I love the idea of container gardens for city-dwellers. Since last summer (our first summer in this apartment, and my first summer not living in a dorm or with my parents), I have desperately wanted a garden. Last summer we had a window box filled with herbs but they never really yielded enough herbs to do anything with, and since I sprouted them from Meijer seeds they were really nothing special.
This year however, I decided to maximize my space and commit a little more energy to a garden, starting with revamping my herb garden. I recently found I was accepted to a VISTA summer program in Kalamazoo called "Parent Involvement Makes a Difference"
working with the Kalamazoo Promise, which means two things for my living situation: I will be living in Kalamazoo at least until August 14th; and I will only have to work 32 hours a week, meaning I'll have more energy than last summer when I was working 40 hours a week, and then on my thesis. With that in mind I bought several herbs from the People's Food Co-op yesterday, and came up with this adorable garden.How to make your own city-dweller herb garden:
1. Look around at the multitude of possibilities to plant things in. To date I have planted lavender in a broken stein, and an African violet in a cracked French Press. I also have a rusty colander awaiting some herbs. I was frustrated by the amount of dog food cans I had, so I decided they would be my garden.
2. make sure your containers have ample drainage. I poked at least 5 holes in the bottom of each can, simply using a nail and hammer.
3. Spraypaint/decorate if you'd like. I had a can of old spraypaint left over from another project, and gave each can one of each.
4. Decide if you'd like to hang your cans/jars/containers. I used about 9" of wire, and wrapped it around each can at the top, then twisted it into a loop. Really simple, and fairly foolproof.
5. fill bottom with gravel/rocks or other drainage. Half of these are filled with broken glass, since I'm thrifty to a T.
6. Fill bottom with potting soil.
7. Plant your herbs!
8. Configure them the way you'd like. For me this meant getting Eric to nail 6 nails into our porch while I eyeballed the distance and hung herbs from them.
9. Water and enjoy!
I can't wait to see how this works out. I also planted some other vegetables in containers, but I'll blog about that soon. For now, I'm going to get the dirt out from under my nails, and say goodnight to my new garden before having a beer!
