Urban-style organic gardening blog about growing your own food with limited space and creative resources.
The kind people at SeedsNow.com have contacted me and offered to help me out with some seed packets to get my garden started.
I’ve never started from seed before and I like experimentation (with growing vegetables that is). My plan is to continue the fire escape gardening, backyard vegetable gardening and potentially expand that to the garden beds.
I’m leaning towards some of their Seed Banks. What would you recommend me getting or would like to see me experiment with?
Andrew Odom (@AndrewOdom) is one of my imaginary friends that I met on Twitter. He lives and gardens down south in Georgia.
He built an almost recycled hoop house for his garden for under $30. I’m jealous.
Since the small plastic greenhouses that I made failed, this is something that I will definitely consider for my backyard vegetable garden in Brooklyn next winter.
Curious as to what went into the construction of Andrew’s and the results, I asked him a few questions that he kindly answered.
Where’d you get the idea of the hoop house?
I wanted to grow beyond the traditional season and I still had some plants that were hanging on and I definitely wanted to try something out of my comfort zone. After seeing The $50 Greenhouse, I knew I had it in my to give it a try.
How much did it cost to make?
It cost about $29 in actual legal tender but about $75 worth of begging, borrowing and pleading.
How long did it take? Actual time spent working on it? And actual time from beginning to end?
It took me about a week to get all the materials together (including the plastic and PVC), about 6 hours of actual labor. I kept it up from about November 4 to about January 16. Full photo set of building the hoop house.
What was the most difficult part in making it?
The most difficult part was manipulating the plastic without putting any holes in it or allowing for any air draft. The plastic needed is in one large sheet and required a second and third set of hands at times.
What were the results? Did it work?
The results were about 3 harvests of baby romaine lettuce, 1 harvest of purple cabbage (7 heads) and 25 or so sweet onions. We did lose some plants to an unpredictable (and totally unexpected) freeze in early January. Because we were using geothermic temperatures as well (the raised beds were actually one inch into the soil causing the roots to dig into actual earth and not just developed bed) we had to deal with unseasonable ice. It worked well though…especially for a first (and rather unorthodox) try.
What was it like deconstructing it?
Deconstruction was easy. The plastic was contractors plastic so I didn’t expect it to work more than one season. Because it had weathered – stretched and sagged a bit – I ended up just kind of ripping it off and folding it to be used later on random projects. The PVC I took down, labeled for next year and taped up. Check out his hoop house deconstruction photo set on Flickr.
Would you do it again? If so, what would you change?
I would do it again, for sure, but I would make the skeleton a little more stable using a wood framework for the front and back and only using PVC in the middle structure. I would also give myself more plastic to negotiate rather than being so specific with my measurements.
Thanks Andrew. Now I feel like a complete lazy ass for putting a garbage bag over my containers and calling it a day. This would’ve been so much more practical. Great work my man!
It’s time for me to troubleshoot my worm composting problems again.
After starting my worm composting bin in my kitchen, they died when I made a composting mistake and drowned them out. This time I kept the bin too dry and the worms died.
I brought the container into the worm lady at the Lower East Side Ecology Center in the Union Square Farmers Market. I wanted to see if the bin was the issue.
She looked over the bin and said that it looked fine. Her recommendation was to fill up the bin about 3/4 of the way full with shredded newspaper bedding and to gently rinse it with water until they are moist, but not dripping wet.
After I wetting the bedding (get it wetting the bedding?), she told me to dump the worms on top and let them sit out in the light for a few minutes until they dug themselves into the bedding.
When they dug themselves into the bedding, I was to put some food scraps in the bin for them and continually add throughout the week. She also recommended to sprinkle coffee grinds or to put tea bags into the bin to keep up the moisture, but not too much. I learned that lesson already. If you don’t have either, you can use a spray bottle to mist the bedding.
This is my third time with the worms. Any additional advice for me? What else might I be doing wrong?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtOWyt3Zjpc
I decided to make an undercover outdoor compost bin at my grandmother’s for my backyard vegetable garden in Brooklyn.
Why is it undercover? It is because my Grandmother would flip out if she knew I was composting in her backyard? Why would she flip out? I dunno. She’s 90 and does that kind of thing. We are talking about the woman who freaked out when I brought my first harvest into her house.
Making this outdoor compost bin was very similar to the aerobic compost bin in my kitchen.
This bin also had no cost in putting together as well. All of the tools and materials I already had.
