Hey Frens,
Welcome back to The Natural Life where we talk about everything in the back yard, on the homestead, and getting back to a natural life. It’s been another wild and crazy week to say the least, and we’re blasting through the month of October. September/October are two of the nicest months in my neck of the woods. I’m really enjoying being outdoors, and I hope you have had an opportunity to get outside and enjoy nature.
There has been a fairly new jungle member by the name of Bowtied ScapeGOAT, popping up in my twitter replies and I noticed he’s very knowledgeable in small back porch style gardening. This is something I’m really interested in, so I asked him to write us up some alpha on the matter. I’d like to introduce… @bowtiedfallguy.
INTRO
Hello Frens! First, I’d like to thank Farmer for the opportunity to do a write up on gardening with space limitations and share with his followers. We’re going to be covering the basics of gardening with limited space. Not everyone has acres upon acres of land to grow the foods we need.
According to the latest census information, 80% of the US population live in urban areas. That means the majority of us have little to no room for gardening and a recipe for NGMI disaster. That being said, I can produce enough vegetables to provide for my family on less than 200 square feet of ground. We even yield enough to sell some and give a good amount away to friends / local food pantry.
There are a whole host of reasons to grow your own food. These include: homegrown food is beneficial to your health, food security (never have to eat bugs if you can grow your own food), knowing what is actually in your food, homegrown food tastes better than store bought and homegrown food is more fresh without any preservatives. Save your USTT for investing in crypto, etc.; the list goes on.
So let’s dig into “ScapeGoat’s tips to Urban Farming” and get you into the WAGMI column.
CONTAINER GARDENING
Just because you don’t have ample yard space for a garden doesn’t mean you can’t grow your own food. This just means you have to get more creative with your space. So whether you have a small courtyard, a porch, or even just a balcony at your condo/apartment, container gardening allows you to utilize limited spaces.
Basically anything that will hold dirt and allow water to drain out through the bottom could be used as a container for your plants. The size of your containers will depend on what you are looking to grow but as a general rule, 5-gallon containers would be the minimum size for veggies. I prefer the 10-gallon but your space may not permit that and a 5-gallon will suffice. This will give you the width and depth requirements of your soil for growing a long list of delicious foods.
Some popular types of containers along with the pros and cons for each are as follows:
DECORATIVE CLAY/CERAMIC
PROS: aesthetically pleasing, durable, many different styles and sizes, can be found at any hardware / big box stores, incorporated into the style of your space.
CONS: expensive💸, heavy, fragile, clay will degrade after a few years and become brittle from the elements, root bound plants.
PLASTIC NURSERY/LANDSCAPE POTS
PROS: least expensive, reusable, extremely durable, lightweight, stackable for easy storage, can buy in bulk, many different sizes from 3” up to 20+ gallon.
CONS: not visually appealing, easily blown over with taller plants, containers get hot if in full sun which will lead to quicker moisture loss and possibly plant stress, root bound plants, and not available in most stores.
FABRIC POTS
PROS: ScapeGoat recommended, very durable, reusable, many different sizes, collapsible for easy storage, lightweight, sewn on carry handles for moving around easily, WON’T get root bound plants due to air pruning from the breathable fabric
CONS: more expensive than the plastic pots (but still won’t break the crypto stacks w/ avg cost around $3/ea), more frequent watering, ideal to place on hard surface not ground as roots will grow thru bottom-place on top of plywood if you must, have to be careful when moving plants as pot will flex and possibly loosen rootball of plant (easily avoidable, just don’t manhandle the things ya fucking giga Chads, this ain’t Ox’s workout regiment)
5 GALLON BUCKETS
PROS: lightweight, fairly inexpensive, fairly durable, reusable, can carry with one hand, stackable.
CONS: UV will deteriorate buckets and make brittle, taller plants will interfere with handle use, have to drill holes in bottom for drainage, root bound plants.
***With any of these containers you will want to stake your plants that produce heavier fruits. This will ensure they don’t flop over/break in the wind. Nothing worse than growing a plant all season only to be damaged/lost when full of delicious produce because of a summer storm blowing through.
GET CREATIVE IN YOUR SPACE
With limited space you have to think outside the box. Very tight space restraints will require you to go vertical.
A simple setback tiered shelving system is great if you only have a few square feet of room to work with. You can build these cheaply for functionality or go all in with ornateness to add some pizazz to your space. That choice is up to you Anon.
You can also hang the plants from the ceiling. Recommend altering heights so canopies don’t crowd each other if growing multiple hanging plants.
If you have a patio with a knee wall you can place pots on top of the wall or even place around the patio. My wife loves me for this😬, I built her a beautiful stone wall and patio just to place all my pepper plants on. Sorry babe, WAGMI and I need that space to guarantee it!
If you want to go full on degen you can repurpose an old bathtub for a “conversation starter” container to grow on your front porch. Get weird and creative with your projects, you’re trying to be a degen after all.
The only limitations you have are with your ability to be creative and think outside the box. Don’t feel like you are constrained to growing your food IN the ground. Container gardening opens up many possibilities for limited spaces and not just for veggies, it is very popular with flowers as well!
TRELLIS GARDENING
Another form of vertical growing is the use of a trellis. A trellis can be used on most vine plants like grapes, pole beans, cucumbers, etc. It can be a freestanding trellis or one attached to a wall.
This is a huge space-saver and also increases yields by at least 2x. From my experience. A trellis is an inexpensive and easy project to tackle, even for a beginner. All you need is two anchor points to secure your trellis material between them.
The potential material list you can use for your trellis is extensive. Some potential items are: wood, old chainlink fencing, plastic snow/construction fencing, rope/string, or any type of netting. I’ve used bamboo stalks strung between two rough cedar logs for a wall of Clematis vines. Both of these materials were sourced for zero cost. Below is a pic before the plants took it over.
Make sure the material is strong enough and the anchor points are sufficient to support your mature fruits. As an example, cucumbers can get heavy so you’ll want something that can withstand the weight of a few dozen cucs. I made mine by welding two frames to door hinges so I could deviate the width depending on space requirements. After welding up the frames I attached green plastic netting to them for my plants to grow on. Huge success with cucumbers on this trellis.; never yielded so many when growing just on the ground.
***PRO-TIP: if using an A-frame trellis you can plant shade tolerant plants in the void below it***
Wall Gardening
Just like all the other methods shown above, going vertical can transform an otherwise useless space into part of the decor and add functionality. This method will require minimal (if any) square footage of valuable floor surface in your limited space. Again, think outside the box and get as creative or weird as you see fit anon.
Hope you all enjoyed the read and learned some valuable information. My DM is open for any questions about your limited space garden project you may have.
BowTiedScapeGOAT @BowTiedFallGuy
Well there you have it frens, a complete guide to growing food with limited outdoor space. I’m glad you joined us and remember, we all gone make it!
Your Fren,
Farmer