Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Apartment Gardening

While living in an apartment has its benefits, one big downside is the lack of sunny, plant conducive places that lend well to gardening. In many cases, apartments have fire escapes or small balconies that are so great to take advantage of if you are yearning to put your green thumb to good use! For those of us who don’t have that luxury, it is necessary to find other spaces to utilize.

Not only is gardening a productive pastime, as it can lead to producing food that you may incorporate into your daily life, having plants in your living space can lead to improved air quality (especially important for apartments that may be sharing ducts-central air/heating) and improved attitudes. There is also the potential to teach little ones about responsibility surrounding a plant. Because plants are living things that need food, water, sunlight (and lots of patience!) they are a perfect introduction for kids to learn the responsibilities that may surround a future pet…say hamster, reptile, or even dog. But I digress…

My introduction to apartment gardening began about a year ago. Last year when I moved to my apartment I brought with me three, very leafy, tomato plants and one very leafy basil plant. The basil plant thrived even indoors (see in the center, there? Awesome!)

Thriving basil plant!
and eventually went to seed before I could use all of the delicious leaves, but the tomato plants had to be kept outside. My landlords are very particular about having a “presentable” exterior to their apartment complex and while I think that there would be nothing more presentable than a slew of pots and raised beds, they disagree. I was able to find an area outside that is hidden from the road but still receives about 4-5 hours of direct and indirect sunlight a day. Then my tomatoes died. They were scorched by one dry, hot weekend that I wasn’t able to water them.

This year I’m not trying my luck with tomatoes, instead I thought I would try a native plant (wild bergamon) and a few different types of peppers. One jalapeno, a lipstick (sweet non-bell), a Spanish mammoth (mild), and a sweet bell pepper. My school’s Botany Club has a fundraiser to sell the started plants, so that took out some of the guesswork and I was able to take and repot my plants. Hopefully these guys will be a little more heat-tolerant, especially since this summer is already keying up to be a warm one! While these will stay outside in my hidden corner with the bike rack, there are a couple of plants I keep inside on my small window sill.
My four pepper varieties and the native Wild Bergman in the lower left corner


Last year I found a great window planter at Ace that was only about $7.00, I had planted an Aloe variety plant and a few other plants that I had bought (as another fundraiser) in this planter but by this year only the Aloe was still alive. I scrapped the Aloe plant (sorry!) and wanted to try something new. Queue tangent… On March 26th, 2011 my boyfriend proposed. The ring came in a box made of seed-implanted paper, and the invoice, information card, envelope, etc. were all made of the same seed-implanted paper. I really want to try to incorporate the wildflowers that will (hopefully) grow into my bouquet for the wedding next year, and I finally got around to planting the paper. My hope is that in a month’s time, the little wildflowers will start poking their sprouts out of the soil yearning for a little more sunlight.


a Japanese Yew on the left and my planter with the seed-implanted paper

This seed-implanted paper is a whole new experience for me so I will let you know how it goes! Do you do any apartment gardening? If you do, what have you been able to successfully (or unsuccessfully!) grow? I’d love to hear from you!

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