This was a two-day operation. By the time the second day rolled around much of the soil was frozen and couldn’t be used. Luckily, the seaweed didn’t freeze up.
When completed, the compost was put back way in the corner of the backyard where my Grandmother doesn’t go anymore.
Unfortunately, in this weather the compost has froze up. You think it’ll last? How long until I should have some good usable compost?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbpMD-_Dv4c
Since my fire escape garden died after the snow storm in December, I needed to break it down.
Breaking these down were definitely easier than breaking down the ones at my Grandmother’s.
Yes these froze up as well, but I was able to bring them indoors to defrost for a day.
Some of the dead plants that were above the soil line weren’t completely frozen. I was able to trim those off and toss into my indoor aerobic compost bin.
The rest I had to wait to defrost. I put them in my room next to the heater. For those of you that have never been in an NYC apartment, the heat is controlled by the building and is blasted. It’s 20 degrees out and I still have my windows open.
Needless to say, the next morning they were defrosted. I piled on a layer of the potting soil onto the plant trimmings, followed by a layer of blended food scraps and coffee grinds.
I then layered on another big layer of soil to help balance out the greens. The lesson that I learned back in May still sticks with me – don’t put too many food scraps into your compost pile. That smell was horrific.
To make doubly sure I put a layer of shredded newspaper on the pile as well. It’s now all covered up and sitting in my kitchen.
I also kept a container of soil to use and put on the compost pile as needed. The excess and muddy soil I brought to my community compost center.
This was my final step in finishing up my first season of fire escape gardening.
I’ll have to look back at my success and failures and start to get ready for the spring plantings.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iUYIUOPZgU
My winter container gardening ended in December, so I started to break down the self watering containers at my Grandmother’s. Once the sun went down the cold became freezing and I had to stop.
When I woke up the next morning to finish breaking down the containers, they were frozen solid. All of the soil that I had been storing in the wheelbarrow was frozen as well.
Unfortunately, I can’t do much until the soil defrosts, which I don’t see happening in the next few weeks. So I’ll have to wait to break down the rest.
There is also about 0 percent change of my Grandmother letting me bring the containers indoors. You heard her reaction when I brought some fresh picked lettuce into the house.
So that’s another lesson learned for me – don’t wait until it’s too cold to breakdown your containers.
Do you have any similar stories to breaking down your gardens in the winter?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiezAh4q2fY
Since my backyard vegetable garden died, I needed to clean it up as the first step for getting ready for the spring season.
The first step was to breakdown the self-watering containers. Here is how I did that in my Brooklyn garden:
These steps might seem easy, but it resulted in a mess. I’m likely going to change the way that I made them to make the breakdown easier.
If you were just going to dump everything or making them for one time usage, it wouldn’t be a problem. I am composting the contents and reusing the soil, so that made it much more difficult and messy.
The water and wet soil was getting everywhere and made for an unpleasant cold and windy day.
Do you think there would’ve been an easier way for me to break these down?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXTNH4jx-U4
I’ve heard from many people that seaweed is supposed to be real good for your plants and compost. It’s said to be high in all kinds of nutrients and minerals.
So I decided to head out to the beaches in Brooklyn on a fine winter day and hunt for some seaweed. No better time than the present huh? And yes Brooklyn has beaches.
Before I headed to the beaches I hit up the Canarsie Pier. I hoped that I’d be able to find some that people fishing tossed away. There was none to be found though.
The first beach that I went to was Manhattan Beach. Of course the beach was closed, but I was still able to get onto the sand and walk along the shore. There was not a trace of seaweed to be found. It was just me freezing my ass off.
Then I ventured over to Brighton Beach. I found much of the same here – a lot of wind and nothing.
At that point, I decided to call it quits and head back to my Grandmother’s. There was some traffic along the Belt Parkway (surprise), so I decided to pull over and check out Plumb Beach.
I was able to find some seaweed there. When I was walking along the beach I saw the Marine Park Bridge and a light bulb went off in my head – Mike.
Who is this Mike? He is my boy who lives in Mill Basin and has a house on the water with a dock. I hit him up and asked him if I could swing by for some seaweed. He gladly obliged.
After seeing that low tide was later that evening, we decided to get some seaweed that night. We headed down to the water and started to scrape some off the rocks.
It wasn’t until we used the nets in the water that we started to really rake in the seaweed (Jamaica Bay Sticky Icky). It also wasn’t until 20 minutes into the collection of the seaweed that he asked me what I was going to use it for. He thought I was going to eat it.
