gardening in small spaces

We live in a townhome. Translation: We have little to no yard. This little fact hasn't held me back from creating an outdoor space that we can enjoy.

Whether or not you have a little porch 10 stories off the ground or a little plot of grass, you can make the perfect outdoor space. Don't let space discourage you from planting a garden. It may not be as elaborate or as large as you want it to be but it can be done. Trust me :). We turned our driveway into our outdoor space and garden. Who needs them anyway... streets are perfectly acceptable for parking.

Now that we're moving, I'll have to come up with some new ideas. Ooooo goodie.

Here's our little oasis for now:

Thai basil

bee butt!



this African basil is our neighbors but I love, love, love it, as do the bees.

 

baby broccoli

When growing in small spaces...

Think vertical
Where can you go up? Do you have a fence or side of the house where the sun hits? Do you have a table in your outdoor space big enough to put a little pot on. I've seen cool vertical gardens using pallets and hanging shoe organizers.

Plant in containers
No dirt. No problem. Get a couple pots, old recycling bins, whatever and plant your veggies/flowers in them.

Use unused space
Is there a corner  being wasted? Plant something there. Put a pot there. Hang a vertical garden. Anything. Use the space you have!

Cluster
Plant things in the same container. Throw a few basil seeds, tomato seeds and flowers all in the same container.

Think outside the pot
If you think it'd be cool to grow something in, try it. Hang plants off the side of a balcony, from the ceiling, anywhere. Your options are endless if you don't limit yourself to what you typically see.  


Plant indoors
Succulents are all the rage right now. You can always bring the garden indoors with these adorable little guys. All rules above apply inside as well. You can get amazing artwork out of these things and hang them on the wall, on your door, or use them as a centerpiece. Check out The Little Garden for some cute indoor gardens.

don't trash that

Do you eat food? Duh. Do you garden? Duh. Oh wait, I guess not everyone does. If you don't, you should.

Leftover food scraps make amazing entrees for your plants. Veggie butts, skins or tops? Wilted greens? Coffee grounds? Eggshells? Compost that!

Growing plants is all about growing soil. Healthy soil = healthy plants. Not only does your soil feed the plants, it helps fight off pests and diseases. A great (cheap) way to add nutrients into your soil is to incorporate composting. No need to go buy fancy stuff at the store. No need for pesticides. Your decomposed breakfast will do just fine.

You can a) buy a composter or b) make a pile. Both work well! We use a tumbler (only because we didn't know how the whole pile thing works). Our neighbors have a compost pile. It doesn't stink and they churn it up regularly with a shovel. Either way, you're golden. We've seen a huge improvement in pest control and fruit quality since using compost in our garden beds.

Just throw out your scraps, turn it regularly and voila, you have homemade Miracle Grow. You will never look at a banana peel the same way again.

Almost all scraps can go in the compost. Think greens and browns. You'll want a good mix of green (fruits, veggies, crushed eggshells) and brown (dead leaves, hay). No meat or dairy! And, if you ever thought pet waste might be a good idea... nope, think again. Unless of course, your pet is a horse or cow. And at that point, you're prob already a pro at composting.

Your pile will turn into nice, dark, hearty soil after awhile. Once it does, you can make a compost tea or kneed it into the soil. We make tea. To do this, dump a decent amount into a big bucket, add water. Let sit for a week and then water the plants with it. There are much fancier ways of doing this but simple is our style.

Composting is simple. No big expensive tools or buckets necessary. You should try it.

Happy composting!

P.s. a little helpful reminder of what to use and what not to use:

 

via

urban garden trials and tribulations

Our little babies are all grown up! We started these suckers from little baby seeds back in March/April. It's been fun to watch everything grow! But with life, comes death and unfortunately... not all of our little guys have made it. 

This is so sad but so true... I feel like these plants are my kids. No lie. Mike and I 'visit' with them every morning and at least once after work. We get so excited when something new has bloomed or is growing. And we (I especially) get so angry when anything starts messing with my kids. By anything, I mean the gigantous army of ants that just love, love, love our okra and try to completely devour the okra plants every morning. Jerks.

So, funny story. One morning, I walked out like any other morning to water the plants and  pull off dead leaves, check out the goods, etc. Lo and behold, our biggest and best producing okra plant was covered with ants. I mean COVERED. You couldn't even see the plant!

{A little back story - these ants have been all over our okra from day one. Every bud that comes, they try to devour it. Every okra, they try to eat it. They farmed aphids all over our plants. They have just been quite the unwelcomed pest.}

Anyway.. my not-so-patient-kind-calm self sucker punched the plant to stir them up (not sure this was necessary) and stormed inside to grab pesticide. Then I went backwoods crazy on the ants. I started spraying the ants, the okra, plant, the soil, the air, the next door neighbor's car. I mean I went berserk. I think my upper lip even started to sweat and my hands were shaky. The whole nine yards.

Luckily I regained consciousnesses and realized what I was doing. I felt SO bad. The ants were dying like right in front of me and then I started worrying about the rolly pollies, the bees, everything. I like slumped over and had to confess to Mike what I had just done. OK and all of this was before 8am. I mean seriously?! Talk about a rough day.

