Off the Urban Grid

How to Vegetable Garden… When You Live in an Apartment

March 6, 2009 – 1:18 am by Lindsay

All right, you’re down with eating healthy organic food, and you’re ready to start a vegetable garden of your own, because let’s face it: Whole Foods gets pretty darned expensive after a while (okay, it’s expensive the first time you go too).

The only problem? You live in an apartment or condo with no yard. Eep. How are you supposed to grow anything in those conditions?

Well, you know what they say about wills and ways…

Vegetable Garden Options for Folks Without Yards

1. Rent a plot in the community garden

Community gardens have been around in many cities for a long time, but with economic times getting tough, there’s even more call and more and more options are becoming available.

Google your city + “p patch” or “community garden” to see if there’s something in your neighborhood. Prices are usually very affordable, and you often have access to rototillers and other fancy farm and garden equipment you might not have, even if you did have a yard of your own.

Renting a patch in a community garden is also a great way to meet like-minded folks in your neighborhood.

2. Find a neighbor willing to let you use their lawn

Just because you live in an apartment doesn’t mean everyone around you does (okay, it might if you’re in a really dense urban spot, but many of us live in mixed residential areas with houses and apartments/condominiums). See if you can impose on a neighbor or family member in order to start a garden in a corner of their yard. You could always bribe them with a share of your harvest!

3. Garden on your balcony

If you’ve got a balcony that gets nice sun exposure, you could do quite a bit of container gardening right there. Strawberries, herbs, tomatoes, beets, carrots, and salad greens can all be grown in pots. Shoot, you can even get some zucchinis and cucumbers going.

Note: for vegetables, you do need a lot of sunlight, so a southern exposure would be best.

4. Garden on the roof

No balcony? No grass? No neighbor with a yard? If you’re in a high rise apartment building, maybe you’ve got a flat roof. If nobody goes up there, and it’s in good repair (and not in the shadows all day), maybe your landlord wouldn’t mind you going up there and laying out a few pots.

If you live in a condo and have a say, go to the board meetings and see if you can get your community on board with a multi-family condo-community garden up on the roof. With raised garden beds and pots, you won’t permanently damage the structure… you’ll just have some work on your hands hauling the materials (and all that dirt!) up to the roof.

5. Partake in some “guerrilla gardening”

If none of these options are working for you, or you just want more (free) room to garden, you can always start a vegetable garden on a vacant lot. People have even been known to harvest years’ worth of vegetables before the lot owners realized anything was going on. Chances are your garden is prettier than whatever out-of-control weeds were growing up all over the place there anyway.

Some folks even plant fruit trees in hidden nooks of parks. More park trees ought to drop cherries, plums, figs, apples, and pears for visitors anyway, right?

There you go: five ways to start a vegetable garden even if you live in an apartment or condo. Now hurry up and get to planning… Spring is almost here!

Tags: gardening, vegetable gardens