Garden in the study.

I grew up weeding and raking and picking fruits and vegetables out of the garden and off of the fruit bushes my parents carefully cultivated in our backyard. As a very picky eater, I'm sure Mom and Dad were happy to see me eating green beans off the vine, although I wouldn't touch the zucchini that was always far too plentiful. It was always amazing to me that Mom knew how to make all this food grow, and now that I've been researching it a bit, I'm even more impressed. 

                               
Brian was probably skeptical when I announced I wanted us to have a container garden because I had killed the already-grown ivy from Home Depot. (I'm actually not sure if it's dead or not, but it hasn't grown any new leaves in awhile...) I had also tried to grow oregano and thyme in some small clay pots we had gotten in a yard sale, to no avail. 

Dead ivy and clay pots...evidence of my brown thumb remain in a corner of the kitchen

Then last month, we had a stake Relief Society activity with a class on container gardening. The woman presenting, Barbara, works at Phipps Conservatory here in Pittsburgh (which I love going to with Mila). She explained how to start seedlings, which I thought rather ingenious.

Mila in the rainbow room at Phipps. The place is a huge network of greenhouses!

I'm here to say it works! Brian and I planted our seeds on the last day of March and they've thrived in the west-facing windows in our study (I can only hope these windows continue to provide enough sunlight). Here's a step-by-step for starting seeds:

Materials
cookie sheet covered in aluminum foil (to avoid rust)
plastic bread bag
twisty tie/elastic
egg carton (cardboard or styrofoam; if styrofoam, poke a few holes in the bottom of each egg compartment)
seed starting soil
seeds (make sure the seeds you pick are for varieties of vegetables that are meant to be in containers; these are usually smaller varieties. However, if you are going to transplant them outside, it shouldn't matter what type of seeds you use)

See egg carton resting on its lid. I got all of this from Home Depot (minus the cookie sheet). 

Take the top of the egg carton off and set it underneath the other half. Fill each egg compartment with loose soil. On top of the soil, place one seed--do not push the seed into the soil. Once all compartments have soil and a seed, place egg carton on the cookie sheet covered in foil. Pour water directly onto the cookie sheet, about a quarter inch thick. Leave for a few hours. After the cardboard has absorbed the water (there will probably be some left on the cookie sheet), place the egg carton into the plastic bread bag and secure the end with a twisty tie or an elastic. Put your mini-greenhouse in a sunny place and watch the miracle of seeds. 

My green beans need more space! (far left)

Here is a handy dandy little handout that Barbara gave us at the mini-class. It lets you know what seed varieties work well in containers, how big of containers each type of plant needs, how many you can plant in a container, and lots of other useful tips for novice container gardeners.

I ended up planting cucumbers, spinach, green beans, oregano, and thyme. After noticing my green beans were bursting from the bread bag, I made a trip to Home Depot and picked up some soil and plastic potting containers. 

I chose Miracle Gro potting soil because it has the nutrients my plants need for two months; after that, I'll have to start fertilizing them.

I gently ripped the egg compartments containing my little sprouts away from the rest of the egg carton and put them in their new home, cardboard and all. I left some seedlings in the greenhouse, partly because I ran out of potting soil, and partly because the thyme, some of the oregano, and one of the cukes were still too tiny. I really hope stage two of container gardening is as successful as the first!

The root of the spinach grew right through the cardboard!

Spinach, oregano, green  beans.