So, all of this to offer you some tidbits on getting rid of unwanted ants in a healthy {sane} way:

  -Sprinkle cornmeal around the base of the plant. The ants will take the cornmeal back to their crib and {sadly} starve.
  - If you see that you have an ant problem, check the bottom of leaves. Ants actually 'farm' aphids, which means that they spread them out to other leaves, let them reproduce and feed off of them. If you find aphids, take a paper towel and just wipe the aphids off. You can also use water to spray off the aphids. Once you get rid of their feeding grounds, they will have to search elsewhere. Check/rub down the leaves every day for awhile.
- Spray the suckers with water. As odd as it seems, just blasting them seems to stun them for awhile. They will come back later but at least you've bought yourself some time.
- Use an organic pesticide. We use Neem oil. It seems to work {especially when you go nuts on them}

Remember, bugs can be good little worker bugs in your garden.. including ants. You will want to watch their activity before getting rid of them. If you have okra though, more than likely they are sucking the nutrients out and will eat up your entire plant if you aren't careful. So, exterminate, baby, exterminate.

urban farming

I'm a veggie junkie. I crave veggies and lots of them. 

Thanks to my wonderful husband's green thumb and Raleigh's great farmer's market, I crave the fresh goods. Fresh veggies' color and taste trump those destitute grocery selections every time. And, there's something so rewarding about eating what you've grown {or in my case, someone you know}.

Mike in the past has grown veggies in containers. It works but it's not ideal. The fruits are little, and you're limited on what you can grow. We have big dreams of lots of land and lots of veggies {maybe some chickens too, one day}. I've always wanted to live on a small farm. I love animals. I love the idea of time slowing down. I love the idea of knowing what is going in our bodies {for the most part}. I don't know the first thing about gardening but Mike does, so I think we'll do just fine. BUT...

 Living in the 'city' means no land. No land means no big garden.

Oh, well you better believe that idea don'y fly in this family. So, we're bringing farming inside the beltline.

first stop... pick up veggies: we're starting with romaine lettuce, red leaf, spinach, bok choy and cauliflower.

step 2: build a garden bed - we chose to do a 4x4ft about 16-18 in deep

step three: buy soil -  LOTS of soil. We bought two more gigantic bags after all this.

Step four: Lay down a rock layer for drainage and hopefully a little protection for the concrete {1-2in deep}

step five: Fill with soil, soil and more soil. We're letting it settle a few days before planting some veggies. In the meantime, the veggies are happily planted in containers.

So, there's our garden. I'm hoping we don't get in trouble {we rent}. But, I figured do now and ask for forgiveness later. Right? Come spring/summer that sucker will be filled with greens, tomatoes, peppers, jalepenos, and any other little veggie guys that spark our fancy.

I'm no farmer - so I'm sure we did plenty of things wrong in this process. However, Mike has this magic halo or something because whatever he does, everything seems to always work out great. Boy got skillz!

Mmm... I can already taste the deliciousness!

get your herb on

herbs, herbs, herbs

Last weekend, Mike and I had a super industrious weekend. He took this big project {building a desk} and I took the smaller project {building an herb garden}. Both of these projects were on our to-do list in 2012. YAY! I love marking things off my to-do list. 

Choosing what type of indoor herb garden was really hard. I wanted this:

but after doing some research - this idea just wasn't the best for growing herbs. Herbs need good drainage. I suppose if you have the tools to drill holes in the jars, that would work. Some places recommended rocks in the bottom but most 'experts' seemed to conclude it still had a high chance of root rot {no beuno - you don't want this}. After a semi-breakdown {because my heart was set on this style.. I mean, look at how good looking that is}, I went back to Pinterest and found this:

it looked doable

seemed to meet herb gardening guidelines

and it was cute!

so to work I went {with a few modifications}

1. buy wood and shelving - Mine is 3ft {ish} high by 20in {ish} wide

 I bought these puppies at the flea market a few weeks back for $1 a piece. Perfect.

 I purchased  one-  1x4x8ft,  one - 1x6x4ft and two - 1x3x6ft pieces of wood. The 8ft piece was cut in half and then shaved down to desired length. the 4ft was used for shelving, and the 6ft pieces were cut into 13in pieces for the backing.

2. lay out your wood to desired look

when I want things done, I kind of look past doing it perfectly just to get it done. I just laid sides face down and the back pieces on top. I had no idea what I was doing but figured it should work.

3. screw it together

 big hint - pre-drill your holes. I put two screws in each side {1-1/4 in screws were used}

4. ta-da... halfway? {not really a step.. have a celebratory drink/break at this time}

5. stain/paint that sucker

 I chose Provincial 211 as my stain color. It gives it an old wood look. You can use whatever you want - paint, stain, both. I used a rag to paint it but you can also use a paint brush. Tip of the day: don't do this when it is below freezing like I did. I couldn't feel my fingers for an hour. 

6. hang it

I love these shelves. It gives it so much more character than using wood or regular shelves. 

 I don't recommend using silver screws for the shelves like I did. 

7. put your herbs on it

my shelf looks a little crooked {it's not} but you could probably be a bit more precise on the back pieces to keep it from looking that way {or maybe I was leaning when I took the pic-who knows}.

I love it. It looks great on the wall. And, with the coldish weather upon us, it gives our house a pop of  life!

 Oh, and meet Avi our avocado tree in the corner there {only 6 more years and he may produce some fruit!}

herbs, herbs, herbs

In the detox Mike and I are doing, we are eating fresh herbs in almost every dish (including our smoothies!). 

..I'm obsessed.. 

I really, really {really!} want an indoor herb garden now. Plus, how nice will it be to have some lush {edible} greenery around as the temps drop. Sounds like a DIY project for the month of Jan :)

Here are some ideas I am toying with

Any favs? 

Check back for what I finally choose.