Hello,
I'm incredibly new to gardening (unless you count helping my mom transplant when I was a kid), and already feel like I have no clue what I'm doing, so I thought perhaps joining this forum and wandering around a bit could be helpful.
In hopes that perhaps someone reading my introduction could give me advice I thought I'd talk a bit about the property I'd like to make use of!
A month ago I moved into a new 2nd floor apartment here in Michigan with a wonderful deck that has
flower boxes surrounding three of the perimeter walls of the deck -- half of it partly shaded (by a trellis), half of it full afternoon sun. So I thought maybe now would be a good time to start learning more about planting/gardening.
But, oh my, those
flower boxes have given me grief. The dimensions of what I'm working with are: ~100ft long, 1.2 ft wide, and less than a foot deep. My landlord said it had been a few years since anyone had done any gardening. When I moved in, the entire thing was COVERED in some kind of moss. It had started
growing in the folds of the plastic rim and in the crevises of the wood. I pulled (cut?) that all out, then tilled the soil. I ended up putting some of the moss bits at the very bottom of the boxes underneath the rest of the soil because otherwise I wasn't sure I had enough depth to plant. But anyway, I bought a few plants and a bunch of
seeds & bulbs and since about mid-May, I've been planting.
Now here's my problem... I accidentally threw out some of my
seed packets! I don't even entirely remember what I planted, but now I don't know how to tell the
weeds from the
seedlings!! I've been looking at pictures of common Michigan
weeds along with pictures of what I *think* I bought, but I'm so confused!!
I know I planted alyssum and sweet pea, but I can't figure out what in my garden might be those. I also think I have an invasion of purslane (Portulaca oleracea), but I'm not certain. There's so many different things popping up I don't know what might be planted and what might be invading.
So, that's my background. I think I have a lot more reading to do to figure this out, so I might have to beg for the patience of those wiser than I am in the ways of the garden. I am happy to find this place, from what I've read so far it seems very helpful. Sorry this ended up longer than I planned!