Urban Gardening

I was enthralled (jealous) with the CSA boxes people were getting and reporting about last year. I seriously thought about signing up for the program at a local farm. The only thing is that I live by myself. What would I do with all that produce?

I’m a gardener by profession, and ironically moved into a house that has no front yard and a shady back yard. Not ideal for growing vegetables. I do manage to eek out a couple of tomatoes, hot peppers, and herbs in containers on my back porch, though.

My boyfriend was lucky enough to buy a house last fall in Philadelphia that has a sizeable back patio. (Don’t laugh at that description and the photo.) Most Philadelphia row houses have a mere few feet between the back of one house and the back of the other house, only large enough to accommodate a trashcan and bits of junk. He was also lucky enough to not have a sun-blocking row of houses behind his house due to a diagonal ally cutting through the block, thus not affording enough room to build a second row of houses at his end of the street.

So, this year we’re turning the small raised bed on his patio into a vegetable garden. It’s not the sunniest or largest of locations, but it’s amazing what you can harvest out of small areas.

I started some lettuce seeds indoors at the beginning of March. They are currently slightly larger than the picture below, and are sitting on my fire escape soaking up sun and enjoying the recent mild weather. The lettuce should be ready to transplant some time in early April. In a few weeks I’ll start seeds indoors for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. If I get lazy, I'll purchase plants at a nursery.

I’m going to keep periodic updates on the little urban garden. Of course, if any thing fails it’s my boyfriend’s fault, because I’m only there two or three days a week. (Just kidding.) Actually, things may or may not fail for a variety of reasons: weather, pests, disease, and culture. I’m not afraid to share my failures. It happens to every one.

Hopefully, these chronicles will inspire you to try your hand at gardening – even if you live in a city without a patch of soil. Because homegrown tomatoes lead to pride and the best damn BLT's!

Edit/Addition: Lazy Gardener's Seed Starting Chart, Find your frost date.