Growing Your Own

I've written extensively on this blog about the joys of local eating, but mostly my experiences thus far have centered on food from the farmers' markets or from restaurants that use local sources.

This spring, despite the fact that the outdoor space around my apartment consists of two very small "decks", and please note that I use that term loosely - two people can fit uncomfortably on them at once - I decided to try my hand at growing some of my own food.

Another "feature" of our apartment is that it gets very little sun. No worries, though. A trip to a few plant sales and some conversations with knowledgeable farmers yielded several veggies that would do just fine with limited sunlight like lettuce, arugula, radishes, parsley, and cilantro.

My porch runneth over

I purchased some starts, which are young plants, and thus far have had a bounty (okay a few salad's worth, but it's a start!) of my own homegrown veggies.

Container gardening is a great way to make use of limited growing space and the lessons learned in my mini-plot will stand me in good stead when I have the space for a real garden.

For more on urban gardening, check out this recent post I wrote for Earth911.