Here’s a quick, easy way to have fresh greens all summer long (or year-round if you live in a mild-winter area). All you need are a few simple, inexpensive items:
Hanging planter
Potting soil or soiless potting mix
Lettuce or mixed greens seeds
A shady location to hang your basket
Wire screen (optional)
I selected a plastic self-watering container because it needs to be watered less often than other hanging baskets, but just about any hanging container with good drainage will do. Once you select your container, just:
Add soil
Sprinkle the seeds on top
Water gently so the seeds don’t get washed away
Hang the basket in a lightly shaded spot — tree branches work great because they allow some sun to pass through their leaves while protecting the tender lettuce from the worst afternoon heat
If you have birds or squirrels in your area, you may want to cover the basket with wire screen to protect the seedlings from getting snapped up before they are big enough for your plate.
After that, just keep the soil evenly moist and you’re on your way to delicious gourmet greens at a fraction of their store-bought price. For best results and to keep the goodness coming:
Snip only a few leaves from each plant at a time
When a plant is done producing, pull it out and sprinkle in more seeds
This year, give your Cinco de Mayo celebration a gardener’s twist by planting a salsa garden. It’s a great way to add fresh latin flavor to any meal.
For my salsa garden I chose:
1 Cherokee Purple tomato
1 Garden Salsa chili pepper
1 Jalapeno peper
Several onions (I purchased a small six-pack and shared it with friends)
1 cilantro
You’ll need:
A large pot and potting soil or clear planting area in your garden that receives at least six full hours of sun per day
One tomato cage per tomato plant
Mulch
A variety of salsa vegetable and herb plants
To plant your salsa garden:
Clear your planting bed of any rocks and weeds (find container planting instructions and tips here)
Leaving your plants in their pots, arrange them on the soil to decide where each plant will go–put the tallest plants in the back so they don’t block the sun from reaching the smaller plants
Dig a hole for each plant slightly wider and deeper than its current pot
Plant each plant
Water thouroughly
Mulch
Be sure to water regularly throughout the season and by early august, you should have all the makings of the perfect fiesta.
Have more space? Consider planting a dwarf lime tree or an indoor avocado for even more options.
Even if you don’t have a yard, patio, or even a sunny windowsill, there are still plenty of ways to get out there and garden.
Community Gardens
According to the American Community Garden Association, a community garden is very simply “any piece of land gardened by a group of people.” But it’s more that just that. Community gardening builds connections, provides educational and mentoring opportunities for new and experienced gardeners alike, improves the standard of living for those who garden there by providing healthier food as well as exercise in tending the plants that provide it, and helps individuals and communities become more self-reliant.
There are community gardens in neighborhoods throughout the country and the world. Most charge a nominal annual fee to cover operating expenses. To find a community garden in your area check the garden finder on the American Community Garden Association’s home page. You can also check out your town’s government pages or your local park and rec department.
Don’t have a community garden in your neighborhood? Start your own.
Yard Sharing
If you’re an urban farmer without a place to plant, consider sharing space in a neighbor’s yard, or even creating a small farming business across multiple yards. According to Hyperlocavore.com, a yard sharing community site, yard sharing is:
“…an arrangement between people to share skills and gardening resources; space, time, strength, tools or skills, in order to grow food as locally as possible, to make neighborhoods resilient, kids healthy and food much cheaper! The group can be friends, family, neighbors, members of a faith community (or any combination!)”
Perhaps you have a neighbor who doesn’t have time to garden but would love fresh vegetables. Or a great aunt who can’t garden herself anymore but misses watching fresh fruit ripening on a vine. Yardsharing doesn’t just give landless gardeners a place to practice their art, it builds community, teaches the values of working together, of sharing, and, if successful, can raise the standard of living by improving the quality and availability of food for an entire neighborhood or group.
Volunteering
If you are willing to garden for the joy and experience instead of for crops, consider volunteering your time to a local educational or other charitable organization. Botanical gardens, public gardens, and educational farms can be found throughout the country and many are suffering in this economic down-turn. Here are just a few that could use your help:
Try searching Volunteer Match for opportunities in your area. You might also consider helping out your local senior center or school gardens. If you don’t find one in your community, consider helping them start one.
Guerrilla Gardening
In some cases, you just have to garden where you can. For guerrilla gardeners, that means roadsides, sidewalk tree surrounds, street dividers, and abandoned lots. If you’re looking to add a few wildflowers to an empty field, that’s easy enough, but if your goal is vegetable gardening you’ll want to keep a few important things in mind:
Soil condition: If the land isn’t yours you have no way of knowing what’s been dumped there. Test the soil thoroughly before you plant anything you may want to eat.
Maintenance: It’s one thing to put up an overnight garden and another to make sure it gets watered and fertilized enough to thrive.
Vandalism and theft: There are those who may not share your love of gardening and decide to voice their dissent by pulling up your work by the roots. Still others may appreciate it too much and decide they want the plants or produce for their own yards. (For one sad cautionary tale visit YouGrowGirl.com.)
Legal ramifications: Technically, gardening someone else’s land is against the law. If the land you choose is a neglected median, chances are the owners will look the other way, but that may not always be the case. The best defense is to know what you’re going to say should someone stop you (non-confrontational is usually the best policy) and know when to walk away.
If you’re up to the task, guerrilla gardening can give great rewards not only in produce but in community-building and neighborhood beautification. Involve other locals to improve your success rate and share the fun. Get more tips and find like-minded gardeners at Guerrilla Gardening.org.
In the town my sister lives in there is a local community group that offers fruit picking services to folks with overloaded trees. The produce they pick is then donated to local shelters. Talk about a win-win: Home owners are spared rotten fruit cleanup, landfills are spared tons of extra fill, and hungry locals get to eat.
