-By Lisa
There are few of us who have the acreage, the time or the energy to plant a full-fledged garden with rows upon rows of impressive looking crops to meet our every vegetable need. This is something that I would love to do someday but at the moment, it feels less than practical. As much as I love to romanticize the farm life, it’s a heck of a lot of work and sometimes I just want to spend the weekend with a book. Or watching yet another bad TV marathon on Bravo.
But I am interested in food so I wanted to try growing just a few things that I really like.
It doesn't require a ton of space. If you don’t have a yard, maybe you have a porch or a deck or a balcony or a window. Everyone has a window and if you have a window, you can have a window box. And if you have a window box you can have mint, cilantro, chives and a bunch of other yummy things. See? This is not that complicated!
I have a container garden on my front porch that I planted with little to no knowledge about anything green.
In fact, I had a previous reputation as a houseplant murderer.
But I ventured out to the garden store and chose heirloom varieties of my favorite veggies and threw them in dirt. In some time and with some patience I had food. Actual edible food. There was not much of it, certainly we were not living off the land or anything, but what changed dramatically for me was the way I looked at food. I grew a half dozen three-inch carrots and they were the best and most delicious, wonderful carrots that I had ever seen. It gave me a greater respect for food because I had watched them grow. I cared for them, watered them and said encouraging things to them when they looked wilty and sad in the scorching summer months.
I awakened to the fact that all food (well, all real food, anyway) came this way. It made me think about everything I purchased at the store or market -- where it came from and who had watched over it. Food became so much more valuable because I understood it more. Carrots don’t always come pre-washed in those plastic bags. Mine were dirty and ugly and I loved the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree-ness of them.
There are wonderful resources out there, if you don’t happen to be one of those people who immediately discards the directions and makes do. If you have more time and space and energy, go bigger. But if you are like me and just want to start now - don’t underestimate the joy that can come from just one single container of spinach growing on your balcony.
One piece of information I found is necessary is knowing what zone I live in. The Vegetable Garden is a great resource that helped me figure out what zone I inhabit and therefore when I needed to plant different varieties of veggies and fruits (here in Charlottesville, VA, we are zone 7a.) Also, my nearby gardening co-op, Southern States has answered all my dumb, newbie inquiries with lots of encouragement and zero eye-rolling.
I had to decide if I wanted to start with seedlings or with seeds. Seedlings might be a little easier, as you are already starting with the small plant that has a certain amount of hardiness to it. However, I felt more like a magician when I started from seeds. It truly is miraculous. I had many more duds (they just never poked out of the dirt) when I started from seed but the ones that survived were so precious. Also, seeds packets are inexpensive (a few dollars for a packet with more seeds than I could use) so my financial investment to emotional investment ratio was a favorable one.
I decided to start with seeds, meaning that I planted them in small amounts of peat and kept them on my coffee table. I got the seed starting kits at my garden store. I used this
Seeds of Change is a wonderful site that is fun to browse. If you don’t have a garden store near you, it is a great resource for organic seeds you can order online. They have an informative section on container gardening with recommended varieties for a container. However, being the bad-ass gardening rebel that I am, I just bought veggies that I liked and found that even things that were not specifically container varieties did just fine for me.
I had great success (with zero actual research or knowledge) with:
- Tavera bush beans
- Spinach Lettuces (romaine, bib, mixed mescaline, arugula)
- Touchon carrots
- Evergreen long white onions
- Yolo wonder sweet red peppers
- Brandywine tomatoes
- Early white tipped scarlet radish
All kinds of herbs are great and easy too. It feels fantastic to throw freshly picked basil from your garden to throw in a pasta sauce; just make sure you mention it casually to your dinner guests.
Not everything is going to do well. What failed entirely for me was watermelon and squash. The red onion was mostly a bust. I also got all of 5 sweet peas. But they were damn good.
Like so many things with living a more simple life, gardening can seem overwhelming. There is so much to learn and sometimes things just fail even for the most greenest of thumbs. Sometimes the squash just doesn’t grow and you only get 5 peas. That's life. So just jump in and learn as you go. If you can, by all means, read a thousand books on the types of plants that like to be near one another or how to combat the million diseases that your plants might get. If you happen to be one of those people who prefers to have actual information before you start a project, Bountiful Container is a great resource with shear tons of information. But if that freaks you out and makes you feel overwhelmed and like a failure before you begin (which sounds familiar to me) you can just make the $3.50 investment in a packet of seeds of your absolute favorite vegetable. Just see what happens.
My first year gardening (2 years ago) I managed to grow one red pepper. Just one. I could not have been more proud of that thing.
It tasted fantastic.
For more from Lisa, check out www.justherejustnow.com
Recent Comments