The Farm Your Tiny Apartment Wants To Be

Chelsea Green:

Indoor space can be used for gardening too if there's a sunny spot on a windowsill or in a room: container vegetables, herbs, and small fruit trees are all possibilities here. The more vexing question is how to use shadier spaces such as extra rooms, closets and cabinets, garages, storage areas, unused bathtubs, and kitchen counters. Perhaps you never thought of these as growing areas, but where there's space, there's growing potential! I have a very vertical sprouting operation on top of my refrigerator that produces 2 to 3 pounds of sprouts per week for eating and wheatgrass for juicing. You could also raise gourmet mushrooms or brew ginger beer, wine, or kefir in that space. Start a worm bin on a balcony or in a garage for composting organic wastes or for fishing bait sales. There are many possibilities for using even shady urban spaces in a productive way.

Read the whole story: Chelsea Green

Comments

[MightyMeno]

Even with a backyard, I find container gardening the way to go. Florida is Bug Central, and it's just so much easier to control them by not sticking plants in the ground. We've already got little plum tomatoes and bell peppers bursting forth. Last year's pepper plant just would not stop producing, even during the dog days of August.

[cucumber]

The recommendation for chicken farming is atrocious and inhumane. Confinement animal farming is the worst of human nature, and if we do it, we all deserve to be taken by swine flu.

[cucumber]

i.e.

"If horizontal space is limited, don’t be afraid to think vertically: I have seen chicken cages mounted on vertical walls outside a person’s home,"

Chickens deserve to have their feet on the ground and roam, not be stuck in a cage on the side of some apartment building or whatever. They're not egg-producing machines.

[Bashley]

I live in a high rise building without a patio and would love to do this! I have herbs and a few flowering plants, but am looking to have a patio/terrace at my next place. Thanks for posting this to inspire those of us without a backyard. :)