Urban Organic Gardener

One of the reasons that people won’t start growing their own food is that they say that it is too expensive. There are free and cheap resources out there, you just need to seek them out. Here are some ways that you can make gardening cheap, so that you can start to grow your own food. Local Department of Sanitation or Office County Extension They usually have free events or programs throughout the year where you can get free resources such as compost or mulch. This past weekend, I attended an open house held by LA’s Bureau...

I’m using the worm leachate that was produced by the Worm Factory 360 in my garden. The leachate was mixed up with 3 parts water and put into a spray bottle and the plants were sprayed down. Since my kale leaves are yellowing, aphids have infested my purple kale and cabbage worms wiped out the oak greens, I’m hoping that this will help to help both fertilize the plants and to keep the the insects away. The leachate is produced by all of the excess moisture that the worm bin has been drained out of the worm bin. This is different...

I haven’t had the best of luck on my balcony garden. The oak greens were wiped out by cabbage worms and the purple kale had an aphid infestation. Now the leaves on my kale containers are continuing to yellow. From what I’ve heard and read there a bunch of causes for the leaves of kale to yellow. It could be a lack of nitrogen, so I added coffee grinds to help with the yellow leaves. That didn’t work. I’ve also read that it could be because of poor drainage. I stopped watering them for a bit. That didn’t...

A few weeks ago the cabbage worms killed the container that had the oak greens in them. This week an aphid infestation has wiped out the container with the purple kale. The natural garden pest control worked well for a bit, but I couldn’t keep up with them. There were massive gray clumps of them on the plant each time I went out there. When I had my fire escape garden in New York City, I had no insect problems at all. In the two months that I’ve had my balcony garden, the insects have already wiped out two containers. I still...

I’m not really into gardening books because in my opinion most are boring and don’t hold my interest. This made me a bit hesitant to read Grocery Gardening by Jean Ann Van Krevelen (@JeanAnnVK) since she is a friend of mine. My beef with most gardening books is that they are usually written for people that are already into gardening and over the heads of people who are mildly interested. This book is written for someone who is curious about growing their own food or seeking out fresh locally grown sources. You aren’t...

Here’s another creative gardening idea for those of you with limited space. It’s a self-watering container made out of a 2 liter soda bottle. This self-watering container is made out of a soda bottle, an old t-shirt (or cotton string) and some newspaper. That’s it. Hard to get much cheaper than that. I had seen the idea on Instructables a while back and have been wanting to do it since. These are just another option for you to start growing your own food besides the coconut shells, hanging soda bottle planters, cinder...

It hasn’t been a great week for my balcony garden. First the oak green leaf container was infested with little black eggs that I later learned was cabbage worm crap. Now my tomato seeds that were doing so well have all died. I had each of them planted in a plastic strawberry container. Last weekend I went away from Friday to Sunday. When I left on Friday morning, the seeds were doing well. Three of the four seed starter pots were about 2-3 inches and had some leaves. Before leaving, I watered them and decided to leave them outside....

The green oak lettuce on my balcony garden has not been doing well at all. When checking out the containers the other day, I took a closer look at it and noticed little black egg looking things that were accumulated at the bottom of the leaves. I have no clue what they are, but can only describe them as caviar looking. They didn’t budge when I poked the with a stick and there were dozens of them lining the leaves around the soil line. I have no clue what they are and if they eventually grow into anything. My assumption is that these...

I knew that in coming to LA that I would be able to have the balcony garden and was hoping to expand beyond container gardening into actual soil and land. Luckily, I’ve been able to get access to a huge (at least it’s huge to me) amount of backyard space thanks to David, a friend of Anita. He has offered up his backyard in Reseda to start gardening and growing food in. David ain’t my Gram, but his backyard is definitely bigger than hers. As of right now the space is completely overridden with weeds. When I checked it...

Yes it might sound obvious, but when you start your seeds make sure that you have a container to transplant them into. I didn’t and had a tray of dead seedlings. This could very well be one of the biggest gardening mistakes that I’ve made. Last week the seedlings were slanting a bit. This week they are all dead. A few of the pots were popped open and the roots appeared to be a bit compact causing their demise. The toilet paper roll seed starter pots are so shallow and don’t allow for much root expansion. There is about...

