Growing Food in Small Places

Have been lots of interesting discussions with friends who want to grow their own food but who aren't lucky enough to have an allotment or bug garden. This has inspired me to start creating a series on my blog about growing food in small spaces.

These are my first ideas on the theme of desiging a gorwing space - no matter how teeny.

http://organicallotment.typepad.com/organic_allotment/2012/02/growi...

Do you have experience of growing food on a tiny balcony or in an impossibly small yard? how did you get around the challenges your space caused and how productiove were you able to make it?

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Permalink Reply by John Martin on February 2, 2012 at 13:35

Hi Liz

when I lived in the outer Hebrides My Veg garden consisted of a very small plot measuring 10 ft by 15 ft. It was fenced all round with windbreak and what I did was grow early tatties(2 rows of) This took up 4ft. I then had 2 rows of onions and 1 of Shallots. another 3ft used up. 2 rows of carrots another 2 ft used I row beetroot 1 row letuce and 1 row brocolli. I then lifted all my early tatties in the begining of July and put in another 3 rows (2 of cauli and 1 of Brocolli) These had been startd in modules about 4 weeks earlier. Basically I was usinf spacings for raised plots and not going for size but numbers. It worked for me. The only thing Iwould say is you have to be good to the ground, plenty FYM or home made compost.

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Permalink Reply by Colin Robinson on February 2, 2012 at 16:54

For some years I lived in a terrace house in the middle of town with no garden, just a small back yard. Even so I managed to grow salad crops in assorted containers. It gets expensive if you have to keep buying in compost so I'd go out with a bucket and shovel and collect mole-hill soil from a local playing field.

Windowsills had an assortment of sprouting seeds on the go so it is always possible to grow something no matter how small the space.

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Permalink Reply by Stacy Drury on February 3, 2012 at 9:24

at my old house i use to grow veg in pots the best of the crops that did well were the Raspberrys in a pot up some caines as long as they get a bit of sun they did ok. also potatoes and herbs were also great.

I still grow alot of things now in pots still its very practical now-a-days and its a great way to get your kids involved we give them there own pot each year for them to grow what they want from whats left of my seeds this also gets them eating more veg too.

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Permalink Reply by Liz Postlethwaite on February 3, 2012 at 22:40

Such good ideas. Hope you won't mind if I copy some of these in my own garden? ;)

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Permalink Reply by Stephen Shirley on February 4, 2012 at 10:57

Not so much a small place - just an 'interesting place'.

These two pictures were taken on RMS Majestic which came into service in 1922...

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Permalink Reply by drew Adamson on February 7, 2012 at 17:12

Hi, all. My first post since finding this wonderful website ealier today. I have an allotment, which i've had for the last year, but it's a couple of miles from home, so I use my patio to grow salad crops and herbs which are needed in a hurry. I made a couple of salad boxes from an old pallet, you can make these as large or small as you like, but around 30-45 cm deep is good, too shallow and they'll dry out, too deep is a waste of compost. I'll post pictures later, but essentially they are 3 lengths of pallet straps about 60 cm long joined to form a panel, make two of those which form the sides and two at 45 cm long to form the ends. Five more straps individually form the base, screwed onto the assembled sides and ends, then a piece of weed suppressant fabric folded into the base to retain the compost. Support these on 4 or 5 bricks to aid drainage, and fill with a mix of soil and compost, even old growbag compost, with a handful of blood fish and bone mixed in. They bonus is that you can cover them in polythene to warm up the soil, getting early crops, and I also plant onion sets, one bulb almost touching another, then as they grow, remove alternate sets, using the removed ones as salad onions and allow the others to grow on for cooking use. The first year I had them, I shoved some Charlotte potatoes in which had started to sprout in the veg rack, just covered them over and let nature take its course, no need even to earth up.

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Permalink Reply by Colin Robinson on February 8, 2012 at 0:16

I like the idea of planting the onion sets so close together. I deliberately put mine about 3-4 inches apart as I don't like big onions but even closer and thinning out sounds great. As usual I've bought far more onion sets than I have space for....I have now!