This thread is about what YOU can do, even in an apartment, to either relieve your budget or green the planet: doing both at the same time…
Tomatos, strawberries, or squash—at about a dollar per yellow squash or zucchini (ridiculous!) you can do nicely with this. Also cucumbers.
A patio planter. You need: a 5 gallon bucket at Lowes or one of those light, cheap large pots—with hole for drainage, and a bottom tray: you can improvise, but these plants cannot sit half-drowned. The excess water needs a way to leave. And don’t get one of those upside down jobs: they weigh as much as a 12 year old and don’t work well, either.
You need, depending on climate, a sun-sail for screening: you can attach it on your patio, to keep your plant from frying. 45.00 including shipping, from Amazon. Attach sun-sail to protect your pot—if you’re just starting this year, best way to get something that actually produces fast—go to Lowe’s and get one of their grown tomato plants, and choose one of the varieties with smaller tomatoes, because they’ll develop faster. It doesn’t really have time to grow in what’s left of summer if you try something else. Get decent potting soil, and put gravel in the bottom (fishstore, or the parking lot or a roadside). Put a little carbon in the bottom (fishstore); potting soil, and put a wire cone atop it all. Water it daily, just a bit. Fertilize it every 2 weeks. Pick bugs off it. and within not too long you will see ripening little tomatoes. If you have never tasted a sunwarmed tomato right off the vine, you have never tasted a tomato.
Should you have a windstorm and green tomatoes get blown off: slice, dip in egg, bread with Panko or Progresso, fry in oil. Not so great for your waistline, but a real nice dish, and a way to use a disaster. Also if you are up to here with tomatoes and want variety, you can heat vinegar in a pan, pour it over sliced green or half-green tomatoes, add onion slices (to taste), and also cucumber, salt, pepper, maybe jalapenos, add a little water, allow to cool, put it in fridge and forget it for 3 days. Then enjoy as a semi-pickle with a lot of freshness about it.
Yellow squash can be sliced and fried by the above method, or used in soups, etc. If in stew, add it only 20 minutes before serving or it will go to absolute mush.
IF you count that you are saving a dollar an item, not to mention trucking, etc, it’s a way to green up the apartment and get a few meals for nothing. If you get good at this you can widen your efforts.
I’m really encouraged with how many people are growing vegetables for the first time this year. It’s a skill usually learned from family, and is now being re-learned by a new generation. Nothing tastes better than a warm ‘mater you’ve grown yourself!
Another good plant for pots is jalapenos. Get a packet of cilantro seeds and scatter a few around it for good measure. Cilantro has a short life–it dries up and dies quickly after it matures–so plant a few seeds now and few in another month and etc. until frost.
Basil, rosemary, oregano and thyme also do well, but be vigilant with watering, and fertilize to keep them happy. Chives do alright in pots, but be sure to deadhead the flowers when they dry up or you’ll have chives everywhere next year.
I’ve always heard that herbs do best with benign neglect. The oils are used to make the plants unappetizing to marauding insects and beasts, and are more concentrated when the conditions are bad because the plant can’t afford to waste effort. So they really don’t need a lot of babying to do well. That is, as I said, what I have heard. I haven’t had too much experience growing them myself.
I use old galvanized wash tubs and 5-gal buckets for container gardening. One of the first years I tried it I planted way too late and had cherry tomato trees and cucumbers in my living room in Dec. Has to lift the vines to vacuum under them.
I am far from a vegetarian, but have created a vegetarian recipe to use up the over abundance of zucchini I occasionally get.
Curried zucs
Thinly slice up a bunch of zucchini and chop the rounds in half. Add about a one quarter ratio tomatoes. Then one half to a whole chopped onion and a couple cups of mushrooms.
Either saute the whole mess in a big pan or crock pot till the zucs are soft, but not mushy. Spices: curry powder, salt, pepper black & white, garlic. Dash of red pepper or hot sauce in you like really hot things. Then serve over pasta or rice with shredded Parmesan or mozzarella cheese. Tastes much better than it sounds.
I’ll bet it is good. ALso, don’t hesitate to use cinnamon, cloves, and allspice in tomatoey recipes. I put it in my chili, along with enough chipotle to sting.
Since there is no other way to do this, I’ll comment here:
I note you’ve crossed the 50% milestone for you next Foreigner book. Congratulations! I admire the persistence it requires to be such a successful and prolific writer!
Best wishes on pursuing the second half!
