Apartment Gardening: Plants, Projects, and Recipes for Growing Food in Your Urban Home

194 Pages·2011·2.31 MB·English

by  Amy Pennington

Table of Contents

Title Page
Acknowledgements
Introduction

Chapter 1 - Before You Begin: The Basics

Chapter 2 - Getting Grounded: Pots, Containers, Soil & Supplies
Pots and Containers
Soil
Supplies

Chapter 3 - What to Grow, For Real
Fruits and Vegetables
Herbs
Flowers
Honeybees

Chapter 4 - Seeds, Seed Starting & Propagation
Seeds

Chapter 5 - Feeding & Watering Plants
Nitrogen (N)
Phosphorous (P)
Potassium (K)
Microorganisms—The Good Bacteria
Home Composting
Watering Schedule

Chapter 6 - Recipes from the Garden
To Start
Sides
Main Dishes
Sweets
Little Extras

Chapter 7 - Do-It-Yourself Garden
HERBAL APOTHECARY
HERBAL PANTRY
LOOK AND FEEL
MAKE AND BUILD

Chapter 8 - Garden Lite
Microgreens
Sprouts
The Wild Garden: Foraged Food for the Urbanite

Resources
Index
About the Author
Copyright Page
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my daddio, Seth Dorian Pennington, Jr., for having an
insatiable verve for living off the land, so much so that in retirement he moved
himself, his lady, and a herd of goats out to the countryside of Pennsylvania and
nestled them all against the banks of a mountain-fed stream.
Thank you to the team at Sasquatch Books who kept our garden conversation
alive and well over many growing seasons—Gary Luke and Susan Roxborough.
To Michelle Hope Anderson for her patience and help, and especially to Whitney
Ricketts for yelling at me over a martini to “Write the damn book, already!”
Super big fat thank-you to the awesome design team that put their hot little
hands on this book—designer Jessika Merrill and illustrator Kate Bingaman-
Burt.
I owe a huge, huge thank-you to Patric Gabre-Kidan, one of my very best
friends and an overall Mr. Fix-It who has been the most incredible teacher over
the years. He has single-handedly taught me how to change a tire, hold a chef’s
knife properly, and build my own vegetable planter box. He is my superhero.
Thank you to John Chaffetz, who started out as a garden client, and grew into
an extraordinary friend and collaborator. Brainstorms, laughter, and good food
are never in short supply when he is around.
Big thanks and some serious neighborly love to my fellow apartment
dwellers: Katie Okumura, who always offers to water my plants when I’m gone,
and Frank Martin, who always lets me squeeze a few extra things into his fridge
when mine is (more often than not) overflowing with food. And thanks to Jacci
and Ann-Marie with whom I trade flowers and food with often. Viva La Tara!
Farm thanks to Luke Woodward and Sarah Cassidy, who run Oxbow Farm.
They taught me, early on, how to sow seed and time my plantings. They are
brilliant, and I love them.
I have so much gratitude for Lucio and Marta Dalla Gasparina, who had the
excellent idea that I should grow their Nonna’s Italian tomatoes in their yard for
them. They didn’t know they were creating a monster and lighting a spark in my
life, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Double special thanks to Lynda Oosterhuis for always sharing her cooking
secrets. She is one of the most amazing cooks I know.
As always, thank you to my family: Mom, Stacy, Seth, Gram, and the gaggle
of nieces and nephews who crack me up daily. Love and thanks to my BK
family: David, Carol, Dan, and Lil.
And finally, thank you to anyone reading these thank-yous! Your interest in
and support of all things urban farm and garden are utterly inspiring. Keep
growing!
Introduction
I am an urban gardener. Some may think of me as an urban farmer, depending on
how you differentiate between a farm and a garden. I grow food for people in
their city backyards, front yards, side yards, you name it: any patch of land in
which I can persuade food to grow. And by food, I mean greens, roots, fruits,
herbs, flowers, and more. My hope is to inspire people to eat a broader range of
food and flavors than they are used to. I also want to evoke a sort of small-scale
self-sufficiency in the daily lives of urbanites. People are sometimes inspired by
what I do, but I’m not especially gifted in any way. I’ve killed damn near every
houseplant I’ve ever owned, so I wouldn’t say I was born with a green thumb.
And I don’t have a lengthy résumé in agriculture or horticulture. I am no expert
at identifying plants, and I certainly don’t ever remember the Latin names.
Really, I just like food. A lot. So I want to have a steady supply of fresh and
delicious produce as often as possible. I am motivated by my hunger, and so I
grow food.
The ironic thing about my story is that, at present, I do not actually have a
garden of my own. I live in a small apartment in Seattle with no access to a
backyard, a lawn, or even green space. And though I often dream of tearing up
my assigned parking spot and building a raised vegetable bed in its place, I don’t
think my landlord would appreciate the effort. So like most city people in search
of greener pastures, I make do with what I have: in my case, an east-facing deck
that gets the first rays of morning sun. Over time, I have overcrowded this tiny
75-square-foot space with pots, containers, hanging baskets, window boxes, and
more. (I also use my dining room table as a greenhouse in the winter, which
means inviting plants to further encroach on what little personal space I have.) I
originally started with flowers and killed a good number of them. I now know
that I wasn’t watering efficiently, or the pots were too small, but at the time I just
chalked it up to a big experiment.
My relationship with plants changed when I was asked to build and plant an
organic vegetable garden for a food-loving Seattle couple. They hoped to grow
the same tomatoes their Nonna grew in Italy. While I had little firsthand
knowledge on how best to do this, I thought it sounded like an awesome
challenge, so I dug in. Putting my hands in the dirt for the first time and sowing
seeds was immediately very natural for me. I remember looking up at my friend