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Topic: Urban and Suburban Farming
| Author | Message |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/7/2008 10:01:19 AM | show profile There's an article in today's NY Times about urban farming. I think a lot more of us are going to become small-scale farmers (very, very small scale to be sure). I'm kind of looking forward to it, I think it will help us to appreciate the food we eat more fully. However, I'm glad I'm a vegetarian (well I eat fish occasionally). I'm OK with cleaning a fish, but killing and cleaning a chicken, pig, or cow? Fuggeddaboudit! |
| wineaux | Posted – 5/7/2008 10:09:01 AM | show profile I had a tiny patio in my first place, and got several pots and grew my own tomtatoes, beans, bellpeppers and strawberries. I love the idea of your own minature farm. It doesn't take much space to provide yourself with a decent amount of fresh produce. I've got to head over the the NYT and take a look at that article. I'm buying my fruit and veggie plants for the summer this week. Should have bought them sooner! |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/7/2008 10:20:56 AM | show profile The article is in the Dining and Wine section. I just love to see the people who get out there in the middle of the City and grow vegetables. It gives me hope... |
| voracious reader | Posted – 5/7/2008 10:22:52 AM | show profile The United States of Arugula If you enjoyed reading that article, you might enjoy reading David Kamp's book, "The United States of Arugula." He makes many references to urban gardens and their importance to the current state of dining. Wonderful book! |
| recovering_jersey_girl | Posted – 5/7/2008 10:59:27 AM | show profile Oh, thanks for the recommendation! I saw the headline but hadn't gotten around to reading the story yet. Now I definitely will. I don't have any outside space but I do have a bank of south-facing windows where I currently have an insanely large basil plant. Maybe I'll add a few more pots onto the windowsill this year. |
| JackieRo | Posted – 5/7/2008 11:02:58 AM | show profile Thanks for the article heads up. I just started my patio veggie garden because I'm tired of paying $3.59 for cauliflower and it's friends. It's expensive to eat just veggies nowadays! |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/7/2008 11:48:26 AM | show profile I imagine people will increasingly use their small gardens to grow some of the "luxury" vegetables and herbs. I guess I wouldn't have considered cauliflower a luxury vegetable but increasingly it may be so. Ones that they may not be able to afford from the grocery. And also some things that just taste so much better, such as tomatoes. Just to add more taste, variety, and pleasure in your eating as staples get more expensive. There's no way the vast majority of us will be able to fully feed ourselves through our own gardens, but we can improve our diet and quality of life by growing even just a little. |
| reporterwriter | Posted – 5/7/2008 12:16:23 PM | show profile I think small vegetable gardens and patio gardens are creative pursuits most of all. Did the article break down the cost of producing one tomato? You have to wait 65 days for it to ripen, watering it the whole time, and all its siblings ripen together, so you have your own little tomato festival. |
| wineaux | Posted – 5/7/2008 1:02:01 PM | show profile The creative part of gardens sparking children to be interested in growing their own food is my favorite aspect. I made teepees out of bamboo stalks and green bean plants for my little ones to run in and out of, and big circles of sunflowers that made great little hideaways. And, they absolutely loved to go out in the morning and get berries for their cereal, right off the plant. They are saying they want to grow watermelon. I've never done that before and hopefully I get it right. There's nothing in the world like freshly grown lettuce and rhubarb. My two rugrats spent last weekend making the far back end of the yard more friendly for birds. Too bad the damn squirrels keep pilfering the seeds from the feeder. Greedy bastards. I had cardinals and robins, yellow finches and woodpeckers there at breakfast, and by lunch, two fat squirrels were hanging from the feeders, filling their cheeks. They could stand to go on a diet. |
