Our fence garden is starting to produce plate-ready results.  If you remember its humble beginnings, we thought you might like to see how it`s coming along:

The first few tomatoes have ripened (the smallest of course) and hot peppers are appearing daily.  The herbs are in full glory.

I didn`t get the potatoes in on time – a good lesson learned.  I am feeling that this is the first year that I`ve actually been able to produce any notable quantity of food for the summer and I`m most  excited to have the supply of food that is here and coming…

The garden is starting to come together after a small dose of humble pie.  This is my second year working with (or trying to) seeds and growing from scratch.  Our apartment has lots of ambient light but no real space for seed trays that lends itself naturally to the task.  I did learn some good lessons and have had more success than last year – but I had to supplement with store-bought seedling plants (already partially grown) to help out.

It`s silly to admit to but I was liberated when I read an editorial piece by someone I really respect who said she start off this way too.  We`ll try seeds again, try to use our space the best we can – but sometimes you have to recognize the limits of yourself and the resources you have.  I have learned enough to try some new ideas next year and I`ve written a few notes to review late next winter.  In the meantime, I wanted to get something in the ground that I could harvest this year (although I am experimenting with the amount of soil and space between things to learn more for future years.  I fully expect to have a few years of mediocre success before really harnessing the power of the sun and dirt.  By having low expectations of my yield, anything on the plate will be seen as significant success – and there will definitely be some eating from our fence this year.

Here`s how it looks now (about two-thirds of this is planted, we`ll be finishing off the whole tin in the next week or so):

I`m really enjoying the learning – both the success and the struggles.

Now it`s time to get back out to the sun!

We had a lot of questions about our garden so I thought I’d share a bit more detail in the hopes it might help inspire others to give it a shot.  We are very novice at this but really excited and thankful for the encouragement of everyone here!

For those who missed the humble beginnings of our urban garden:

We’re going to share the mystery of our trash cans and how the hanging pots are mounted

Let’s start with trash can potatoes – this is a super-easy project:

1. Choose a brand-new trash can (we opted for metal to avoid plastic but I’m sure there are arguments to be made for both materials):

2.  Drill drainage holes in the bottom:

3. Drill holes on the side, about 6 inches up from the base which allows for further drainage (in case we get a monsoon):

That’s all there is to it.

We’ll share planting photos once we plant in it (next weekend) though it’s very simple – fill with about 6 inches of dirt, lay seedling potatoes with their eyes pointed vaguely skyward and cover in dirt and let them grow – as green spouts appear you’ll mostly recover with soil.  The end results will be a trash can full of potatoes – but we’ll share more in coming weeks.

For our hanging pots?

We worked with what we had to work with – a fence which had support beams running horizontally across them.  The local dollar store had pots and brackets which cost less than $3 for a set – but they didn’t fit inside each other well.  So it was back to the drill:

1. Here’s the pot as we bought it:

2.  We drilled holes into the top of the pots:

3. We then hung the hooks over the support beam (if it doesn’t hold I have a back up plan – but so far, so good) – we pushed the hooks down so they are pretty much flush with the top of the beam and rest between the spaces in the fence):

The lesson in the hanging pots is not as literal as the one in the pots (that will work anywhere) – take a good look at your space and what you have to work with and examine what’s available and affordable.  The nursery can be an expensive place to shop this time of year and you may be surprised at what you find around you.

We shared how to build the rasied-beds for next-to-free here.

Feel free to share your ideas, posts and tips on your gardens in the comments – we love sharing!

When looking to garden in small spaces, you need to know Fern of Life on the Balcony.  She has a great blog – and an amazing garden on her 50-square foot balcony in California.

She had recently published an article on how to create a garden from a pallet (re-nest also posted an interesting vertical garden this week here).

We had purchased two raised-beds last year.  They were awfully expensive and I was convinced I could make something cheaper that would work just as well (I’m not the handiest although becoming more adventurous with more experience).  I’m really happy with the results – though I’m not sure that the material is strong enough to last more than a year.  On the positive side, we saved some wood from going to scrap and were able to re-use it for another year and it was free.

Note: not all skids are equal and careful research should be done to ensure that you are comfortable with the risks associated with using them.  We used skids that were used for shipping food and, with research, decided the apparent risks were acceptable for us.  It should be noted that many skids (more details in the comments below and at Fern’s link) are treated with a lot of chemicals that may not make them safe for food so do your research and use care when choosing.

We found skids by searching the free section on Craigslist.  After finding them nearby we also found some in our back alley.  Fern points out how to find suitable skids for growing – I wasn’t so concerned with using food-specific wood (though we did) as non of our soil will be in contact with the wood.

