Still not enough light. Have you considered trying a different indoor crop? Not sure radishes will work in your environment. Lettuce, maybe?
Gnats suggest that the soil is too wet.

Keep having fun and try not to get discouraged! You might consider something like basil that prefers warmer temps.

I wondered... at the top of the post, you said your landlord wouldn't let you grow veggies outside. Will s/he let you grow other things, either in the ground or in a container? There are some very ornamental looking vegetables! 'Sweet Pickles' pepper and 'Fish Pepper' are as pretty as any "ornamental pepper," but it just happens that you can eat them. I've grown borders of red leaf lettuce or 'Rainbow Lights' swiss chard. Herbs and edible flowers are another possibility.

Hi Critter. I live in a condo & there's a HOA. No place to put anything except the back porch. My landlord (my sister) refuses to put anything there as everyone forgets about them. I was the only one watering so my sister said can't grow anything but some flowers in rail boxes (hint as to who's watering those). I did buy some flowers seeds for the boxes that hopefully will be ok. Can't start those yet, we have frost until middle of May. Not sure about other crops, I'll have to look into it. Whatever it is has to be grown in my room as no plants in the kitchen or elsewhere.

That's a shame. Too bad your sister won't let you do a trial run -- if you forget about the plants and they die and look bad, that's that, but otherwise you'll all have fresh veggies! There are some micro-dwarf tomato varieties that would fit into a window box. (Victory Seeds has a great selection.) I'd at least tuck some basil among the flowers in your railing planters. Depending on what you're growing, you could start some flowers ahead of time in your indoor setup. Meanwhile, how about sowing some lettuce in the planters, with a few pansies for color? I'm betting you can eventually convert your sister into a gardening enabler if not an actual gardener.

Agree, those rail boxes are the answer!

According to the USDA, last frost for my zone is around May 11th. Are you saying I can plant lettuce & pansies now? If so cool! I'll have to try to convince her to let me pull the boxes out. As for the flowers, yes I plan to start them indoors in about 2 weeks. I bought a seed starter tray & seed pods for those. The packs say they take about a month to transplant stage. I have marigolds (my sister likes) & nasturtium. I will definitely look in the basil & the dwarf tomatoes. I'm also thinking about lavender… I'm going to start putting the radishes outside on the porch, the daytime temperatures in the 50's this week. It is cloudy though, how long should I start with. Oh, I don't know if you noticed in the last picture, some of the stems are growing straight up off the original. I'm hoping that's a good sign.

As Jill suggested, definitely pansies and lettuce now, they are cool-weather crops! To hurry things along, you can probably buy starter plants of both at a nursery.

Here's something to consider about radishes vs, say, lettuce: a single radish seed gives you a single radish. One bite and that's it. To make your radish crop worthwhile, you need many plants sown in succession, otherwise they all mature at roughly the same time.

A single seed of leaf lettuce (like Romaine) yields a plant that you can continuously harvest over several weeks by pulling off the outer leaves as they mature. New leaves keep emerging in the middle. If you're only feeding yourself, 6-10 lettuce plants could be plenty! Plus you can pick it daily so it's always fresh with no need to store it in the refrigerator. You can buy mixed greens seeds for variety. Same with basil (in the warm weather) — keep pinching off leaves and more appear.

Just some thoughts to help you decide. Also one question: does your radish bin have drainage holes?

An example of salad greens mixed seeds

Wow, ok something to consider, thanks. My sister eats salad everyday & I love romaine. The container I'm using currently does not have drainage as I just have it sitting on my jewelry box/sill. I don't want water on the furniture. I don't however water it except for spraying the top soil so there's no water sitting at the bottom. I have to start watering more as the plants are getting bigger. If/when I move it outside I will add drainage holes as I'm seriously thinking about the dwarf tomatoes.

Is this a good or bad ladybug?

You need drainage holes! Even really experienced gardeners have a hard time getting watering just right without drainage. Put a tray or something under your container to protect the furniture. Better yet, if you use something that will hold a little water (1/4 to 1/2"), you can water your seedlings from the bottom once they germinate (put water in the tray and let it get absorbed through the drainage holes). When the surface of the soil stays wet, you can get a lot of issues -- fungus gnats, damping off, etc.

