Apartment Gardening

I had initially thought that having a garden was reserved for those households with outside areas but even people living in apartments can enjoy the benefits of an edible garden, providing a bit of research is done first. There is a wealth of knowledge on the internet and your local garden will be able to help as well. Here’s a great link to start learning http://howtogardenguide.com/2007/03/30/vegetable-gardens-for-apartment-living-you-can-do-it/

I wanted to find out how to create an apartment garden so following the advice of a helpful young man in the nursery at Northey Street City Farm set to work.

I first got myself some plants to grow - a punnet of Mizuno lettuces (In need of some tender love and care - I was ambitious) and a punnet of coriander from the NSCF nursery. I then received a polystyrene vegetable box from one of the NSCF organic market stall holders and filled it with some very nice soil from Nicole’s backyard.  The box was then transported to my apartment and the seedlings carefully planted and watered. The box was then put on top of several others to sit by the front window and get full view of the sun.

By day 3 the plants, bar a couple which were struggling when I bought them, were surviving but no growth could be seen. Perhaps the sun was too strong for the seedlings? I moved the box out of the sun for the morning and returned the box to the window for the falling sun in the afternoon.

By day 7 the plants were still struggling and several bugs were hanging around. Was this experiment proving to be a dud or was I just not providing them with all that they needed. I decided that my simple plant, water and sun method was not working so remembering the advice of the man from the nursery I made a hole for drainage and dug a small yoghurt pot of compost materials into the soil. The man had also suggested worms would be a great addition. I would see if things improve first…

Day 10 - the coriander seedlings have grown slightly in height, however the mizuno lettuces are still showing little growth...