Every Small Garden - self-sustaining ways to grow your own food

You're welcome SC. Another good method is the raised planter box. Now to keep gophers out staple chicken wire on the bottom of the frame before placing frame over the weed mat. Use untreated cedar because it doesn't rot. 1"x 6" board cut into four pieces each 16" long with the ends; cut at a 45 degree angle. Screw these on top of the four corners of your raised bed box, this will give it more strength.

My friend used this method of on top of the patio which is where the weed cloth is good to help contain the soil if the beds are moved later. Use deep box for carrots. We did a larger system for the yard and utilized a lasagna method to help create compost. By the way - worms love cardboard so if building on the earth put cardboard under the raised bed frame and weed mat in between to keep the weeks from growing.

Raised bed frames can also be purchased from places like Home Depot.

This is a 4x4 easy to make frame instructional video.

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Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 11/27/2012 01:31 PM

what if you live in an apartment with no balcony?

Window gardens using hanging bottles or racks along with some grow lights. Check this out.


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View Step 2
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Step by step guide for making a Hanging bottle Wall garden.

I have an outside garden, but I want to expand. With no more yard to use I am going to try the bottles!

Great. Please let us know how it works out.

You're welcome AC. The compost will need nitrogen (ashes from burnt wood) and/or pee (surprisingly enough). Put some cardboard at the bottom of the compost pile and you'd be surprised at how many worms will generated. You can also add some shredded newspaper.

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 11/27/2012 04:44 PM

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For more info, check out the About.com article:
[link to gardening.about.com]



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This is how we do Lasagna Gardening. This raised bed has leaves, straw, manure, and Starbucks coffee grounds. We love our layered gardening as it will have very few weeds. Starbucks has a program for their used coffee grounds called "Grounds for Coffee". You can pick them up their used coffee grounds for free. The worms love it!

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Yukari demonstrates how to make a balcony garden using permacultuure principals. Herbs, flowers and water feature included.

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7 Food Forests in 7 Minutes with Geoff Lawton

The Modern Victory Garden
[link to www.modernvictorygarden.com]

7 Secrets for a High-Yield Vegetable Garden
Here’s how to get the most out of your garden.

Imagine harvesting nearly half a ton of tasty, beautiful, organically grown vegetables from a 15-by-20-foot plot, 100 pounds of tomatoes from just 100 square feet (a 4-by-25-foot bed), or 20 pounds of carrots from just 24 square feet.

Yields like these are easier to achieve than you may think. The secret to superproductive gardening is taking the time now to plan strategies that will work for your garden. Here are seven high-yield strategies gleaned from gardeners who have learned to make the most of their garden space.

1. Build up your soil.
Expert gardeners agree that building up the soil is the single most important factor in pumping up yields. A deep, organically rich soil encourages the growth of healthy, extensive roots that are able to reach more nutrients and water. The result: extra-lush, extra-productive growth above ground.

The fastest way to get that deep layer of fertile soil is to make raised beds. Raised beds yield up to four times more than the same amount of space planted in rows. That’s due not only to their loose, fertile soil but also to efficient spacing—by using less space for paths, you have more room to grow plants.

Raised beds save you time, too. One researcher tracked the time it took to plant and maintain a 30-by-30-foot garden planted in beds, and found that he needed to spend just 27 hours in the garden from mid-May to mid-October. Yet he was able to harvest 1,900 pounds of fresh vegetables—that’s a year’s supply of food for three people from about 3 total days of work!

How do raised beds save so much time? Plants grow close enough together to shade out competing weeds, so you spend less time weeding. The close spacing also makes watering and harvesting more efficient.

2. Round out your beds.
The shape of your beds can make a difference, too. Raised beds are more space-efficient if the tops are gently rounded to form an arc, rather than flat. A rounded bed that is 5 feet wide across its base, for instance, will give you a 6-foot-wide arc above it—creating a planting surface that’s a foot wider than that of a flat bed. That foot might not seem like much, but multiply it by the length of your bed and you’ll see that it can make a big difference in total planting area.

In a 20-foot-long bed, for example, rounding the top increases your total planting area from 100 to 120 square feet. That’s a 20 percent gain in planting space in a bed that takes up the same amount of ground space! Lettuce, spinach, and other greens are perfect crops for planting on the edges of a rounded bed.

[link to www.organicgardening.com]

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Martin Crawford's Forest Garden Part 1


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Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 12/11/2012 03:53 PM

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[link to www.agroforestry.co.uk]

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 12/11/2012 03:56 PM

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Suburban Homesteading Edible Victory Garden Edible Estate on 1/10 of an acre

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 12/11/2012 04:03 PM

This is a great article on what can be done in this type of environment and under these circumstances.

Rooftop gardens provide food and hope for cash-strapped Palestinians
Throat-burning exhaust, blaring horns and clinging dust seem to choke the life from the Palestinians navigating the street below. But atop this overcrowded, dilapidated apartment block is a garden that bursts with cucumbers, bell peppers and strawberries - and hope. With the help of makeshift greenhouses, more than a dozen Palestinian families have started to farm on the roofs to blunt the harshness of a financial crisis that has crippled the Palestinian Authority (PA) and drained the pocketbooks of the refugee camp's 13,000 residents.

