No land? You can still grow a garden
Posted
May 05 2008, 10:12 PM
by
Karen Datko
We've got a huge fenced backyard, but that didn't help when we decided to raise vegetables and put in a raised-bed garden. No matter how we attempted to secure our plot, our dog Furio always managed to dig it up.
That's how we became a convert to container gardening and other clever ways to grow food in small (dog-proof) places. More people are joining what Cindy at Oh My Aching Debts calls the urban-homesteading movement. She reports, "My article on vegetables that can be grown in a pot is already one of my most popular."
Anita at Debt-Free Mom writes about front-yard farming -- growing food for yourself (and for sale) in small city spaces -- and notes that Metrofarm, an online magazine, says the Bronx has the most productive farmland in the country, followed by San Francisco. Read here about how some people in Chicago are growing their food in buckets.
Tracey Crehan Gerlach at Life in Sugar Hollow grows Kentucky Colonel mint, chocolate mint and apple mint in a container, and says that's best because mint likes to take over a regular garden patch.
We started out by filling our garden with wooden crates we salvaged after they were used to ship corn to a local supermarket. We loaded them with the appropriate soil, wired the tops back in place, and planted seeds in between the slats. Furio has tried but can't get into them. Now we're planting lettuce, kale, mustard and flowers in plastic milk jugs, old shoes and all sorts of other containers.
Lynnae at Being Frugal advises that you don't need to limit your homesteading efforts to the food you grow at home. She said she's going to learn how to can and then hit the pick-it-yourself farms in her area.
