Tips For Vegetable Gardening In Small Spaces

Vegetable gardening is all the rage right now, rivaling the once ubiquitous Victory gardens during the Depression. 

Times are different today in that many people don’t have huge garden plots since they live in an apartment or condo. Limited space shouldn’t be a deterrent to growing your own produce, however.

Flowers and veggies 

If you have sun, you can have an edible garden on a roof, terrace, stoop, window box, or even in a bowl of water on a sunny kitchen window sill. Flowers in your window box? No problem. Try tucking in some salad greens. 

You could direct sow kale in the spring in your annual flower pots that keep on producing until late fall. You can also grow edible flowers such as calendula, dianthus or nasturtium. 

Exchange the pansies for various herbs or intermix herbs with annuals that are similar in watering and sun needs. Don’t forget, you can also eat many of the herb blossoms too. 

Try intermixing some of the colorful beet, carrot or Swiss chard varieties in with your annuals or even on their own.

Go vertical!

Try vertical gardening. With only a very small space, you can grow cucumbers, squash, peas, and beans vertically. You can buy or make your own trellis system from repurposed items or those found at the local thrift store.

You can even fashion a vertical garden from a hanging shoe bag. Hang it from the lanai railing or nail it up against the sunny wall of a fence.

Regrowing your vegetables

Cut back on your food waste. You can regrow any number of vegetables from kitchen scraps in a bowl of water, some of them more easily than others, but all fun experiments.

Easily regrown are green onions, garlic chives, cabbage, and romaine, but there are a number of others that can be rooted in water and then planted in soil.

So, you see, there is no excuse not to grow some of your own produce! And, it’s good for the earth, your soul and your pocket book!