For the first time I collected a good amount to start my compost, but definitely know where I’ll be going the next time I need some more of that Sticky Icky.
The real lesson that I learned is not to go looking for seaweed on beaches in the dead of winter.
What’s been your experience with using seaweed in your garden?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwFrBJK1ezQ
My winter container gardening has already ended on my fire escape. It’s also ended for my backyard vegetable garden in Brooklyn as well.
This can be attributed to a few things. The first being my neglect. I didn’t go to my Grandmother’s for two weeks to tend to the plants. I’m sure that the snow and cold weather also contributed to the plants dying.
Now that they are dead, I’ll have to look back on how the vegetable performed, what my mistakes were and how I can improve for the 2010 season.
The next step is to empty out the containers and started a top-secret composting operation at my Grandmother’s.
I have big plans for her backyard in 2010. Anything that you think I should do or would like me to experiment with?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKb4XHMnPY
My fire escape container garden did not make it through the first big snowfall of the season.
Once the snow cleared up a little, and I was able to check things out. The small plastic greenhouse was sunken in because of the snow. When I took the cover off, the red peppers and kales were dead. Luckily I was able to get one last harvest out of the kale a few weeks back.
Unfortunately, I hesitated on the cherry tomatoes and they died.
The tops of the miniature greenhouses were nearly all blown off and one of the hanging soda bottle planters looked like it was growing snow.
Now that everything is done I’ll be able to look back on my first season of gardening and see all of the lessons that I learned. I’ll have to clear off the fire escape and get ready for the spring.
What advice do you have for me for the 2010 season?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQSrM74L0g
With this being my last post of the year, I wanted to share with you my favorite moments from UrbanOrganicGardener.
This might seem a bit self-serving, but when I first set out and started this project my goal was to get just one salad. It’s turned into a bit more than that. I’ve been able to get that salad (and many more), but I’ve also been able to connect personally with many of you and that’s really been the best part.
So I’ll close out this year with some of my faves:
Like I said my goal was to get one salad, so when I harvested veggies from my fire escape for the first time is up there for me.
Not only harvesting the salad, but eating the salad ranks high up there as well. The fact that I was able to trace my produce from fire escape to bowl was a bit overwhelming for me. Just check out the video in the post.
A few months into the blog, I started to receive emails from readers about starting their own gardens after seeing what I did.
Mariann in Arizona was the first to send me a note. She was hesitant at first and had lots of questions. The best part about her garden was that it was a way for her and her teenage son to bond.
A few months later her garden was doing well. She was able to harvest lots of basil and her cucumber and tomatoes were starting to fruit and blossom.
Annie also hit me up to tell me that she started her own urban garden in Washington, DC. She used some soda bottles, planted and hung them in her backyard.
Earlier in the month, I was on the left coast and did an urban gardening workshop with a kindergarten class in Sherman Oaks, CA.
I got to work with the kids and parents to get the class set up with their very own Urban-Kinder Garden. The first day was spent with the parents setting up the self-watering containers and talking to them about the importance of growing your own food.
On the second day, I worked with the parents and the students to set the garden up and start their own worm composting bin. This event was definitely one of the highlights for me of the whole experience – getting to work with the kids. Mad fun.
Without all of you none of this would have been possible. I sincerely thank all of you and look forward to learning more and keeping this journey going in 2010.
What were your favorite UrbanOrganicGardener moments of 2009?
The kale has been doing well on my fire escape garden. With the weather dropping into the 20s, I decided it was time to harvest and eat it because that’s what it’s there for.
In harvesting my lettuce, I learned that you should pick the outer most leaves. Otherwise the plant will bolt. Personally, I don’t want it to bolt and want it to keep producing more food for me.
After I picked me some kale salad for lunch, I put the small plastic greenhouse back over it. The question that I have no is will it continue to grow in this 20 degree temperature?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OJImG8RZ_M
The composting mistake that I made is pretty simple – I killed my worms.
Shortly after starting my worm compost bin, I had to dry it out because it was too wet from all the coffee grinds.
That didn’t work and the worms were all dead. So I properly buried their remains along with the newspaper bedding at the local community compost.
That didn’t stop me from starting a new worm bin. Why would I let it? I made a mistake, learned from it and now I’m one step closer to success.
I cleaned out the old bin, put a fresh bedding of newspaper and another pound of worms. This time I put the bedding in, dropped in the worms and let them get situated for about 10-15 minutes, sprinkled some food scraps on the top and closed the lid.
