What can I grow? That’s the most common question that I get asked. First, you’ll have to decide on the location of your urban garden. Then you’ll have to determine how much sunlight your garden space gets. There are four main categories of sunlight: Full sun. 6+ hours of direct sunlight. Partial sun. 4-5 hours of direct sunlight. Partial shade. 2-4 hours of direct sunlight. Shade Less than 1 hour of direct sunlight. Since we are living in urban environments, we have other structures that we are dealing...
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The fall time is perfect to plant garlic to be ready during the spring. It’s also simple to do. Each clove that you plant winds up turning into a clove of garlic. The larger the clove you plant, the larger the bulb it produces. I saw a tip on soaking the cloves in Organic Gardening Magazine to help prevent rot from occurring. Here is what you’ll need to...
The following sentence was posted on the Urban Organic Gardener Facebook page, “My special fall vegetable gardening tip is _____.” Here are some of the tips that were left: Justin J Stewart summed it up best when he said, “Don’t give it, you’d be surprised what plants can survive what!” I couldn’t agree with Justin more....
There has been a bit of an issue on my balcony garden lately with some ants. One of the swiss chard containers dried up and ants have gotten to it. I’ve been using coffee grounds to help deter them. I’m not sure why exactly this works, but when the ants go near the grounds, they freak out and won’t cross them. The first thing that I did was line...
I received an email from Amy asking what she should do with the extra peaches that she harvested. She wasn’t talking about 10-15 extra peaches. She was talking more like 150lbs worth of extra peaches. She said, “I like peaches as much as the next girl, but there is no way, even after jams, jellies, preserves, conserves, chutneys, freezing, and all the...
Mint grows like crazy and can easily take over your garden if grown in a raised bed or in ground garden. After all mint is a weed. You almost always want to grow mint in a container. What you will need to transplant your mint into a container: Container filled with potting mix Mint plant Water How to transplant the mint: Pour a little bit of water into the plastic...
There is a parsley plant on my balcony garden that has been going to seed for a few weeks now. The seeds have finally developed. They emerged in about 3-4 stages, which are difficult to explain, but the the picture about clearly shows what the seeds look like. You just have to carefully pull them. What is your favorite way to use parsley? ...
A rain barrel is something that would be great to have to be able to collect rainwater, but the reality is that it won’t work for those of us apartment gardening. One reason is that since we are dealing with small spaces, so every little inch counts. Something as large as a rain barrel really isn’t practical. That doesn’t mean that we can’t...
I searched the internet for a few hours looking for how to prune a pumpkin plant. All I could find was the same mumbo jumbo gardening speak of secondary, tertiary and blah, blah, blah with no pictures or visuals of what the hell people were talking about. The reason for looking on how to do this is because my pumpkin plant is starting to get some powdery mildew and pruning your plant to allow for better circulation is supposed to help prevent that. Makes sense to me especially since I am growing them vertically in a container. Based on...
I’ve mentioned before that when you are gardening in containers that you’ll need to amend your soil and keep your plants well fed. As the water drains out of the containers, so do the nutrients that it needs. One other thing that your garden will benefit from is a living microbial treatment. The treatment that I am using is from one of my sponsors Thrive...
Your mint container is likely overflowing and ready to harvest. If not, it should be. There is a way that you can harvest it to encourage even more growth from the delicious herb. What you are going to want to do is pinch it from the top. What the hell does that mean? It means that you are going to have to find the sprig that you want and pinch it as close to the...
It’s frustrating to say the least when you spend hours tending to your tomato garden and the tomatoes still aren’t as big and vibrant as they could be. The soil quality will determine your success with each plant, and the more organic material you mix into your soil (versus synthetics) the better the plant will grow! Chemicals Aren’t the Solution Most people do not want chemicals anywhere near their garden, family, dinner table, pets or the soil. They do not want exposure to dangerous toxins and once they contaminate the...
People (haters) often bust my balls about how ugly my balcony garden is. They say that it’s beaten up and used 5-gallon containers and not very pretty. I’ve decided to take the challenge of the haters and decorate my self-watering containers. One of my containers was decorated by my girlfriend, Anita, who did a much better job than I could ever do. Since I’m not nearly that artistic I got some inspiration from Life on the Balcony. Her finished containers are more stylish than mine, but I’m working on it. This would...
It’s been about 3-months since I planted the swiss chard seeds when I started my garden from scratch. The two containers are now bursting with some nice greenage and are ready to be harvested and picked. They could very well be left to grow larger, but I wanna eat. When taking a closer look at the container, the chard is growing clumps and doing pretty well. To...
The first thing you want to make sure before you plant anything in your garden is that you’re growing heirloom or non-hybrid seeds/transplants. This is really important when it comes to saving your seeds. With heirloom or non-hybrid varieties you’ll be able to successfully save the seeds from the plant. With hybrid seeds you won’t. What’s...