The rooftop greenhouses consist of netting and metal staves, and four, 3-metre, heavy-duty pipes. The pipes are sheared in half lengthways and laid across the roof under the nettings. They are then filled with potting soil and connected to a water tank. Photo at link


Read more: [link to www.thenational.ae]

I don't think it was mentioned here, but one very sustainable way of growing your own food particularly if you are living in a city is setting up your own little "hanging gardens" on your balcony. It's amazing how efficient this system can be. Or course you are not going to grow potatoes, tomatoes or fruit trees, but there are many vegetables, herbs and such which will do very well. There are several ways to go about it, from putting small and large pots on your balcony to literally make your vegetables grow hanging from the walls.

I am not speaking of experience I have to admit but I know this method is gaining quite some popularity in large cities here in western Europe. You'll find even roof gardens here and there which produce sizable quantities of vegetables.

There was info posted on growing your own spirulina, I believe it was here on GLP but not sure, there was even a person or group going around the country giving workshops. I just did a search to dig the info up again, maybe someone here has some especially good links to same.

Growing Food on a Windowsill – Microgreens

Winter is slowly coming to an end around here and it is nearly time to start lettuce outdoors. Until then I’ve been growing and harvesting small batches of micro-sized greens on my windowsill as a way to keep some salad fixings coming through the darkest and longest days of winter.

Microgreens are tender and tangy lettuce and mustard greens that are chopped off young, usually when they are only an inch or so high at the most and barely a few weeks old. They’re smaller and younger than baby greens, which tend to be harvested later when the plants have grown a good three inches tall or more.

It is this short growth span that makes microgreens possible to produce on even the darkest windowsills through the dingiest months of the year. Even the most beginner seed starter can take this growing project on since the plants only need to be kept alive for a few weeks tops. Unlike growing full-sized plants, it’s not the end of the world if they grow a little leggy (thin and stretchy) in the process.

Lettuce Greens to Try

Give yourself a break on the first time out by growing readymade storebought mixes that come in mild or spicy combinations. Some companies sell mixes that include the word microgreen on the package but any salad or mesclun mix can be grown this way. I like Urban Harvest’s Oriental Salad Mix (has a slight kick) and the Mild Mix prepared by Botanical Interests. Once you’ve got a taste for what you like try making your own mixes. It’s more cost effective and you can tailor make mixes that leave out any greens that don’t suit your taste buds.

Spicy: Peppergrass cress, ‘Giant Red’ mustard, radish, arugula, daikon radish, and ‘Wrinkled Crinkled’ cress.

Mild and Tangy: Tatsoi, mizuna, kale, lettuce, miner’s lettuce, and minutina.

How to Grow

They’re not particularly attractive, but I grow mine in recycled plastic takeaway containers and clamshell packaging. They’re always on hand and tend to be the right size for the windowsill. To prepare, simply punch 5 or 7 drainage holes (I always go for odd numbers) into the bottom of a 9″ x 7″ package using an awl, sharp pair of scissors, or knife. Fill ‘er up with well-moistened container mix, potting soil, or seed-starting mix to within an inch or so from the top. Evenly distribute a thin layer of seeds, sprinkling them over the soil surface with about 1/8″ to 1/4″ of space between them. Cover the seeds with a thin layer of soil, about 1/8″ deep. Set it in the sunniest window you’ve got with the lid of the clamshell placed underneath as a drip tray. Water in well to get them germinating.

Sprouts at about the one week mark.

Keep the soil moist like a wrung-out sponge but not soaking wet. To avoid over-watering, dunk out any water that is still in the drip tray within an hour of watering. Microgreens can be harvested with a pair of scissors in 1 1/2-2 weeks depending on how large you want to grow them. I generally let mine grow until the moment their first set of “true leaves” begin to peek out. The first leaves you see are called “seed leaves” since they are actually a part of the seed. “True leaves” are the second set to appear and often look very different than the seed leaves.

Starting Again

Unfortunately, unlike when growing baby-sized and mature greens, you can not grow a second crop from the same stems. This is because the plants you are harvesting are essentially sprouts. Second crops grow from the upper part of the stem above the leaves, and these are harvested on the lower part of the stem below the leaves. The bad news is that you will have to start over with fresh seeds to produce another crop. The good news is that you can reuse the pot and soil if there were no problems with disease or pests on the first go-around.

To prepare for another crop, simply yank the remaining roots and stems out of the soil, toss them in the compost bin, and till the remaining soil with a fork. Sprinkle on a fresh layer of seeds, top it with a thin layer of soil and the process is begun anew.

Start a second crop of microgreens a few days to one week after the first set and you’ll have continuous crops ready for harvest through the winter.

Victorio VKP1013 4-Tray Kitchen Seed Sprouter
[link to www.amazon.com]

It's that time of year again.

This is just cool.


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HIDDEN WATER POOLS- Original Promo Video Footage

This is cool too.


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If I grew weed in aquaponics would the fish soak up some of the thc too??

I doubt it AC.

What a good idea.


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Swedish Fire Torch

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 05/01/2013 03:23 PM

Thanks for the book info AC38940141.

How to Grow More Vegetables, Eighth Edition: (and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops) Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You ... (And Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains,)

[link to www.amazon.com]

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 05/01/2013 04:55 PM

Gutter Garden VIDEO: [link to www.youtube.com]

Details on how to build this here: [link to www.lowes.com]

Last Edited by Proud American Supporter on 05/01/2013 03:29 PM

OP you and I have TOTALLY different ideas of what self-sustaining means.

To me self-sustaining means EVERYTHING comes from the land the food is grown on that includes ferts, food for the fish or any other live stock (rabbits, Quail etc), soil amendments ETC ETC ETC NOTHING COMES FROM THE OUTSIDE!

Did I mention the water?

An excellent book for this purpose:

How to grow more vegetables by John Jeavons