot of the pest problems described by various commenters are at least partly attributable to growing citrus trees in less than ideal conditions. Stressed plants are literally a homing beacon to pests. For example, many pests are attracted to yellow leaves.

"You know, I've never thought about this before I saw the packing pearls, but ping pong balls would be a great alternative!! And it would be much easier to separate the soil from the drainage layer of balls than separating the gravel from the soil if you didn't use a felt barrier between the two. And so light weight! Oh man... I'm doing this"

If possible, look for ping pong balls that are made out thick plastic. If you buy cheap balls they will just compact under the wait of wet soil and form a flat plastic barrier that prevents proper drainage. Also, I would NOT use them in a pot where you're growing edibles because the manufacturer almost certainly did not make them out of food grade plastic and they may leach harmful chemicals into the soil.

"Empty soda pop cans, water bottles, big styrofoam chunks the new electronics came in (in-the-poche is right about the loose peanuts), all of these things are in the bottom of my planters."

In my experience, these items are inferior alternatives. Styrofoam tends to compact and block drainage. I can't tell you how many clients' pots I was hired to resurrect that I found a Styrofoam plug in the bottom. And they wondered why the soil in their pot smelled like something was rotting?! Empty soda cans and water bottles tend to settle unevenly over time leaving you with a pot that has sunken on one side. Furthermore, if you're growing edibles, you might want to consider whether plastic water bottles you're using will break down and leach harmful chemicals into the soil.

What a neat idea! I wonder if rosemary would be a good one to add? I need to prune my rosemary bush, maybe I could kill two birds with one stone.

I thought I was the only one annoyed by the royal we. I guess I should check the comments more often. It does seem affected and especially inappropriate for informal internet writing.

How cool would it be if you could have a bee hive on your apartment balcony? I wonder how many landlords would allow it?!

How ridiculous. If this wasn't California I would believe our legislature was even considering limiting people's liberty over--at best--$30 in yearly savings. Our government should focus on passing a balanced budget on time (for once!) and leave people's freedom to spend their hard earned cash alone. The gall of the most incompetent legislature in the country deigning to know how to spend our money better than we do is almost to much to bear.