Growing Your own Food

[Comeback Kid]

you got acess to the roof?

[apathy maybe]

Firstly, I doubt very much you could grow all the food you needed in your apartment. Yes, you could grow some stuff in window boxes (and contend with the pollution from the air in the city of course ...), but not enough to live off.

Perhaps my advice is to start with growing herbs (parsley and so on) that are easy to grow, don't take up that much space and so on. Another thing you can do is mushrooms, they don't need much light, so you don't need to have them outside. A quick search brings up a few sites that maybe of interest http://www.onlinediscountmart.com/growing-mushrooms.html http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues/5_2000.htm and http://www.weatherlight.com/greentime/2007...-on-old-coffee/ (http://www.weatherlight.com/greentime/2007/05/08/episode-7-mushrooms-on-old-coffee/)

As Mr Kid suggests, if you have access to the roof you might be able to put even more plants in.

(One final thing, organic is good, but so long as you cook and wash your food, you shouldn't have to worry about pesticides. That said, GM (GE) foods aren't labelled in the USA so if you are worried about them...)

[rouchambeau]

My dad told me of a way to grow potatoes in a barrel. I think he said that one would have to fill the whole thing with sawdust (or whatever organic material you may have) and plant the potatoes through little holes cut through the sides of the barrel.

[redcannon]

soybeans are good. there a stock, so they give a high yeild while taking up little floor space. they have a lot of protein and antioxidents, as well as iron. potatoes are good to grow if you have roof access, they don't require much attention. also, perhaps some onions that can be grown on a window ledge.

other then that, its pretty hard growing food in your location, and i really don't think you'll be able to grow all of the food that you need to survive. however, growing some of your own food is good because it reduces your spending and, ultimately, your dependence on capitalism.

good luck, comrade!

[Genosse Kotze]

Thanks everybody for the advice. I do have access to the roof, but lot's of people go up there to bask in the sun and chill, so I'm sure I'd get complaints about turning it into a farm. But I'm looking to avoid GM foods so however I go about this I guess I'll have to get my seeds from abroad. What about mushrooms? I know nothing about what's involved in growing them but I remember hearing that they don't need that much light so maybe there's a way I could grow the most food in a limited amount of space.

[Lunar]

I live in apartment in the city and right now growing broccoli, kale, some berbs, carrots. (Also did spinach) Container gardening is the way to go. You can grow food all year round. Some plants do better in the winter (like cabbage and broccoli and kale)
Wheatgrass, which is one of the most nutrient dense plant( not technically a plant) can easily br grown on a counter top space.
My neighbor grew plants in his closet using halogen lights.

[Comrade Marcel]

Why are you worried about cancer? Do you think life for you is going to be so good under capitalism that you actually want to live over 76?

[Kurt Crover]

Originally posted by [email protected] 02, 2007 07:05 pm
I live in apartment in the city and right now growing broccoli, kale, some berbs, carrots. (Also did spinach) Container gardening is the way to go. You can grow food all year round. Some plants do better in the winter (like cabbage and broccoli and kale)
Wheatgrass, which is one of the most nutrient dense plant( not technically a plant) can easily br grown on a counter top space.
My neighbor grew plants in his closet using halogen lights.
what's container gardening? Is it actually just putting stuff in pot plants around your apartment or something? Forgive my ignorance, but I would quite like to grow some stuff too.

[silentprotest]

I heard somewhere that you can live off growing food in 3 square meters of land, you just have to plan out the year, so you get food all year round, and things are being planted all the time. Like crop rotation. The only problem I could see is that since you live in a flat, if you are planning to use soil/compost or whatever, it is going to weigh a hell of a lot, and may put too much stress on the floor.

Good luck though mate.