| HisGirlFriday | Posted – 5/7/2008 1:02:25 PM | show profile Hurrah gardening! In my own (rural) childhood few things were more thrilling than planting my own carrots every year! I am so exited that my (urban) kid does the same thing. Last year was her first time and the look of unexpected joy and surprise on her face when she pulled the green stalks to reveal the orange carrots hidden under the ground was just priceless. We don't do a lot - tomatoes, herbs, arugula - oh and grapes, delicious wonderous purple grapes! I love flowers too much to give more of my limited space! |
| westsidestory | Posted – 5/7/2008 3:49:36 PM | show profile Every city person should try to grow a little of their own food, even if it's herbs in a pot on a windowsill. The time spent (even on a lone tomato plant) is always rewarding. When I was living in San Francisco we once went an entire six months (april through October) without purchasing vegetables at a grocery or market. I grew everything from corn to potatoes to artichokes to heirloom tomatoes broccoli and grapes and other fruits in about 100 square feet. And even though the neighborhood was residential, quite a few of my neighbors had chickens, for the eggs. As a former Master Gardener I would caution anyone to be careful about growing edibles less than 50 feet from a street or heavily used driveway, since heavy metals (lead, cadmium etc) will show up even in clean container soils - forget about just planting in your dirt, that is a lead festival waiting to happen and as dangerous to kids as lead paint flakes. You can get good advice locally from Cooperative Extension (see Dept. of Agriculture for your state) and I'd recommend any books or articles that discuss square-foot gardening. yougrowgirl! |
| df | Posted – 5/7/2008 4:15:59 PM | show profile I grew up on all home grown food and home raised food (yes, that includes cows, and we did not live on a farm). So until I went to college I thought all food comes out of the garden. what a disappointment, when i discovered it does not! nothing tastes as good as fresh harvested food. I always grew a bit of stuff even in large cities I lived in, but NYC has done me in. I tried to grow tomatoes, all burned in the summer heat, I tried to grow herbs, all covered with dirt from the endless traffic, it was just hopeless. so sad. once i have better, less trafficed apartment (who knows when that will be) I'll get right back onto my tomatoes. Nothing like a fresh harvested tomatoes on your table. |
| df | Posted – 5/7/2008 4:19:27 PM | show profile ps reporter: tomatoes do not ripen all at once like apples, the plant lives the whole season, and will produce all the time, as a matter of fact, if you only have one plant it might not be enough to make a salad for two, so normally people are not very generous to share their hard won fruit. |
| westsidestory | Posted – 5/7/2008 5:00:29 PM | show profile vf: now that I am back in Manhattan I have my herbs on an inside window (faces airwell, not street). I have 12 square feet of growing space off a window but since that is on the street side, and gets only a modest amount of sun, I grow only flowers in it. If you have a sunny area off the street zone I would suggest self-watering planters. These have reservoirs so you can go away for a whole week without fear. The best ones from Gardeners Supply online; if you follow the instructions explicitly the system is fabulous. The first ones I got are still in great shape after five NY winters. I did grow a tomato there once ('Patio,' a superb container variety for its urban toughness) just for purpose of science. I got about a dozen fruits off a 12-inch plant, which I did not eat (because of the lead issue) but still could qualify for bragging rights, so to speak. A good book for NYgardening: The City and Town Gardener by Linda Yang. |
| UGoGirl | Posted – 5/7/2008 11:18:30 PM | show profile Rhubarb is just incredible. I think you need an actual yard for this one though. It just comes up year after year after year, with absolutely no care provided by me. Run it over with the lawnmower, and it will still come back the next year. I love that kind of gardening. I wish tomatoes were like that. |
| wineaux | Posted – 5/9/2008 4:09:34 PM | show profile I've never heard of a self-watering planter. It's brilliant. My mother and grandmother made strawberry rhubarb pie all summer long when I was a kid. I'll have to make one or two this summer. |
| HisGirlFriday | Posted – 5/9/2008 4:46:10 PM | show profile westside: Thank you so much for the tip on self watering planters! I have a very high up window box where flowers look lovely but it's nearly impossible to water them so I neglect them and then they get all sad and wilted!! I googled it and found this: http://www.shop.com/39_Self_Watering_Windowbox-25709343-34070870-p!.shtml?sourceid=298 It's perfect! I'll finally have lovely geraniums all summer! |