We’ll share how these survive through the summer – this is as much an experiment as it is an idea on how to make them.  I am , so far, thrilled with the results. The biggest challenge was removing the slats on the skids without destroying them.

Each raised bed is made from a single skid – had I used two skids per bed I would have saved work and perhaps had a stronger result.

You’ll need a hammer, nails (screws may have been a better choice) and a skill saw.

1.  Choose your skid – be picky and get the best condition that you can:

2.  Pull one set of slats off.  Note that the ‘top’ has more slats than the bottom.  If you’re building using a single skid, you’ll need to pull the slats from the top (this it the more work part).  Keep the removed slats as you’ll need them later.

3.  Turn the skid over.  Place somewhere your saw can reach

4.  Cut the skid in half – this is to make the base for your garden (note the other half has 4 partial slats):

5.  Two things to do here – although I only did one and had to re-do it later.  The first is to check the length of your removed slats compared to the base (a skid is typically 40 x 48 inches) – you’ll need to cut off about a foot of the skid so the removed slats can span the length of the skid.

You also need to move any remaining nails in the skid and the 4 partial slats from the step above.

6.  Our base is ready:

7.  Use the partial slats to make posts (you should see 4 of them nailed in place below).  Note that the slats are off the ground – this will present my soil bag from touching the ground (something I want to present the ground from leaching in as well as to assist draining):

8.  Take the removed slats and Build a frame to connect the posts (we cut the two end pieces):

9.  Staple Landscapers cloth (we purchased 50 yards of it for less than $15) on the frame:

10.  Wrap the cloth around the slat you stapled – this will help it ‘catch’ on itself and make it more likely to stay.  You may need to cut the cloth before wrapping – leave yourself lots of excess material or you’ll end up with a garden hammock (we have a bit of one ):

11.  Wrap the other side and cut small slits in the material to allow for drainage (you don’t need many - just get the lowest point and then you’re done (you may need a second layer of material wrapping the other direction to complete the process:

Our first box took twice the time of our second.

If you missed yesterday’s post, here’s how our garden beds look like now.

We’ll share progress and results this year.

We`re novice gardeners.  We`ve had some success in the last few years and we`re hoping to grow more this year – but we don`t have a lot of space.

Last years garden consisted of two small raised beds of tomatoes on the patio of the coffee shop we live above, a single cucumber plant in a pot, hot peppers in the back alley and herbs on our fire escape.  The patio was decent but had some problems – it was shaded for much of the day, some of our hard work was taken by patrons and, in one really gross incident, I found a cigarette butt disposed in one of my gardens.

The shade was truly the most problematic as the others were isolated incidents.

Our last remaining space was my parking spot (or the front part of it as I use it for parking):

It`s not exactly  glamorous (although it does have a bunch of stinging nettle which are edible – if they weren`t in a parking space).  We knew it would take some cleaning up and that we`d have to plant things in containers – off the ground.

We started with a simple clean-up:

From there we bought some dollar-store items (ok they were more around $1.50), brought up the beds from last year, added some trash cans to grow in and built some raised beds out of salvaged material:

We`re not done yet but getting closer!  We`ll share a few how-to`s this week from what we`ve learned – it`s not too late and no space too small to grow something…

If you`ve been around these parts for a while, you`ll know I`m a sucker for timelapse photography, especially when it is related to food.

There`s not much more to say about the following video (click on it to go to the source) that shows a bowl of fruit and vegetables to go from fresh to fodder.  There`s a pretty neat surprise in the last third of the video:

We had an awesome meal last evening – a mashup of ingredients straight from our garden with some great product from our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture program).

Here are some of the things I’ve learned this year:

• Like puppies and a new job, it really is more work than I thought.
• That work, when in the right mindset, is most pleasurable.  The more you do the task, the more you can develop the mindset.
• Consistency is key.  I twice went without watering for a few days and almost killed the entire crop.  These two short faults definately hurt my harvest.
• Big plants don’t necessarily mean bit yield.  I have two sets of tomato plans – one looks like a rain forest and the other like the Sahara.  The ‘desert’ ones have a higher yield than my pristine plant.
• Knowing how much water is an art form.  I wasn’t using nearly enough early on and cost myself a tonne of veggies.
• You can grow awesome plants in the shade – including ones that people claim need a lot of sun to thrive.  They just might not grow a lot of fruit.
• Picking tomatoes is a two-handed task.  When I cheat I usually break a stem.
• You can grow a cucumber plant up a wall and attach it to other vines.  More sun would have helped.
• Never give up.  My hot pepper plant all but died before it really started to grow – yet it is in the best shape of all (and in the best spot for sun).
• There is nothing like tomatoes off the vine.  I had remembered this intellectually but the taste is something that can’t be intellectually processed to be understood.
• A few herb plants can be a lot of herbs.  I should have grown a greater variety and used them more often in my cooking
• Fresh herbs that you’ve grown are also far more flavorful than those purchased.
• A reminder: things you grow yourself just taste better.
• While I can grow from seed, our apartment lifestyle is not ideal for it.  Starting with plants may be cheating – or may be practical.
• Our yield has been relatively miniscule. I’ve also learned how to be ok with that and celebrate our successes first.
• Ask more questions.

