Gardening for City Dwellers
As things become more difficult to buy amid the corona / covid-19 crisis, you may want to consider growing some veggies or herbs & spices yourself. The folks in the country are probably laughing, but for us city dwellers it’s a different thing. So here are my ideas on gardening for city dwellers as I’m trying it out, too.
Living in a city, most people have balconies, as do we. I have tried many things on our balcony, like tomatoes, peppers, grapes and normal plants. To say the least, it is difficult to grow things there. We have southern exposure and very reflective building accross the street. That unfortunately means that the sun beats down on the plants mercilessly. Only the toughest ones make it. Honestly, it drives me crazy. We don’t normally have problems with plants. As a matter of fact, I think we actually have green thumbs, but for some reason everything is different on our balcony.
This is the situation on our balcony right now. However, I’m going to try again and share my experiences with you.
I think here the key to success is shade. So I have ordered some awning which we will set up as soon as it arrives. Until then we will continue prepearing everything.
Last fall one of our balcony trees unfortunately died, so we have a huge plant pot ready to use. Otherwise you could order one or two.
In addition I was lucky to find some earth/top soil on sale last time I had to do a shopping run. They also had a small selection of seeds which I immediately grabbed (obvi). Once everything is set up we will plant them.
Also we are going to put the old and sprouting sweet potatoes to good use. I want to use one of the big pots and hope there will be plenty of sweet potoatoes soon. We will try the same with normal potatoes.
I also took some cutting from the basil I bought a couple of months ago. It is still going so I thought I should try and grow more. I have done this before with mixed results. They have not turned out like the store bought ones, so far, but I’ll keep trying.
At least basil you can grow inside as well. It grows well with good light, but no direct sunlight. And it needs regular water as do most herbs & spices.
Hopefully soon our balcony will start looking more like this. I will keep you updated on our gardening for city dwellers.
