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A guy at the Richmond farmer's market talked me out of buying seedlings and it totally changed my balcony setup
I was at the farmer's market in Richmond about a month ago, just browsing the plant stall like I always do, and this older guy running it asked what I was growing on. I told him I had a little balcony setup with some tomatoes and peppers in pots, and he kind of laughed and said I was wasting money on seedlings every spring. He pulled out a little jar of seeds he'd saved from his own cherry tomatoes and handed it to me for free, told me to just start them in egg cartons on the windowsill in March. I figured it wouldn't work since my balcony only gets about 5 hours of sun a day, but I gave it a shot anyway. Two months later I've got six healthy little plants that cost me basically nothing, versus the $4 a pop I was paying at the nursery. The crazy part is they're doing better than the store-bought ones did last season, maybe because they got used to my light from day one. Now I'm wondering if I should try saving seeds from my peppers too, or if that's more trouble than it's worth on a small balcony. Has anyone else had luck starting stuff from seed in a tiny space like this?
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ivan_perez7d ago
My buddy Dave did the same thing with peppers from a farmers market in Charlottesville two years back, saved seeds from a red bell he bought and ended up with four plants on a fire escape that got maybe 6 hours of sun. Two of them grew into something totally different than what he started with, kinda small and thin skinned, but the other two were fine. Peppers cross pollinate pretty easy if there's other stuff blooming nearby, so you never know what you'll get. Worth trying since the seeds are free, just don't expect them all to taste like the ones you saved from.
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