These are some of the lessons of the summer (so far)…

I have loved the thought of growing food for a long time.

I have romantic visions and memories of a massive garden as a child.  My parents even grew corn when we lived in the country.  I remember planting tiny seeds through suburban rows after we moved closer to the city.  It all seemed to easy when someone else did it.

I have tried different rounds of growing since moving to the city – most ended up with a premature demise of the flavor of the day.  Forgetting to water was the most common culprit though the odd experiment failed due to lack of sun or raccoons deciding I had built them a salad bar.  Other than sprouts, I`ve been struggling to find any success in our urban `farming`adventures (I was also comforted that I really had no other choice since our backyard is actually completely covered in cement being that we share it with a coffee shop).

This year has been different.  We`ve still failed way more than we`ve succeeded; some ambitious early seeding was lost almost in entirety and I have managed to grow 2 beans (not plants, beans).  But a drastic change occurred about 2 weeks ago.  I suddenly began to enjoy pruning and staking and watering.  Not just the idea of these things but the actual task.

Since my enjoyment has gone up, my small gardens have also began to flourish (including the fore mentioned monster crop of beans).  We have oregano, parsley, 2 types of basil, some late cucumbers are coming along and all 8 different heirloom tomatoes are coming to the party.  We`ve also learned a lot about the extreme heat of our fire escape, relative shade of our back yard and the fact that my parking spot gets way less direct sunlight than I assumed.

Regardless of our success, it’s the routine that’s becoming fun.  It’s a whole lot less romance and a whole lot more committment than I thought but it really is fantastic, although we had our first salad featuring our own tomatoes last night to top it off.  Perhaps there is some romance in here yet…

This post is less about New York than it is about some of the urban “gardens” we found.  All were accessible from the street and there were more than we’re sharing here.

The gardens ranged from large pots to 90-gallon potato drums, decorated tires and complex shelf-like systems (all pictured below).  I love the ingenuity of people and their refusal to let the lack of land inhibit their ability to grow food for themselves.

Here’s a sample of a few that we found:

I fear that we may be a bit far behind but better late than never.  Armed with the confidence of farming sprouts for several weeks, it is time to start to plant our seeds for the coming summer.

We are going to be creating 3 mini-gardens as we don’t have a proper backyard (it’s a cement covered patio for a coffee shop) so it’s time to be a little creative.

Our fire escape will become our herb garden.  We live several stories above ground and having herbs closer to the kitchen would be an advantage compared to running up and down stairs.  I’d rather keep herbs growing until the moment of consumption rather than keeping them in the fridge.  I have some concerns that it may be a little hot for them and am going to have to find some hanging trays in order to ensure that “escaping” is still an option.

We have an outdoor parking spot.  I am picturing at least 2 garbage bins of potatoes growing.  We considered using old tires (I have an ample source of free ones) but disposing of them is awkward, eating something grown in them is somehow eerie to me and the garbage bins will store potatoes or gardening equipment through the winter.

The majority of our garden will be in pots which we can move around the patio of the coffee shop.  We haven’t picked up our pots yet but see that there are plenty of affordable options to get us started.  We won’t need those for several weeks as we’re starting from scratch.  There are plans for many different types of veggies – some for eating and some for preserving (there’s going to be a lot of hot peppers if all works out).

I m also considering an experimental batch of Hops – at our cabin.  Hops are hardy and I could start them in the city before moving them north in mid spring.  An advantage of growing hops is that they are annuals  – they return year after year.  I’ve been warned that they can take over a garden but wouldn’t have that concern if they were grown in the middle of our forest.  I also understand that deer can eat them which would be disappointing as I would lose a key beer ingredient but may gain a different source of food in the fall.

Any which way you look at it, there is time to get growing for the summer.  We are learning as we go and we’ll share our progress as our first full season of experimenting begins.  Right now I am filled with hope and reminding myself to be patient with our first attempt.