Thank you, Cap’n. I’m working—been a hard-work summer, and the last until the high heat goes is moving the big rhody by the porch: it’s new, it didn’t like it there, and we moved it to shade. It’s only as big as a wheelbarrow. 😉
Oh, envy. I have absolutely NO outdoor space in this apartment. Even the formerly wide-enough-for-a-window-box windowsills were diminished by over half by new (but energy efficient, yeah!) window frames. I don’t love gardening, but I really miss fresh veggies.
I can’t even container garden indoors because “Curiosity Will Kill This Cat If I Don’t First” (my icon cat) eats plants and flowers. With relish. (Or they are relish!)
Well, if you long, long, long for plants, there is one last recourse: go garage-saling and buy a used aquarium, stand, top, and light kit, as large as possible. Soak it inside with white vinegar, rinse, and add dirt. Remember this will be a closed system. You can grow anything your size allows…and kitteh can’t get in there. I had a lidded freshwater tank I shut down, (because I got a bigger one) still with its fishey, nasty sand, I had one of those dish cactus gardens that wasn’t doing well. And in a moment’s whimsey, I combined my problems.
Result: the most beautiful cactus blooms and cactus growing like mad. It was a wonderful terrarium. I never watered it. And it lasted until all my cacti had to be given away because they were way too large to live together. Then I disposed of the tank.
Or perhaps you should grow jalapenos in a pot: that might cure kitteh! 😉 wicked smile and you know I’d never ever do that!
D’oh! I hadn’t thought of a terrarium – and it would be about the size of garden I’d like, anyway. I’ll start looking; even have wall space for it (once I move some other things).
Mr. Curiosity *would* eat jalapenos, I’m afraid. (And I know you wouldn’t, but I did laugh!) I doubt potato leaves would slow him down at all. My former landlord gave me a couple of roses from her garden. In the time it took me to get a vase from under the kitchen counter, Mr. C had eaten the roses and had started on the stems and leaves, undeterred by the thorns!
Btw, I can attest to the fact that the gardening sucesses you and Jane achieved far outweigh any losses you sustained due to weather!
I suppose you could escalate to habanero peppers. They are more decorative than jalapenos and much hotter. Mr. C probably would not eat more than one of them; although, I once had a dog who like cayenne pepper; so, nothing is certain.
Kitty Punji Sticks: Buy some bamboo skewers and put them in the pots with the pointy ends up. They should deter fuzzy warm-blooded things from getting in your plants.
Most kitties, yes.
I think you’re reading my mind! C R E E P Y… O.o
We JUST moved into an apartment with a screened patio and NO SHADE, which in the South Florida sun is no treat. We’re going to container garden vegetables and herbs. No problem with needing grown or partly-grown plants, we’re just moving into prime growing season here –
We’ve got a small balcony, but grow:
* one monster tomato plant (it reached the ceiling, which is 2.35 m … or 92.5 inches). Lots of fruits (it’s a cherry tomato), none red yet … we are waiting eagerly.
* two boxes of strawberries (the first main harvest time is over, but this type continues through the whole summer)
* one box of pick and pluck lettuce
* runner beans (no visible fruits jet, but usually you won’t see them until they are nearly to big)
* and this year first: a mexican sour cucumber (no visible fruits yet, it might have been to cold some weeks)
And of course a nice selection of garden herbs (and some flowers, but thats boring).
Other years we’ve grown successfully spring radish and carrots (a short round type, our boxes are not deep enough for the usual longish roots).
Most plants are in boxes with water reservoir, and since we are geeks we have a small water barrel for a balcony irrigation system.
Climate: mild, this is Munich, southern Germany
It is a lot of fun, if you harvest your own strawberries in the morning!
I live in SoCal, so you’d think I’d be in the perfect growing climate. Ha. No. Wrong orientation. Not enough sun on the patio for tomatoes and the pepper plants last year never peppered. This year even the basil failed me (but there was a caterpillar in my pot; once I found and removed him, things improved). What is growing extremely well–sweet potatoes. They seem to like water, sun, shade, more water, less water, blistering days, grey misty days, whatever. And the cats are not eating them, which is always a bonus.
I sometimes think of starting some pots. When I bought this place, it came with 3 large (like 3 foot tall) plastic flower pots (the ones that look like ceramic but aren’t), left from the previous owner, who’d had small trees in them. I love fresh rosemary, and that would do really well in a pot, but have never just gotten around to doing it. I think it’s partly because I would have to figure out where to put them… the dogs like to dash out across the patio, so they can’t go in the direct line to the yard, and then there are sightlines for the birdfeeders that I don’t want to block. And then there is the watering. Unfortunately, when the Santa Anas start blowing, I think I would be looking at watering multiple times a day. And finally it’s the question of what to do with the stuff if it actually does well. Being single, there’s only so much stuff I can eat before I get tired of it. But still… Persian cukes might be tasty. And the five-gallon buckets would be smaller than the pots I currently have…..