Neighborhood Fruit, a new San Francisco-based website, takes this whole idea one step further by creating a place where tree owners can register their varieties and non-tree-owning neighbors can sign up to share in the bounty.
According to their site:
“Neighborhood Fruit was created to make use of the abundant fruit growing in our urban neighborhoods. Currently, the bulk of fruit grown in back yards in our cities goes to waste, while the fruit we consume is grown in water-intensive orchards far from our homes.
We envision a different future, where the bulk of backyard fruit is utilized and shared between neighbors. We envision a future where the food we eat is truly fresh, seasonal and local. Our diets replete with home-made goodies.”
The site is still pretty new and they are still adding functionality and working out some kinks, but it’s definitely worth a visit (and a bookmark) especially if you live in or around San Francisco.
Looking for another charitable way to dispose of your unused fruit? There are a number of regional groups that collect and donate excess produce to local shelters and food organizations. Here are just a few:
These days it seems like everywhere you turn there’s another new article, ad, TV spot or website tackling some aspect of the latest veggie garden craze. Today’s favorite, from realsimple.com, answers one of the key questions many new vegetable gardeners ask: what do i do with that?
The beautifully designed online tool tells you what to look for when purchasing (and to some extent when harvesting) fresh, seasonal veggies (by season, even), how to store them, how long they can last on the shelf (or in the fridge) and, of course, what you do with it once you bring it home. It even provides preparation tips.
Looking for more space in a small garden? Consider this clever idea: Create a vertical garden using low-cost or salvaged rain gutters.
Suzanne Forsling of Juneau, Alaska attached gutters to the side of her house creating not only additional space, but a planting area that helped alleviate some of the problems associated with the difficult Alaska climate (cold ground, low light levels, etc.).
Of course because the gutters are relatively shallow, you’ll need to choose carefully what you’ll plant there. Salad greens are a great choice, but Suzanne also had good luck with radishes.
One Garden tip: If you don’t have a wall or fence available, consider mounting the gutters to free-standing posts. Add locking casters to create a movable living wall that can be used to divide your outdoor space into separate rooms.
If you’ve always thought of vegetables as something that should be hidden away in a separate part of the garden the Green Globe artichoke will change your mind. The large, deeply cut silver leaves and bright purple, thistle-like flowers would make a bold, ornamental statement in any garden, but the delicious edible buds make it a must have for those who want to grow their own food.
If you’re lucky enough to live somewhere artichokes thrive, you can harvest spring through fall, and because artichokes are perennial, they come back stronger, larger and more productive year after year. Green Globe is probably the most widely available artichoke, but you should also consider Violetta, a variety with purple buds. Steam them and serve them with melted butter or dip them in aioli. You can also slice the slightly licorice-flavored heart for use in salads or on pizzas.
Common name: Artichoke, Green Globe Scientific name: Cynaria scolymus Family: Asteraceae Origin: Mediteranean Type: Perennial Exposure: Full sun (light shade in hottest areas) Height: 6′ Width: 4′ Growth rate: Fast Water: Regular Zones: 8-9 Foliage color: Silver-green Flower color: Purple Edible: Flower buds Harvest: Fall through spring Propagation: Seeds, division WARNING: Bud leaves have sharp spikes, trim before eating.
It all starts with a seed. In my case that seed is a kobocha squash seed saved from last year’s harvest. But in your case it will probably be different. What won’t be different: that inside each seed is a blueprint, an idea of the plant it could someday become… will become given the right soil and sun and water and love.
Our gardens are like that seed — full of potential. What they will become, what our families and communities and world will become, even what this site will become is in our hands.
Here is a great project from blogger Kelly Tirman. Originally built to hide an unsightly view, it’s also a perfect way to maximize sun exposure for indoor plants. Imagine each pot filled with a different herb, perched right above the kitchen sink. It would make cooking with the freshest ingredients a breeze.
Here are Kelly’s instructions.
Here is what you will need:
Measuring Tape
Screwdriver
L brackets (four brackets for each shelf)
1/4 inch thick glass cut to fix your window (one for each shelf)
Small potted plants and/or collectibles
Prep: Measure your window to determine the size of your shelves and how many shelves you would like in your window. Consult your local glass company for the pieces of glass (I use Theisen Glass).
Installation: Secure your L brackets in place with a screwdriver and place your pieces of glass on top. Once the shelves are in place add your potted plants and/or collectibles.
I love this idea, especially for apartment dwellers who want to maximize their planting space. One note, if you rent you may want to check your rental agreement or talk to your landlord to make sure you won’t be charged for removal when you move out.
Once you’ve selected your container and decided which plants to fill it with, putting it all together is a breeze.
Ensure your container has enough drainage, if not, drill some additional holes
Cover holes with fine mesh, cheesecloth, or coffee filters to prevent soil from running out of the pot
Fill your pot with soil; do not use soil from the garden as it may contain deseases or impurities which could become concentrated within the container and damage plants
Leaving your plants in their pots, arrange them on the soil to decide where each plant will go, putting the tallest plants in the back so they don’t block the sun from reaching the smaller plants– be sure to pay close attention to the spacing requirements, especially with seeds (Tip: In containers, plant seeds approximately 1/3 closer together than in the garden to maximize space.)
Dig a hole for each plant slightly wider and deeper than its current pot
The earth is one large garden made up of many smaller gardens. The goal of this site is to inspire, connect and feed these gardens, the people who tend them, their families, and their communities.
"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves. - Gandhi
Hanging planter
If you’ve always thought of vegetables as something that should be hidden away in a separate part of the garden the Green Globe artichoke will change your mind. The large, deeply cut silver leaves and bright purple, thistle-like flowers would make a bold, ornamental statement in any garden, but the delicious edible buds make it a must have for those who want to grow their own food.