Pansies and lettuce can take a frost. Pansies can even make it through the winter in many areas. They may look bad after a hard freeze, but they'll bounce right back.

"Cut and come again" lettuce sounds like just the thing to get your sister more enthused about container gardening on the back porch! Keep picking the larger outer leaves, and the plants will produce for a long time.

Lavender can survive a summer in a 1 gallon pot but isn't happy that way. (I had a "leftover" plant spend most of the summer on the deck in its nursery pot.) I am not sure it would do well in a railing planter, as most are fairly shallow. I did leave a rosemary plant in a fairly deep railing planter since last spring -- looks like it made it through the winter, but it's still fairly small, so I'll be moving it elsewhere asap.

Thyme and oregano do just fine in railing planters. If I grew nothing else edible, I'd grow fresh herbs, especially oregano and basil. (I love thyme but get annoyed trying to harvest it in larger quantities.) The price of fresh herbs in the grocery store is out of sight!

Pansies are edible, btw. I find the blue ones often have the best flavor, not sure why. Other colors may not taste like much, but they're still pretty in a salad. Nasturtiums are peppery!

Yeah, I've given up on the radishes. I just put the container out on the back porch until I can do something with it. Thanks everyone. Shall I keep you updated?

Yes, please do!

Did you see this article today? https://garden.org/learn/artic...

Thank you Critter. I just read the article. I thought it was interesting that it included radishes, lol since I can't apparent grow them (indoors). I've been looking at vegs.. I'm going to try to grow some patio/dwarf tomatoes. I was looking at starter plants though & they're so expensive. I did get some herb & lettuce seeds & just bought a plant of curly parsley & lemon thyme to try outside in the same container I had the radish seeds in. I'm hoping my sister/landlord will let it go. We're supposed to have snow on thursday so waiting until after to try the seeds.

So I planted curly parsley & lemon thyme in the container, leaving space to put lettuce. (The parsley does Not like the cold). I just planted snowball marigolds, dwarf nasturtium, basil, and dumdum more radishes, lol. To hopefully put in the window boxes. My sister isn't happy but she's not stopping me so we'll see. This is the setup I'm using (trying) now. I hope the light is enough. I don't want to move it down as the garlic is taller than the trays.

Some starter plants are worth the $$ because what they produce is so much more expensive in the store -- fresh herbs and sweet peppers, for example. Radishes are nice from seed because they are such a quick crop. My mom used to use radish seeds to mark rows of other plants that took longer to come up. (Also, she just really liked radishes!)

If you buy a pot of basil, you can often get a bunch more plants from that one pot just by taking cuttings. Cut the stem just above the 2nd set of leaves (you'll often see small pairs of leaves starting to form where the lower leaves meet the stem -- those will turn into new branches!). Basil roots easily in water. Strip off any leaves that would be under the water, as those will just rot, and put the stems into a little vase, juice glass, empty spice jar, etc. Change the water every day or two. When you see roots, plant them into your little trays. When they fill the little pots/divisions with roots, harden them off and put them into your railing planters.

I wrote a series of "Seed Starting 101" articles when Dave's Garden was still run by Dave (who now runs this site). They aren't "the one true way," but they are at least a way that works for lots of people, and they'll explain terms like hardening off and fill in any gaps in my quick explanations. https://davesgarden.com/sitewi...

Give up.

Rude Hortica : I could say something rude back to that but no, I'm not giving up. Why? I'm learning a lot & eventually will prevail. Seeds are cheap.

Right now all the seedlings trays are outside since we're having 60 degrees (actually 70 in the sun) weather & 40s at night. I have no clue which tray is the radishes & which the basil so we'll see. The back window boxes are out so I can prep & start using them.

Rude, indeed. Totally uncalled for, and I hope Hortica will unwatch this thread and refrain from further unhelpful comments.

I agree, half the fun is in the process, and you learn something new all the time with plants!

Basil isn't usually happy outside until the soil warms up (overnight temps regularly between 40 & 50. It might germinate, but it will sulk.

Oops on the basil Critter. I thought I read above that it liked cool weather. I also bought curly parsley which it seems also doesn't like the cooler weather.I've had them inside til yesterday where it got up it 80! Lol, my sister isn't happy about it but is tolerating it. I am looking into dwarf tomatoes also. I will truck on…I do thank all of you (except Hortica) for all the comments and good advice.