If you don’t have a yard large enough to contain a garden (or any yard
at all), you may think that your local supermarket and farmer’s market
are your only sources for fresh produce. But don’t load up the grocery
cart with fruit, veggies, and herbs just yet. If you have a small
townhouse yard, a fire escape, a south-facing window, or even a basement
apartment (yes, really!), you can grow enough food to save a
considerable amount of money and enjoy fresh, healthy produce.
A new book from the popular For Dummies® series will give you all
of the information you need to start growing in your small space,
ranging from different types of urban gardens to tips about pest
management, irrigation, composting, and much more.
“It’s true—with the right knowledge you can create a garden essentially
anywhere,” promises Charlie Nardozzi, co-author along with Paul Simon
and the National Gardening Association of the new book Urban
Gardening For Dummies® (Wiley, January 2013, ISBN:
978-1-1183-4035-6, $19.99). “It’s all about using proven small-space
techniques that allow you to maximize yield.”
Specifically, Nardozzi says, the name of the small-space game is
sustainability. If you want your garden to last through the years and
stay in harmony with nature, you’ll need to ask yourself questions like, Am
I being environmentally responsible? Is what I want to do economically
feasible? Is there a way I can involve my community?
Here, Nardozzi shares ten tips that will help urbanites everywhere to
create and maintain sustainable small-space gardens:
Understand sustainability. In order to create a sustainable urban
garden, you must first know what sustainable agriculture means. In
essence, it means putting as much back into the land as you take away,
so that the land can continue producing indefinitely. It also means
minimizing the use of nonrenewable resources, because by definition
these resources are finite and their use cannot be sustained
indefinitely.
“Advocates of sustainable farming – and sustainable living in general –
feel that our mainstream consumer culture is living on borrowed time,
until the day that the earth’s resources can no longer support us,”
Nardozzi comments. “Only by adopting more sustainable lifestyles can we
conserve these nonrenewable resources. Urban gardeners can employ
sustainable management practices to help gather community support and
preserve remaining open lands available in our cities for continued
agricultural and urban farming uses for the next generation.”
Know your soil conditions. Many urban gardeners are correct in
thinking they have poor soil—it’s likely to be compacted and poor in
structure and quality. Once you have selected a garden area, test the
soil to determine the soil type, pH, organic matter content, and
available phosphate and potash. Don’t let all of that jargon scare you;
you can buy soil-testing kits at garden centers or send a soil sample to
a soil-testing laboratory.
“The key to improving the soil is to do it before you begin any
planting,” Nardozzi explains. “If you incorporate the proper amounts of
organic matter and soil amendments, your soil will provide nutrients and
make air and water more available to plants.”
Compost is key. Aside from the conservation aspect of reducing
our waste, compost improves soil structure, promotes plant growth, and
helps soil store nutrients to keep them available for plants. Research
shows that plants mulched with compost are more disease-resistant and
sturdier than plants grown without it.
“Compost improves all aspects and types of soil,” Nardozzi shares. “What
organic matter you use depends on local availability and personal
preference. If you have enough homemade compost, use that. Otherwise,
check garden centers or the Yellow Pages for companies that produce
compost in bulk. Visually check the compost for weeds, insects, and
foreign material.”
Conserve water and harvest your rain. Clean water is a very
precious commodity—especially in our urban communities. That’s why,
according to Nardozzi, a sustainable urban gardener needs to employ
numerous methods and strategies to conserve water.
“From installing rain barrels and rain gardens to simply adjusting your
mowing height, there are several easy steps to reduce your water use at
home and employ sustainable conservation strategies,” he says.
Use organic fertilizers. While plants respond rapidly to chemical
fertilizers, they are carried into the soil via salts—and this part of
their chemistry threatens the living creatures that work every day to
build your soil. (Specifically, they dehydrate essential bacteria and
fungi in the soil.) Plus, the impact of chemical fertilizers is
short-lived and must be repeated often to get the same effect.
“Being a sustainable urban gardener requires you to be environmentally
responsible, and that means using organic fertilizers,” Nardozzi points
out. “Organic fertilizers add to the ecology in the soil because they
are not carried by salts and have both short- and long-term impacts.”
Know your microclimate conditions. The urban climate is
influenced by a variety of factors including solar radiation,
surrounding air temperatures, air movement, sun orientation, humidity,
topographical location, proximity to lakes or waterfront exposure, paved
surfaces such as roads and parking lots, buildings, and existing rooftop
conditions.
“Understanding how to appropriately develop your landscape to mitigate
the impacts of light and wind can help you create a microclimate that is
beneficial to the urban environment and your wallet,” Nardozzi says.
“For instance, depending on where your garden is located and how you
design it, it might help to reduce summer cooling costs and lower your
winter heating bills.”
Select “the right” plants for your area. “The right” plants are
well adapted to your urban environment and require little to no
maintenance whatsoever. Native plants are good candidates since they
have evolved and adapted to local conditions. They also tend to be
vigorous and hardy, able to withstand local weather patterns including
winter’s cold and summer’s heat.
“Once established, native plantings require no irrigation or
fertilization,” Nardozzi comments. “They’re resistant to most pests and
diseases, making them ideal for the sustainable gardener.”
Consider hydroponic and aquaponic gardening. In its simplest
form, hydroponics is growing plants by supplying all necessary nutrients
in the plants’ water supply rather than through the soil. This method
helps gardeners grow more food more rapidly in smaller areas
(greenhouses, living rooms, classrooms, and rooftops, for instance) and
to produce food in places where space, good soil, and/or water are
limited.
“In aquaponics, the nutrient solution is water containing fish
excrement,” Nardozzi explains. “Basically, it’s the integration of
hydroponics and aquaculture. Live fish are raised in a traditional fish
tank. They excrete their waste into the surrounding water, which is used
to supply nutrients to the growing plants positioned above the tank.
Because hydroponic and aquaponic gardening can be done in small spaces,
they are great options for urban gardeners.”
Minimize the costs. In order to be sustainable, you need to keep
your costs low while using as many eco-friendly products as your budget
allows (for example, energy efficient light bulbs, which have become
increasingly affordable in recent years).
“Of course, saving energy helps you save money on utility bills and
helps protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions in
the continued fight against climate change,” says Nardozzi. “Just make
sure your project is economically feasible from the outset!”
Involve your community. Whether up on the rooftop or between
buildings in a vacant lot, opportunities abound in your city to grow
together with your community. Community gardens provide a place to meet
new friends and to share gardening experiences.
“In fact, many community gardens offer workshops to help gardeners learn
about seeds, crop rotation, companion planting, and organic pest control
solutions to help keep soil and plants healthy,” Nardozzi says.
“Everybody benefits!”
“Sustainability is not an outcome; it’s a process of responsible
maintenance,” Nardozzi concludes. “In order to manage your urban
gardening practices well, you must pay careful attention to
environmental and economic factors, and involve the community. A
collaborative effort and responsible management of the city landscape
will grant you a successful and beautiful urban garden now and into the
next generation!”
Wiley
Adrienne Fontaine, 201-748-5626
afontain@wiley.com