You might be wondering how to go about it, since you really need a ... garden to do it.
Well, there is good news for you. More and more people are drawn towards the city, so there's hardly any room for gardening - or so you think. Whether you have a house in the city with a backyard, a balcony, a rooftop or just a tiny windowsill, you can grow your own organic food. The only different is the amount that you grow, and a few technical details that can be overcome easily.
To start your urban organic garden, this is all you really need:
- a container
- soil mix and organic fertilizer
- some seeds of what you need to grow
- some very basic gardening tools
What container should you use? well you can use containers made of wood, ceramic containers, terracota, anything is ok as long as you have holes for drainage. If you're looking into growing herbs and small vegetables, small containers suffice, however if you want to grow things like tomatoes for example, you need a larger container.
What soil and fertilizer is good to use? There are several commercial soil mixes that you can buy at your near flowershop. You can add supplements to the mix wiht compost, or other organic fertilizers you can get hold of. Your fertilizers should be around 15-20% of your whole mix.
Finally what are the types of plants you want to grow in your relatively tiny space? You have here a number of choices. YOu can grow herbs, as I mentioned before, then lettuce, spinach can grow next to each other. Peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, pole beads, all those vegetables that are growing upwards will help with the space as well. Window Box Roma' tomato, for instance, stays a size that's manageable for pots.
If you're thinking of starting with urban organic gardening, there is no reason why not to do it. Plenty of folks are doing it very successfully, they have fun at it, get their hands 'dirty' and feel that they are more connected to the nature this way, and have the enjoyment of eating their own product. Which tastes much better, if you ask me. Just like Nike says, go out and 'just do it'.