Ever put a sweet potato in a container of water and let it root in the kitchen window? It makes a gloriously abundant vine, (as you know, for sure!) and who knows? Maybe Warrior’s cat wouldn’t like its leaves!
If you have even a small yard, your garden can mushroom (sorry) as far as your ambition takes you–and you’ll never buy as tasty a vegetable or fruit as you can grow with very little effort. With a bit of planning and care you can pack a remarkable amount of growing stuff in a small area.
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Hint for tomatoes as cold weather approaches: the evening before the first frost, uproot any tomoato plants which still have green fruit on them, and hang from the ceiling or a cabinet in your garage. As long as it stays above freezing there, the fruit will ripen, and taste just as good. If you’re pot gardening, of course you don’t need to uproot!
Not to mention—if you love mushrooms, and have a basement, you can have a nice little operation in a very little space.
I don’t care that my parents liked them, fried green tomatoes are not human food! Let the poor green things ripen on the counter. Chop and freeze excess tomatoes for winter soups, or make tomato preserves. This varies either equal parts by weight sugar and tomatoes or 3/4 lbs. sugar to 1 lbs. tomatoes. Cook to a soft ball stage and add fresh lemon (no to seeds, yes to peel). Stir with non-metal spoon. Don’t ask me about canning. It never lasted that long in the fridge.
Pickled green tomatoes are indeed very good – I used to do that with the pile that was harvested the night before(or the morning after) the first frost. Not dills, sweet pickles with sugar, vinegar, onion, spice.
But I LOVE fried green tomatoes. Only not with that complicated egg-and-batter process – dredge slices in dry cornmeal with a little bit of salt, saute in a couple of tablespoons of oil, and eat quick before everybody else gets them and they’re gone. Same method with okra.
(Cousin of my mom’s who liked fried okra and not steamed whole pods which was his wife’s preferred method — picked the okra and left them on the counter all sliced into rounds — “There, I’ve whittled ’em, so she can’t boil ’em.”)
My sweet potatoes sprouted in the basket hanging over my sink, where they’d been buried under the onions since, oh, late winter or so. One day the spouse sees little purple shoots poking out of the basket and says something is alive in the onions. Oops. I reckoned anything that will grow in total neglect is perfect for my horticultural skills. Stuffed ’em in every available pot, tossed water at them, and they took off. And yes, gorgeous vines and leaves. They’re pretty enough I might not dig them all up at harvest time.
And I have to confess, sounding as if I am the great gardener, we failed miserably this year, due to successive cold snaps, about 10 unannounced freezes spread over 3 months, doing in the beans, the sweet peas, the sugar snap peas, our morning glories, the moonflowers, you name it, plus the heuchera: if it tried to grow in pots, the cold found a way to get it. We have a little outdoor greenhouse: one night it would be cold enough to get most everything that had come up from seed, and once we were congratulating ourselves it was living through the freezing nights, we’d get one day of concentrated sun that fried whatever didn’t die of cold. We are going to get more clever next year, and BUY bean plants…we love fresh green beans. We can’t have many tomatoes (allergies); and we’re allergic to onions. The upside down strawberry container is a bust. But I am determined to get something going in the bean or squash department by next summer. We’re good on ponds and pretty good on trees…but this year has been a real roller-coaster in the weather department.
I always buy little plants – I am not organised enough to grow from seed. this year I have broad beans, runner beans, peas are finished, cherry tomatoes, cut and come again salad )oh yes, that was seed this time!), flat leaved parsley everywhere as I allow it to seed, the usual herbs, but my thyme is in fat cushions this year – and salad potatoes in tubs – the tubs were my birthday present from an old friend. I have a perfectly good garden, but grow everything in pots out of laziness, and because most of it is laid down to wild flower meadow for the insects and birds. one of these days I’ll get around to raised beds for veg. daughter has tomatoes and pickling cucumbers all grown from seed on every windowsill and in the back yard (yard means about a square yard of concrete) of her tiny terraced house with no front garden in Bristol.
