How I Started Growing My Own Organic Food…In My Apartment!
A dream of mine has always been to live a simple life…tending a garden, taking care of animals, cooking with home grown ingredients…the whole rustic, farm life kind of thing. While maybe that can become a reality one day, it is most definitely not possible at this point in my life. A few months ago, during the midst of a tough period of burn out and exhaustion from our careers, my partner, Devin, and I started to really think about this kind of future for ourselves. We each share a passion for using locally grown, organic ingredients in our food and taking care of our health — that has been something we have prioritized from the day we started living together. Not to mention we live in a great little town in Pennsylvania that holds much pride in their farmers and locally produced foods. The culture of food here has resonated with us in a way that just feels like home, where we share the same values and passions as our community. We never miss a farmer’s market and the opportunity to meet the people who grow and take care of our food.
One night during dinner, we were enjoying these amazing potatoes we had gotten from our farmer’s market that week. Neither of us could stop obsessing over how delicious these potatoes were…cooked so simply in extra virgin olive oil and sea salt. Thinking about how badly we both needed a distraction or a new hobby away from our jobs, I asked Devin, “What if we could build a garden here?”. A surprised reaction on his face, his eyebrows raised. He’s usually the more logical thinker in our relationship, and I could tell this thought hadn’t crossed his mind yet. “Here? Where would we put a garden?”, he questioned. We have a small one bedroom apartment with a balcony in the treetops, it is definitely unusual to think that we could be growing food out there in such a small place. The thought of one day being able to finally cook with my very own ingredients, that I can gather from my own home and know exactly where our food came from excited me. A sense of joy and excitement that I was looking forward to feeling, something to look forward to in the midst of a dreary, cold winter. He could sense my excitement, and being the good hearted man that he is, he agreed with me and said, “Let’s do it”.
For weeks I scrolled on Pinterest searching up “small apartment balcony gardens”, saving images and getting all kinds of inspiration. I pictured myself out there in the summertime, snipping away my own spinach and using it in all different fun ways. As Spring rolled in, we began thinking about how this garden is going to work. We got lucky that our balcony was rather large for an apartment, we knew we could definitely fit some planters out there, but our biggest concern was water drainage. Usually, garden beds are used in the ground for water drainage, and I had honestly never heard of anyone having an entire garden bed on anything but the ground. I thought to myself, “maybe I’m being insane…can this even work?”. The first warm day of the year in March, we took a trip to Tractor Supply and purchased two small metal garden beds. Not even thinking about the water drainage situation yet, we dove in head first and said, “we are doing this”. This was the first step of building our very first home garden, and it felt like a small step towards the life we plan to have one day.
Eventually we decided to try the most simple water drainage system you could ever have…drill some holes and elevate the garden beds. Devin brought home some wooden planks from the warehouse and got to work. He drilled 8 holes in the bottom of each garden bed, and placed two wooden planks parallel to each other underneath the beds. This raised the beds about 2 inches off the ground, just enough to let the water drain through. Solution found! Once Devin finished the make-shift drainage, I got to work planning what we were going to grow first. It was early Spring, so I thought some radishes, some spinach, beets, and swiss chard would be nice to enjoy by the time summer comes around. I had 10 bags of organic raised bed soil & 2 bags of organic compost delivered to the apartment, spent an afternoon filling up bags of sticks and leaves from outside for some organic matter, and purchased my first seeds. Things were moving along, and it felt amazing to have a little side project to prioritize outside of my teaching job.
To fill up the beds, I started with a flat layer of cardboard on the bottom of each one. This helps to retain some of the moisture for the soil. Then I added a layer of sticks and leaves that I gathered from outside for some organic matter — this will break down over time and provide some extra healthy nutrients for the soil and plants. After the cardboard and organic matter, it's time to get the soil in there. I used 5 bags of organic raised bed soil in each bed, plus one bag of organic compost. Honestly, you could get 7-8 bags of soil in each bed, mine were not completely filled. I mixed the compost halfway through filling the bed so it could mix in well with the rest of the soil. Now, this is the part where I got the most excited but also the most impatient: let the soil settle for 1-2 weeks before planting anything. Everyday I saw my garden beds ready for planting, but had to tell myself to hold off and wait. This allows the soil to start breaking down the nutrients, making it healthier and stronger for new plants. After 2 weeks, I planted 6 beets, 6 swiss chard plants, 6 spinach plants, and 6 radish plants. I measured each spot according to the seed packages, making sure there was enough room between each one. I also made to sure to plant 4-5 seeds in each spot, to give each seedling a chance to grow and then eventually only keep one. It’s kind of like survival of the fittest here, you’ll have a bunch of seedlings sprouting together in one spot, but you eventually need to pick only one to keep. I looked for the seedling that was standing the tallest, looked the strongest for a good plant to start growing. Along the way, we got a ton of mushrooms helping out our baby plants! They are a sign of a healthy ecosystem in your soil, and can even help plant roots stay hydrated. However, do not eat them!
After about 2 weeks, I started seeing tiny seedlings popping out of the soil. I slowly became a crazy plant lady…going outside in the morning to cheer them on and tell my little seedlings that they are strong and healthy. Once they started to have stems about 1/2 inch tall, I snipped away all but one in each spot. This also helps the plant get even more nutrients and water, as it no longer has to compete with the other seedlings for survival. From then on, Devin and I watered them a few times a week, kept our eye on them, and definitely swooned over them a few times in excitement for our first home grown veggies.
Finally, in the beginning of June, our harvest was ready. We snipped away our spinach and simply cooked it down with some extra virgin olive oil and sliced garlic, served with fresh baked salmon. The swiss chard grew nice and big, and we even had more than we could eat! We ate it for about 2 weeks here and there, mixing it with meatballs and pasta or just simply cooking it down in olive oil. It was so gorgeous to look at, I almost didn’t even want to harvest it. The best feeling was walking outside on those warm summer mornings, and looking at our hard work, the beautiful green leaves and red stems shining in the sunlight.
When the beets were ready, I knew I had to keep them in their most natural form, so I simply sliced them thin, roasted them on a cast iron pan with olive oil and sea salt, and served them over a bed of cooked beet greens with garlic. My oh my, those were the best beets I had ever tasted. They had a stunning white and magenta pink ripple pattern on the inside. Again, almost too gorgeous to eat. Unfortunately, our radishes did not make it to the table as they were infested with tiny eggs of some sort, we still have not figured out what kind of bug laid eggs on them. Their leaves died quickly, and the radish fruit became mushy and wet. We expected some failure with this new adventure, but thankfully most of our vegetables made it to the table in the most beautiful way possible.
Now that our Spring harvest is done, we are starting to grow some summer tomatoes and peppers. Growing our gardening skills one day at a time, we continue to imagine ourselves doing this for as long as possible. We will always be able to say that our very first garden was on our little apartment balcony in our twenties, and I can’t wait to see how this adventure shapes our future lifestyle.