[Lunar]

Originally posted by Kurt Crover+June 03, 2007 12:13 pm--> (Kurt Crover @ June 03, 2007 12:13 pm)
[email protected] 02, 2007 07:05 pm
I live in apartment in the city and right now growing broccoli, kale, some herbs, carrots. (Also did spinach) Container gardening is the way to go. You can grow food all year round. Some plants do better in the winter (like cabbage and broccoli and kale)
Wheatgrass, which is one of the most nutrient dense plant( not technically a plant) can easily be grown on a counter top space.
My neighbor grew plants in his closet using halogen lights.
what's container gardening? Is it actually just putting stuff in pot plants around your apartment or something? Forgive my ignorance, but I would quite like to grow some stuff too.[/b]
Container gardening is pretty much that. Instead of having your garden in the earth, it's in 5 gallon buckets, trash cans, bathtubs (outside), window boxes, anything to hold the dirt. I know this lady who made a miniature greenhouse off her balcony.It's not too hard. Some plants can be grown indoors, some do better with outside. One thing to remember about container gardening is that you have to make sure you water those plants. Containers can dry out a lot quicker.
I have a small roof access, where i keep some of my food at. I mean, i still forage and dumpster dive and occasionally buy, but it's nice to say that I grew some of my own food. It's a skill that will never get outdated. Do what you can. Even growing just a few plants is aweseome.

[seicer]

Make sure that your apartment can support the weight. A cubic feet of soil should weigh in around 75 lb.; watered down, it should be around 80 lb.

While you can grow foods inside your place, I would stick with just growing herbs. Buying organic at local co-ops or farmers markets is probably your best bet.

[Kurt Crover]

I mean I don't have a lot of room, and I wanna start off something small to grow before I start growing more stuff. I know I haven't said it very well, but I've never grown my own food before so I might fuck it up so I just wanna start somewhere small. Cheers :D

[dannie]

Growing vegetables is not that hard and a great way to enjoy food, some soil and the sun is all you need. Best thing of all is you'll know exactly what you're eating and there's no need for harmful chemicals.
A lot of them are quite easy to grow without a lot of work.
You can place different kinds of lettuce in pots, you can still plant them out now. I put them in pots because they aren't affected by bugs and slugs that much, but full ground is okay too. Loose leaved lettuce is pretty handy if you're living alone or with a couple of people. You can just go out, cut the leaves you need of and eat them, the whole summer long. Of course one wont last you.
Zucchini is another simple one, it'll grow almost everywhere providing you live in a temperate climate, we put them on our compost heap, let them grow for a couple of months, only checking them for bugs. They grow massive too.
Carrots is good too, easy to grow, you can sow them several times a year.

You could check some sites but most packets of seed contain directions on how to sow, when to sow and under what conditions the veggy grows best.

edit: A good preventive measure for slugs is to dig some shallow containers (1inch of so) and fill them with beer. Every slug's an alcoholic, it's just a shame they die from it.

[seicer]

Apartment or a house with some land? A cubic feet of soil should weigh in around 75 lb.; watered down, it should be around 80 lb. Just remember that if trying to grow it indoors...

[Kurt Crover]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 06:55 pm
Apartment or a house with some land? A cubic feet of soil should weigh in around 75 lb.; watered down, it should be around 80 lb. Just remember that if trying to grow it indoors...
I have a garden/back yard.

[Trent Steele]

Potatoes are a good choice. They don't need really good soil to florish, and you get a very high yield from small patches of ground, they're generally very easy to grow and there are loads of things you can do with them while cooking. You might want to try carrots or turnips (which are a really underrated foodstuff, check them out). Stay away from things like broad beans, which are quite hard to grow and need wooden frameworks to gorw over, and things that produce their fruit above the ground, as birds will eat them and you need to cover them with netting to stop them.
Oh, and don't, whatever you do, eat the green tomato-y things that grow on potato plants, they're poisonous (but don't let that put you off growing potatoes).

EDIT: If you want lots of space to grow stuff see about getting an allotment. In the UK, local councils are in charge of renting out allotments and do so at nomial rates (it's £5 a year where I live, for any sized allotment, and they get really big).

[Kurt Crover]

where I live there is an allotment that some guy had but I think he moved away so it reverted back to the council but now I won't even be able to get in there with all the weeds and plants and stuff that's no grown in there. Lots of rats and squirrels in there as well.

[Rage Against Right]

Lentiles and stuff are really simple to grow and provide a good source of protein also things like alfalfa is good to, specially if you have limited space just a glass jar by a window

[dannie]

if you use glass jars, a good idea is to cover them in black plastic. I love to see roots grow, but roots don't like light so a translucent (sp?) jar will make the plant yield less.

[Kurt Crover]

I mean with the space I have, it's physically impossible to sustain myself from growing food, I just want to grow a few little things, lentils seem like a good idea. So do herbs. I'm getting hungry.