The Apartment Garden

If You Can’t Eat it, Why Bother?

The Project: Produce fresh organic veggies 4 stories up. I’m determined to prove it’s possible to live in an apartment and still eat food you’ve grown yourself.

Why: I’m frustrated at the lack of information out there for people without access to land and I’m determined to use my training to bring that information to apartment dwellers all in one handy location. I know I’m sick of all the searching, someone else must be too!

ignore the disturbing patriarchal message in the photo.

The challenge: Do it on the cheap, using recycled, free, or found materials.

This summer I’m going to see how much food I can produce on a 12 ft by 4ft south facing balcony and the first 2 feet just inside my apartment.  When I decided to do this I started looking on the internet and library for information on vegetable container gardening and there is surprisingly little information out there.  I’m a trained Organic gardener so I thought why not, through trial and error, create my own website that would track my progress and provide information on exactly that, apartment container gardening.

I want to see if it is possible for people without access to land to grow fresh organic produce on their balconies and inside their homes. I’m using found/salvaged/built containers to grow my veggies in.   At each step I’ll post detailed information on the supplies I’m using, the problems I’m facing, the solutions I find and the results I get.

This project is rife with problems, not the least of which is the possibility that my balcony will rip itself from the building due to the weight of the wet soil (1sq ft of wet soil weights 100-150 lbs). But I’m determined to make it work!  So follow along, join me, create you’re own apartment garden and post questions and advice.