No Room for a Vegetable Garden and #63;

No Room for a Vegetable Garden and #63;

Article by Richard Murray

Because of the uncertain economic uncertainties and due to the health alarms caused by the lax government oversight of our food suppliers, many families are now growing their own fruits and vegetables and raising their own live stock and food animals. The National Gardening Association reports that over 7 million households are now doing their own food cultivation. The major seed nurseries report a huge surge in the sales of seeds and seedlings. Jarden Home Sales, the maker of Ball and Kerr home canning supplies, has reported similar upswings in their sales as well.

Urban gardeners who wish to join this movement quite often have a particularly hard time finding space to grow a few vegetables for their personal gardens, so you have to think outside the box; you may be surprised at how much space really is available for your efforts.

There are several options available to create space for your urban garden. Most of these options can be combined or you may have to settle on just one garden style depending on the circumstances. Some options are as follows:

Raised Bed or Square Foot Gardening

Container Gardening

Indoor Gardening or Hydroponic Gardening

Lasagna or No-Dig Gardening

Straw Bale Gardening

Vertical Gardening

Raised bed gardening or square foot gardening is an intensive gardening system meaning the plants are planted close to each other. This creates a high yield garden with the various species of plants easily rotated so that a continuous supply of ripe produce is ready to be picked.

Container gardening is the growing of your plants in virtually any sort of container. The only requirements are drainage, is the container big enough to hold your plants and can the container be easily moved if necessary.

Indoor Gardening and Hydroponic Gardening can easily be utilized in most locations where there absolutely no outdoor space and also has the advantage of being a year round operation. A simple system using grow lights is the most basic way to approach this manner of growing plants and this system can easily be expanded as required or needed. The other major method is hydroponic in which the plants are grown in a soilless environment with the nutrients being delivered by a liquid such as water that has added nutrients and minerals.

Lasagna or No- Dig Gardening has nothing to do with pasta or the Italian entr