It doesn’t get more local than my balcony, which I’ve just adorned with a cute little herb box full of mint (as I’m not chewing gum anymore), lemon balm (because I miss not having lemons), basil (risky, I know), swiss chard (even riskier) and an organic cherry tomato plant (totally not going to happen, I don’t know why I even bought it).
I got the wooden box and brackets from Home Depot and some soil from the corner store (I meant to get some Woop! but forgot), then planted away. Unfortunately, I have no idea what I’m doing; my thumbs are the opposite of green — so, basically, red. I have red thumbs. By the time I finally crammed all five plants in, there was dirt all over my arms, pants, my two chairs, the floor and surely on the balcony below me. Even my cat looked unimpressed (then again, cats always look unimpressed).
Anyway, feel free to comment below about how my herbs will never survive. I can handle it. In the mean time, however, when it comes to flavouring my home cooking, I’m officially restricting myself to using only these balcony bits and whatever other spices I still have in my pantry (let me check: dried oregano, cinnamon, celery seed, garam masala, fenugreek, turmeric, cayenne pepper and ground coriander … I like curry, OK?). The logic is that if I can grow it on my balcony, I don’t need to buy entire bushels of it from the grocery store, which have surely been driven there by truck.
But if any of them die, you’re going to have to cut me some slack and let me try again, maybe with something like parsley instead of a friggin’ tomato plant. And I’ll gladly take any suggestions for which herbs and vegetables thrive the best in confined, smoggy and mostly shady places.
Yeah sure… fine… i will make you the bucket loads of the sweet corriander pesto. You can acceot gifts right? But I want a meal that contains fenugreek. Always wondered what that was for.
Only just discovered your web site and am not sure just how serious you are about this endeavour. If you are serious though you are going to need a much larger container than that for tomatoes. Tomatoes grow well in containers and you should get lots of wonderful tasty fruit. 100% better than from the store that’s for sure. Good luck.
Couple of things.
First, that photo of Sophie always cracks me up.
Second, I can totally relate to the gardening thing. I mostly make it up as I go along, and we have not been able to grow tomatoes either (well, we’ve really only tried one year… but, still…). I’m thinking hard about buying some herb plants; we tried from seed, and we didn’t even get sprouts! LOL!
I’ll have to do a re-post of my gardening theory from my first blog several years ago.
can a few degrees of latitude really make that big of a difference? tomatoes are one of the easiest things to grow in the northish u.s., in my experience, though anne j. is right about them needing a tad more room than that. the ease of growing is the reason we planted [six of] them this year. that and zucchini. it’s hard to mess those up around here.
anna in nyc
As you know from our videos, one of the first things we did was start a container garden. It’s fast becoming time for an update, as we’re picking our first green beans. In general, though, we’ve had…uh…mixed results. The balcony space that is bathed in sunlight is not that great, so it limits what we can grow. On top of that, we used Miracle Grow Organic Garden Soil, which we didn’t realize was *not for containters*. The soil lacks perlite, which is critical to keep up soil drainage and aeration. Surprisingly, we had fairly healthy green bean, squash, cucumber, watermelon, and okra plants and actually water sparingly because the soil has such weak drainage. As we replace plants, we’ll be fixing up the soil.
We’ve had great success with growing lavender, basil, and rosemary, too, and we generally cook with them at least once a week when I bake focaccia. We want to start looking into our native herbs, too, to find something we can cultivate and use as an alternative to hops in the beer we brew.
Gardening is a journey, so don’t get discouraged by initial setbacks. Keep at it and you’ll figure out what works for you.
I think it sounds like you’ve done good for yourself with your garden, really. The only thing I would suggest is that you watch where the sun most shines in your home and/or balcony. Especially the tomatoes and the basil really, really like sunshine and, while *QUITE* easy to grow, they will be abundant with more sun. Also, with basil, the more sun, the more leaf.
Good luck on your gardening endeavor!!
I am growing parsley, chives and coriander from seed, and they seem to be doing quite well. I keep basil at all times, but I always buy a little pot of already grown basil. I don’t know why… I just have this preconceived idea that they won’t do so well from seed.
Mint, chives and woodruff are all candidates for growing without too much sun. Tomatoes like lots of sun to ripen. Little pots dry out quickly so keep an eye on them.
Just stirred up a new batch of garam recently. Mmmmm…Indian food
That would be way too hard to give up.
Hi
I have no balcony and little direct sunlight (floor to ceiling windows though) so it’s grow lamps for me – I do have one very old (20 years?)ficus tree in NYC but I wondered if in Toronto you have something like Lower East Side Ecology Center whoch among other things sponsors composting by collecting kitchen scraps at farmer’s markets – it’s great – you can buy compost or potting soil, too – my ficus tee looooves a treat of LESEC compost, which just might have my erstwhile corn husks, radish greens etc. from teh farmer’s mkt and banana peels and coffee grounds (fair trade organic) from trader joes, I’m not perfect
[...] planet and being aware is trying to take up some level of self-sufficiency. That could be a box of herbs growing on your kitchen window to having a few days ever month where you aim to eat only food from [...]