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February 28, 2009

Comments

Surfin' Bird

Who Cares?

Richard

I care. I think it's very interesting and more importantly, very helpful. I'm a student in one of the cheapest rented houses on one of the slummiest streets of my city, and buying vegetables from the supermarket eats up a large amount of my loan. I'm looking at ways I can do some guerrilla gardening myself.

Besides which, Surfin' Bird, if you're not interested why comment? No need to be an asshat.

zom-bot

we're all going to need guerrilla gardening soon.
if you have hardly any space and a black thumb, start out with wheat grass.

K

You all need it now, but you don't yet know it.

The real deal with outdoor plot and hand tools is the thing to aim at. Community gardens are a good resource; sadly the NYCity ones have been slowly destroyed to make way for those all important condos. It's a great stress reliever. There's a visceral appeal to digging out those big clots of quackgrass/etc and preparing a rich warm earth for seed. Are their Freudian overtones here? You betcha! Plus a big endorphine rush when you flop exhausted onto the futon from the intense physical activity.
Was it as good for you as it was for me? We'll know when we eat the children.

The indoor gardening thing is more cerebral; but the end product still gets the tastebuds singing. The real challenge to be met in making this work is getting enough light. Some kind of grow light is usually necessary unless you have terrific southern exposure. Getting out on the fire escape helps here, but now you have the problem of everything being high off the ground and prone to freezing or just wind damage. Consider a wind break.

Jeffersonic

Ideas for human scale, high yield, limited space gardening can be found in the John Jeavons Book "How To Grow More Vegetables*, (*than you ever thought possible on less land than you can possibly imagine)". I think it's got some great ideas, many of which I have used to grow food and make compost.

Dale

GeorgyGirl, did I offend you? I just thought calling an upside down plastic milk jug or whatever a cloche was a bit cheeky (and saying 'ghetto' in NYC can get you dirty looks in some circles). I plant tomato and pepper plants in old drywall buckets. I have a rather large compost heap in the backyard. I'm far from elitist.

GeorgyGirl

Dale!! No offense at all, sweetie! :)

I thought that your comment was an interesting one, and a good starting point to address the negative connotations that "ghetto" has. Consider yourself this week's muse! :)

EPC

Growing Your Garden the Earth Friendly Way by Peter Tonge is a great resource for growing your own food. He gives some wonderful overviews esp. on French-intensive (high yield low space)and no dig gardening. No dig is awesome for small space growing.
He also gives good composting tips.

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