Striving for that green thumb on my petit balcon

With Winter fading and a lot of spare time I thought I would try my hand at a bit of gardening - something that I've never really been all that interested in. The three generations of women above me have always been pretty natural at creating lavish, bountiful gardens but since I hadn't been all that interested in it, I never really tried it. Plus the fact that I've always lived in apartments that don't leave much room for gardens. Some of you might think, what's so different about this apartment? When we moved in, our friends who lived here before us left some gardening equipment so I thought, why not? We have four balconies so there's plenty of room for pots and such. They also left these roses.

I was out shopping at DIY stores with a friend and we were looking at the copious amounts of seeds available now that Winter (the month where everything gets turned to ice) was gone. I thought I would start my gardening adventure from the beginning - with seeds! I read lots of websites about growing "this type of seed and that type of seed" so once I finished a few tubs of yoghurt (to use the containers for seedling pots) I set about planting my new little babies.

I started with one packet first just to test the waters. After a couple of days to my surprise and excitement, my little lavender seeds were germinating. Success! I religiously watered my 'babies' for about two weeks and decided that I was ready to plant the other three seed packets that I bought. Slowly, but surely they started to germinate. I was rather excited at the prospect of mothering these little green babies. So a few weeks on, I'm a little lost as to when I need to transfer them to a larger pot. I don't want to be too rough when replanting them and I don't know whether outside will be too rugged for my fragile babies. So I'm just watering them and watching them until I'm ready to take the plunge.

I think somewhere along the line I was supposed to 'pick out' a few seedlings that I wanted to survive and turf the rest in order to give room for my chosen few to flourish. But I wasn't sure how many to take or how much room I was supposed to give the remaining ones so I think the rosemary got a tad overcrowded.

fernleaf lavender

strawberries

jalapeños (for Roy)

rosemary

In the meantime, I got a little impatient and decided I couldn't wait until my lavender grew big enough for my built-in balcony pot. It was in need of some colour. I caved in and bought two nice, little pots of lavender. I'll still keep my seedlings going, I'll just have to find somewhere else to put them.

If any of you have a much greener thumb than I, please leave a comment with some advice for my green babies. It would be much appreciated!