When I moved into my current apartment I was thrilled to discover there was a patio included in our living space. It's actually pretty sizable, although mostly concrete. There's a dirt edging the concrete and I instantly thought about planting a garden! I'd gotten so far as to put in flower bulbs through most of the before I realized how much fun it would be to start a vegetable garden!
Of course once I had this idea I'd had these dreams of growing enough to just have mounds of fresh leafy greens at my disposal. I'd have beets and radishes spilling out of my vegetable crisper and I'd give them away to friends and family who would be duly impressed.
Turns out growing things from seed during an El Nino year, with limited sunlight at all and poor light in the yard doesn't yield a lot in the way of beets and carrots and radishes, However, I've been having some decent luck with lettuce and chard (not from seed) in a planter box. This picture is my first chard harvest. Weeks of growing and some monetary investment went into producing these leaves that were enough for....one side dish to serve...one. ME! Ha! Not exactly the bonanza of fresh produce I was hoping for!
I just read a great article (thanks Dave!) about a man in Brooklyn running an experiment to see if he could live off his backyard for a month. And he did! Sort of.. .enough for one meal a day for 3 weeks, after spending $11,000 -
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37273/
I'll admit even after reading this I still have dreams of having enough tomatoes to make jars of sauce, or enough peppers or squash to preserve for the winter. After all I'm not trying to LIVE off a home garden, and at least I feel better knowing that my parents' garden ALREADY produces enough fruit to make tons of jam. But I'm jazzed to keep on with my experiments in vegetable gardening in a bigger, sunnier space. I think the key will be to aim for plants with higher yields.
Wish me luck!
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