So hot and dry this year, we got two peppers and everything died outside. I am managing to keep a tiny sprig of catnip alive in the kitchen window (even though it’s E-glass) and other than that we have total FAIL this year on the veggie front. I wonder if I could put a row of buckets in my bedroom against the back window and have tomatoes through december…
There are a few ifs on the horizon for us gardeners: maybe the Classics majors are right and the Earth’s weather goes bonkers for about 50 years around every 500 years: it generally does…or has, so far. Brought down troubles on Sumer, Akkad, Egypt, Greece and Rome, the dark ages, you name it—every 500 years, and we just passed 2000 AD. The only reason civilization didn’t go down in the BC/AD year (which was a 500 year) is because the Romans were doing global transport, taking from areas of plenty and shipping to areas of drought and problems: ditto us, global transport—we have the power to even things out. So they weathered the BC/AD one, but come 500 AD, and there was no Empire to fix things. You can about set your watch by it in the ancient world—every 500 years, there’s a hiccup in the weather.
But maybe it’s global warming. Could be: the Earth’s been melting for 12,000 years (last ice age) and we’ve finished things up with a bang, so we could see real weather nastiness…
… or maybe it’s just a particularly nasty El Nino/La Nina oscillation, credited with wiping out the PreColumbian cities…oops, or was that a 500 year event. Yep. Coulda been. Or maybe the oscillation is what’s going on with the 500 year cycle, until it goes slightly berserk and runs amok for a few years. Way many questions, like—is our sun a variable with a 500 year period? or do we dive in and out of the galactic disk on that rhythm, or, or, or…is it automobiles?
Whatever it is, if we do reach a number of decades of unstable weather, that’s not going to stop us who love to tinker with pots. We just have to become craftier and not rely on Mother Nature to play nice.
I found out something from my marine tank guy: if you are growing plants, and want to do it indoors, get a 150 watt or larger of those fancy ‘Dairy Queen’ lights—they work as grow-lights. They run cooler, they use less power, and they grow plants. Just a heads-up.
Next year I’m doing some basement gardening until the weather makes up its mind.
Just curious, and I haven’t done research since there aren’t any suppliers nearby. How about hydroponics? I don’t know how big an area you’d need, but I’ve seen pictures of small-scale hydroponic gardens. Well, maybe I should shut up until I do some more research.
A lot of tomatoes sold in northern Europe during winter are grown in hydrophonic wats and based on that experience I’d say it’s not worth the trouble – the sad veggies taste next to nothing. They need real soil and real sunlight to acquire taste AND nutritional value.
yes, I try not to eat tomatoes until they are in season at least in the med, if not here in the UK
I did watch a short film from England on setting up a hydroponic garden. It looks daunting at first, especially since organic gardening is pretty much dig a hole, put the plant in the hole, pack the soil back around the plant, water, and step back. There is a lot of equipment, but I believe it’s reusable for just about everything you’d want to grow. I suppose tomato plants and peppers of all types might do well in hydroponic gardens. I don’t believe you would want to try planting zucchini, though.
CJ, I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the “Dairy Queen” lights. I’ve seen the large “grow lights” at a hydroponic gardening store in Virginia Beach, but don’t know if that’s what you meant.
What they’re selling for replacement household bulbs nowadays. The superefficient lights, that have a curled fluorescent as the bulb. They look like a Dairy Queen softserve ice cream cone. In higher wattage they make good cheap-er grow lights without the layout for the fixture: they even make them for outdoor spotlights.
Ah, the ones I have in my recessed light fixtures in the kitchen. Yep, now I know what you mean.
I have an old glass-doored Pepsi refrigerator that I use to start plants in. It is in a unheated room, but I put grow lights on the top rack and just put plants on the shelves under it. The high intensity florescent grow bulbs put off just enough heat to keep them from freezing and if they get too hot I crack the door.
The compact florescents or “dairy queen” bulbs work, but to maximize productivity you have to know the wavelength or kelvins they put out for the plants you are growing. Some like more red others blue. Timer switches are good too, plants usually don’t like more than 18 hours of direct light on them.
Very true. I use the dairy queen bulbs on water plant, which ‘scrubs’ my tank water in the sump. And definitely timers. Mind, too, too large an operation and the local constabulary may wonder WHAT you’re growing: no few marine tank folk have had to answer questions, and the police are always very happy to know you’re raising green beans, not illegal things.
True hydroponics are a bit dicier than a container garden: you really are crossing the line between gardening and aquariums. I’d say go for a container-garden. Look at things you like but hate to pay what they’re now charging, and ask if you can do it in your garden or basement or on your patio.
That glass doored fridge sounds wonderful! Broken aquariums, that won’t hold water past a certain level. Or an old coffee table that can, by removing the glass, hold a tub: you can turn it into a piece of furniture—I say coffee table, because I turned one into an aviary by nailing a tree amid it and doing a plexi ‘phone booth’ that fitted down into the quarter-round molding I put around it. It had a furniture finish and ended up looking pretty good. Instead of a tree for birds, it could easily hold a tomato vine and grow light and keep kitty at bay all at once. 😉