I’ll leave them alone for a week or so and periodically check in.
Any tips or advice for my second go around?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svy9RKHv19s
Here we are three months after I urinated on my tomato plants. If you recall, I did this because it’s supposed to make them grow larger. Did it work?
It’s hard to say, but the plant is still fruiting and blossoming. So they didn’t necessarily grow larger, but it could’ve helped to extend their lives.
Can that be attributed to my magical urine? I’m not really sure because I think that started to tinkle on them too late in the season. There are a million and five factors that effect the health of the plant like remembering to feed them, planting them at the right time and keeping certain ones out of the cold. It makes it difficult to isolate a specific incident.
With that being said, I’ll start to relieve myself on my tomato plant earlier in the season next year. I’ll also be bottling up my urine for those of you who would like to purchase it.
The more pressing issue at the time is the fruit that’s on the tomato vines. Some are light red and some are green. I’d like for them to vine ripen, but the weather is supposed to drop into the 20s. What do you think I should do? Pick them? Or leave them?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiiANuKpwq4
This is the first check in of my fire escape garden since returning from my Urban Kinder-Garden Workshop in Los Angeles.
The weather has dropped into the 40s here and 30s at night, but the kale plants are thriving in this cold weather. Once I removed the small plastic greenhouse from them, they still look healthy and to be growing.
The container with the red peppers in it didn’t look as well. I think it might be on it’s way out. I was able to pick one small pepper from it, but the leaves were looking all kinds of wilted. Going to leave it up to see how much longer it’ll last though.
A few weeks ago, I did some housecleaning on my fire escape by removing some of the hanging soda bottle planters.
This week I removed about four more – a kale, mint and two lettuces because they were on their way out.
The good thing is that the kale is doing well in the cold weather. I’m not sure if it’s because of the greenhouse or if it naturally does well in the cold or a combination of both.
What do you think? Whatever the answer is, it’s December and I gots some kale on my fire escape.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MojwRNZEYyM
Before I left for my Urban Kinder-Garden Workshop in Los Angeles, I scrapped the small plastic greenhouses in my backyard vegetable garden.
Now that I’m back, December gardening is upon us. So far the garden is holding up better than I thought it would. This proves that the self-watering containers are pretty low maintenance because I didn’t check on them in two weeks and everything didn’t die.
Here’s a quick summary of how the plants are holding up.
The kale plants are looking good and don’t show signs of slowing down.
I already know that I should’ve left the celery plant alone after I harvested it.
The red pepper plants have fruit, but the leaves are wilting, so I’m guessing that it’s on it’s way out.
Both of the spinach plants are showing signs of dying. Not sure if it’s because of the weather or because of lack of nutrition. The green malabar stem snapped due to the wind. I likely should’ve had better support for it.
The cucumber plant is definitely dead and has no chance at revival. At least I know to plant my cucumber earlier in the season.
The chives and nasturtium both seem to have been infested by slugs. I say that because of the way they look and because I saw some slugs in those containers before I left.
Much like everything else in this experience, it’s a first for me. The weather hasn’t dropped too low yet (40s at night), but it’s expected to over drop into the 30s over the next week.
Due to my bad planning in the backyard with the greenhouses, I’m going to start taking down the containers that are totally dead. Then I’ll look back and do more thorough evaluations on what went right and wrong.
What are your December gardening plans?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV-I48Y8HbY
The second day of the Urban-Kinder Garden Workshop with Miss Avalos’ class was the real fun because I got to work with the kids on planting everything. No offense to the parents, I totally enjoyed my day with them making the containers too.
We started the morning off by going over the vegetables that we were going to be planting and talking about the various parts of the plant. The class was most fascinated with the roots.
I then showed them the worms that we were going to use for the compost bin, which got the biggest response.
I demonstrated how to fill the container with the soil and fill it with water.
The parents and kids were then divided up into groups to plant. Each group was assigned two containers with two plants per container. The kids dove into the soil hands first and started to fill the containers.
After everything was planted, I set up the worm compost bin for the class. I explained how the worms take the newspaper and food to make the soil and how it keeps those items from the landfill.
The kids screamed and cheered when I finally dumped the worms into the bedding. The food scraps were then divided amongst the kids to put into the bin.
At the end of the day there were about 15 self-watering containers filled and six hanging soda bottle planters.
All said and done we planted red leaf lettuce, mesculin mix, swiss chard, peas, green onions, red peppers, basil, parsley, stevia, dill and chocolate mint.