I had my first problems with garden insects a few weeks ago. I wound up wrestling cabbage worms and fighting aphids. Since then, it got me thinking…What would Mr. Miyagi do when faced with cabbage worms and aphids? It came to me. Mr. Miyagi would use natural garden pest control, so would I. I’ve been using chopsticks to pick the cabbage worms off the purple kale and toss them off of my balcony garden. The damage that’s been done is pretty serious. They’ve managed to chew up most of the leaves. The kale is looking...

The leaves around the base of my kale and lettuce plants are yellowing around the base. I’ve used coffee grinds as a fertilizer to help with this issue. I think two of the main culprits causing the yellowing leaves could be lack of drainage for the soil or nutrients. I don’t think it’s drainage because there are plenty of drainage holes drilled at the bottom of the self-watering containers. That leaves me with lack of nutrients as the reason. Coffee grinds are a simple and cheap way to provide the plant with the nutrition...

It’s been a little over a week since I started the experiment with planting the same set of seeds indoors and outdoors to see which would do better. There were two sets of four different kinds of seeds that were planted in toilet paper roll seed starter pots. They were leaf lettuce, basil, sunflowers and calendula. At this point, the seeds that were started indoors are performing a million times better. A million times in the sense that they’ve actually sprouted as opposed to the ones outdoors that have nothing to show. The...

After you are done with your coconut, hollow it out out and use it to plant vegetables with shallow roots in them such as lettuces and other greens. Much like the toilet paper roll seed starter pots, these are the great price of free. What you’ll need to get your coconut shell container made: Coconut shell Potting mix Seeds Spray bottle filled with water Drill with 1/4″ bit How to make a coconut shell container: Drill 2-3holes in the bottom of the shell. Drill from the inside of the shell. Fill up with potting mix. ...

I was tending to the balcony garden, taking care of the self-watering containers and spraying down the seeds when I noticed a big bit hole taken out of a romaine lettuce leaf. When I took a closer look at the leaves, I saw a little green critter on the back of a leaf. Pretty sure it was a cabbage worm that was going to town and munching on my stuff. It took a few attempts to get him (of course it’s a him, right?) off of the plant. A knife was used to get him off the leaf and he fell into the container. I was having a bit of trouble...

Now that I have some seeds directly sown and another seed experiment going on, I am trying to figure out which tomato seeds to start for my balcony garden. I have 7 packets that I received for free from WinterSown.org. You just need to fill out the form, send them a SASE and they’ll send you free seeds. Nice. I learned on my fire escape that just because they are cherry tomatoes doesn’t mean it’s going to be a small plant. I don’t want to have a tomato tree on the balcony, but would like to grow some tomatoes. A...

Last week I direct sowed carrots and mesclun lettuce into containers on my balcony garden. I’m not seeing anything coming up on them yet. This week, I’m experimenting with starting seeds indoors and outdoors to see which light works better. I don’t have any self-watering containers to direct sow into, but I have seeds. So why not get some started? For this test, I’m starting a leaf lettuce blend, basil and also some of the flower seeds that I’m going to grow – sunflower and calendula. I made seed starter...

When I started my balcony garden this year, I changed up how I was making the self-watering containers. Last year I used vinyl tile to separate the reservoir from the plant and soil. It worked well and served it’s purpose, but I learned my lesson when breaking them down. The containers froze up, and I had to wait three months until I was able to break them down. As I was breaking them down, I noticed that the weight of some of the soil and plants was causing the tile to break. This caused the plants to become to wet and not allow...

Two more self-watering containers were made and put out on the balcony garden. I started seeds in each of them. After some discussion about if it was better to start seeds indoors or by direct sowing, I decided it was best to start the carrot and mesclun seeds by directly planting them into the containers. When I started to plant the carrot seeds, I noticed that the package said, “Packaged for 2009.” It’s now mid 2010. I still planted the seeds and will see what happens. The mesclun seeds were dated for 2010, so I’m...