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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Interesting blog

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Liz <liz@allslash.org>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Interesting blog
  • Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 23:30:38 -0400

At 01:15 PM 3/20/2008, you wrote:

Oh I agree. Anything else? What about "community gardens"? They make news
but how do they actually turn out? And balcony gardens - do they usually
grow enough to be worth the expense for the average person?

I lived in my daughter's second floor apartment for a year five or six years ago, and had a large garden on her approximately 4' x 10' balcony. Tomatoes and peppers in pots, squash and cucumbers growing over the rail, lettuce and radishes in planters hanging on the top of the rail. We had enough tomatoes that we had to can some to keep from losing them. We couldn't eat them up fast enough.

We were lucky that her balcony faced east and was sheltered from the prevailing winds. But even a less desirable location could have grown something. And if I had been home all the time and could really have worked on succession planting and season-extending measures, we could have grown a lot more. That's just what pretty much grew by itself with my 12-year-old grandson sometimes remembering to water things when I was gone.

I think it's important to remember that one family doesn't have to grow everything they need if everyone around them is raising some food too. If other families in the apartment complex had been doing the same thing I was, the people whose balconies were more shaded than mine could have grown things that didn't need as much sun, and traded for some of the things I had.

Liz in SW VA
http://life-as-a-spectator-sport.com




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