Field Guide to Urban Gardening

How to Grow Plants, No Matter Where You Live: Raised Beds • Vertical Gardening • Indoor Edibles • Balconies and Rooftops • Hydroponics

Kevin Espiritu

• Publisher: Cool Springs Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780760363973
• Topic: Ciencias biológicas
• Subtopic: Horticultura

In Field Guide to Urban Gardening, author Kevin Espiritu of Epic Gardening shares the basics of growing plants, offers tips on how to choose the right urban gardening method, and troubleshoots the most common problems you'll encounter. If you think it's impossible to grow your own food because you don't have a large yard or you live in the city…think again. There is a plethora of urban gardening options to create beautiful, productive edible gardens no matter where you live. The key to succeeding as an urban gardener is to choose the method(s) that make sense for your unique living situation and then give your plants what they need to thrive. Kevin helps you do just that. But he doesn't stop there. He also provides in-depth garden plans, from upcycled DIY projects and intensive hydroponic systems to beautiful and functional raised beds. Urban gardening is a real, growing, and important movement in today's world. This fact-packed book is your roadmap to get growing today. Urban gardening techniques featured include:

• Container Gardening
• Raised Beds
• Indoor Edibles
• Balconies and Rooftops
• Hydroponics

1

Getting Started

I know you’re tempted to dive right into the garden plans. And if you’re an experienced gardener, be my guest. But for new gardeners, or anyone in need of a brush up, check out this chapter, in which you’ll learn:

• How to audit your living space and select the right methods for you

• How plants use light, water, air, and nutrients

• Epic DIY soil mixes to fit any budget

• Whether you should start seeds or buy transplants

Understanding these foundational principles will help you be a better gardener from the very beginning. So let’s get started.

What Kind of Home Do You Live In?

To some degree, where you live will determine the limits of what you can grow. If you’re living in a cozy apartment in the middle of the city, you have fewer growing options than if you’re living in a single-family home in the suburbs. Don’t be discouraged, though. You have fewer options, but you do have options.

Apartments and Condos

If you’re living in a small apartment or condo, don’t despair. There’s plenty you can grow. The key to gardening in these spaces is making the best use of the limited space you have. Restrictions breed creativity, and I’ve found some of the most innovative gardening methods are ones created by apartment and condo gardeners.

Creative use of limited space is the key to apartment gardening.

RECOMMENDED METHODS

• vertical gardening

• balcony and patio gardening

• indoor edibles

• hydroponics

Growing vertically using rain gutters, hanging baskets, and balcony railings are all wonderful ways to squeeze delicious harvests (and beautiful plants) out of your space. If you’re adventurous, you can even set up hydroponic systems that allow you to grow just about anything you could grow outdoors in a raised bed.

Townhomes

Townhomes offer slightly more space, and thus, more options. A typical townhome is multilevel and connected to another unit on at least one side, so you’re still not completely free when it comes to outdoor growing space.

However, most townhomes have larger front and back patios, which means you can experiment with growing methods that require a bit more space. These include container gardening and raised bed gardening.

Both of these methods allow you to grow just about anything you’d normally grow in the ground and are often easier to maintain. You’ll have fewer pest and disease issues and more control over your growing environment, which means larger, healthier harvests for you.

Some of the most productive gardens are born from small rooftops.

Single-Family Homes

Finally, we get to the single-family home. Houses are the big kahuna of gardening spaces for most urban dwellers and offers the most flexibility as far as space and growing methods.

All of the methods I’ll cover in this book are available to you if you’re living in a single-family home, but I recommend picking and choosing carefully because it’s easy to be overwhelmed when starting out. Pick one or two growing methods and dive in deep instead of experimenting with all of them. You’ll have better results, and you can always add more methods as you gain growing experience.

Yard space offers a wealth of options for the small-space urban gardener, such as a classic raised bed garden.

Urban Gardening Regulation...