I’ll definitely be keeping in touch with Miss Avalos’ class and expecting updates as their garden continues to grow.
My favorite comment of the day was from Zackery who said, “You’re a good gardener.”
Who am I to argue with him?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm-3eD3KBpU
[flickrset id=”72157622911237720″ thumbnail=”square” overlay=”true” size=”medium”]
For the first day of the Urban Kinder-Garden Workshop at Kester Ave Elementary School, I worked with the parents and relatives of some of the students to build the self watering containers for the garden.
We also discussed the environmental impacts of gardening and building the containers. Since we’d be growing our own produce, it cuts out the travel and oil costs associated with the food.
I mentioned to them that on average food travels from farm to table about 1,500 to 2,000 miles. For someone like me, who lives in New York City, most of my food is coming from California (if I’m lucky).
By the time it’s picked, packaged, shipped, unpacked and put on the shelf at a store…is it really fresh at that point? When you grow your own, you can trace the life of the vegetable.
Additionally, the containers are made from pre-existing materials. That brings down the cost to make them. Not only is it low cost, but it helps to keep the materials from landfills as well.
The one fact that I thought resonated with the parents (besides the low cost) was a soda bottle will sit in a landfill for 700 years before decomposing (GreenYour.) So imagine how long the big plastic containers would sit for?
After we spoke for a bit, we got to working on the containers. The tasks to build them were divided up and everyone got to work.
All said and done, we built about 15 containers for the kids to plant in. Some of the parents expressed interest in building some of their own self-watering containers at home.
When we were finished, the kids returned to the classroom and asked me a few questions about gardening such as, “Plants need worms” and “What’s an herb?”
The next day I’ll be planting the veggies with the kids and setting up a worm bin.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRZmtDO6JxA
I’m on the left coast this week conducting an Urban Kinder-Garden Workshop with Miss Avalos’ Kindergarten class at Kester Ave Elementary School in Sherman Oaks, CA.
Miss Avalos is tying the garden into the curriculum for her students.
Art
The first part of the project was having her student paint the containers, which helps them to express themselves creatively.
Science and Language Arts
“One of the cool things is that it also teaches about seasons and weather,” said Miss Avalos. “We are getting everything that is in season.”
Her class will be keeping a plant journal and talking about the parts and life cycles of the plants.
“Also the idea of taking care of our earth. We can do something local. We don’t have to waste fuel to get the food to us,” said Miss Avalos.
Team Buidling
The workshop and garden will also help the kids with their team building skills. They’ll have to work together to plant and maintain the garden.
Math
She’ll also be tying in math activities like how much they’ve gotten out of each plant.
Nutrition
“A lot of these kids haven’t been exposed to anything but iceburg lettuce. This is a whole new experience for them.
Responsibility
Some of the kids will also learn about having responsibilities as well. When winter break rolls around in a few weeks, some will get the chance to take the containers home to care for them.
When I was in elementary school, we just got the chance to take home a hamster.
The workshop will be broken down into two days with the first focusing on building the self-watering containers with the parents. After the containers are built, I’ll go over how the containers are made, how they work, about how they are reusing materials and the environmental impact of them.
Day two of the workshop will revolved around planting and setting up a worm composting bin.
It’ll be interesting to see how the kids react to the worms. I know that they still kind of freak me out.
My secret plan (well not so secret anymore) is that the kids have such a great time that they pester their parents to start their own gardens at home.
It’s all about getting people back in touch with their food source.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnuuGOcWzv0
I’ve decided to scrap the small plastic greenhouses in my Brooklyn backyard vegetable garden. The past two weeks I’ve had problems with support for them and realized that I should’ve built a larger greenhouse.
It’s not that they don’t work because they work fine on my fire escape garden. The problem is that I get to my Grandmother’s only a few days a week, so the plastic stays on them for most of the week. This is causing a lot of condensation and affecting the plants.
Some of the kales, lettuces and especially the sorrels were starting to die because of the conditions. So I took of the plastic greenhouses before I left for a 10 day trip out to Los Angeles.
It’ll be interesting to see how the plants are affected during this time. The weather hasn’t been too cold here in NYC. It’s been about 50s during the day and 40s at night.
When I get back it’s still not out of the question to build something, but we shall see when I return.
My thoughts are just letting the uncovered containers go for as long as possible. Take note of all the lessons, I learned (and will share) and start from scratch (and seeds) next season.
What do you think?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYg4hFvvxts