VideoTomatoes, cucumbers, summer squash or all of the above?

We have the basics of apartment gardening down and still need to decide what to grow.

When most people start their urban garden, they have visions of growing tomatoes, cucumbers and so many other vegetables. Then the reality sets in when tomatoes start dying and cucumbers shrivel up. Not to worry. I’ll help you to figure out which vegetables to choose.

For instance, one of the biggest mistakes that people make is planting a vegetable such as tomatoes in a spot that doesn’t get enough sunlight for them to grow.

In this video you will learn common vegetables to grow based on the amount of sun your garden gets.

If you are not sure how to tell how much sunlight your garden space gets, check out this post that I wrote about the process.

And if you feel like it, share how much sun your garden gets and what you are planning to grow in the comments below.

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Connect with him here to learn more urban gardening tips.

Image: tillwe

VideoThink you don’t have any space to start a garden? Think again.

A common misconception about gardening is that people think because they have no land, they can’t have a garden.

They’ll often say that they are waiting to have more space for a real garden.

The little space that they have at their apartment isn’t worth the time and effort.

I’m here to show you that growing without any land or gardening experience is possible and to layout the basics to help you utilize that small space.

In this video you will learn about:

• Some of the available space outside your apartment for growing.

• My preference for containers to grow in and where to get them. Instructions on how to make them.

• What kind of soil to use and a good source of it.

• The all important question of what to grow and growing for your conditions.

Where are you going to start your urban garden this year?

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Connect with him here to learn more urban gardening tips.

City girl, fear not: urban gardening is easy, simple, and fire-escape-proof.

What’s new in the EcoSalon Community? Me! It’s Mike Lieberman of Urban Organic Gardener and the Eco-Salon Manscaping feature from earlier in the year.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with my work, I show people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space.

That’s what I’m going to be sharing with you in a 2012 series here on EcoSalon. Since I’m a man of the people, I would love to know what questions or topics you would like to see covered? I’ll do my best to get them answered.

Have a great rest of 2011 and look forward to connecting with more of you in 2012!

Mike Lieberman shows people with little to no land how to start growing their own food so they can avoid toxic pesticides, eat healthier and not feel limited by their lack of experience and space. Catch him on Twitter and Facebook.

Image: LOLren

Melding the idea of eating and growing in the same place.

Not on the market yet, JAILmake’s Plantable will be making exhibit-goers both lustful and weak in the knees at next week’s Designersblock during the London Design Festival. The solid oak table is handmade, with trellis for legs and planters for feet. It’s capable of growing tomatoes, herbs, sweet peas and other climbers.

The creative team behind the Plantable explains, “the space provided for plants to grow in the four legs reflects on the distance we place between ourselves and the processes involved in making our food.”

Available via special order (for now).

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

Tired of supermarket shopping for packaged junk? So are four city food projects.

Oh supermarkets. You are cheap, you are convenient, but sustainable? Not even close.
If I walk half a mile in either direction of my home in Brighton & Hove I will fall over six supermarkets, with a seventh currently under construction. Only two out of those seven shops require me to cross the road. Evolution wasted its time giving me legs.

As for the rest of the city, there are no official statistics, but I counted 47 chain supermarkets, which works out about one shop per 5,000 people. Is that too many? Residents certainly think so, and no new supermarket opens now without a slew of protests.
Placards aside, foodies of Brighton & Hove are at the forefront of the fight against the inexorable onslaught of strip lit aisles and bags of grated cheese. Here are just four projects aiming to get local, fresh and sustainable food back on our plates and into our bellies.

Harvest Brighton & Hove
Harvest B&H exist solely to get people growing and eating more local food. Jess Crocker, Harvest manager says, “We want to make the city the food growing capital of England.”

Alongside educational events, such as courses on balcony gardening, preserving and pickling and fermenting workshops, Harvest also acts as an umbrella organization for a number of offshoot projects. These include a garden share scheme, giving landless people who want to grow food access to unused gardens, The Scrumping Project, which collects excess fruit from trees around the city to turn into jams and juices, and the demonstration vegetable garden, a productive allotment placed in the middle of one of the city’s busiest parks where passers-by can see just how much food they can grow in a relatively small space.

hiSbe
Sisters Amy and Ruth Anslow want to fix the whole food system, from farmer to fork. It’s a big task, but the two women aren’t to be deterred. At the beginning of this year they both gave up their jobs to dedicate themselves to finding a way of making sustainable, fresh food accessible to everyone. They began by creating their “8 Everyday Choices,” a simple guide to making better food buying decisions. By the end of this year, they hope to have opened their first shop, something they describe as a middle ground between the cheapness and convenience of supermarkets and the expensive middle-class mazes of trendy organic boutiques.

They are currently negotiating a lease on premises in central Brighton, and in the meantime their campaigning continues, helping people navigate the complexities of what is sustainable and what isn’t.

Amy says: “There’s this perception that supermarkets are always cheaper. It’s drummed into us by the market but the reality is when you do a like for like comparison on a lot of produce from supermarkets to farm shops, farmers markets or independent stores there isn’t always a huge price differential and in a lot of cases its cheaper.”

Brighton and Hove Alternative to Supermarkets
Not unlike hiSbe, Brighton and Hove Alternative to Supermarkets recognizes that the food system is well and truly screwy. Initially, a few interested people got together to discuss opening a People’s Supermarket, but very quickly realized that another food shop might not be the answer to their wishes. They want to make sustainable, local food accessible to as many people as possible, and shops come with a number of inhibiting factors, such as overheads to drive up prices and their static nature restricting catchment area.

Ideas currently being looked at include a pop-up shop, a food delivery service, or a number of food pick-up points located around the city.
Members of BHATS include academics, people who work with NGOs, co-operatives, and think tanks for food poverty. While they are taking their time formulating a cunning plan, they are all motivated by something much larger than profit.

Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project
Proving the vital link between food and community, Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and Wildlife Project is dedicated to reducing anti-social behavior and helping young people who have been excluded from school by teaching them how to plant, grow and cook their own food. Based in one of the most deprived areas of Brighton, the project has helped countless teenagers and improved their long term employability by giving them skills when the schools system had given up on them.

That’s what I call, sustainable.

Image: Miamism

Chocolate? For gardeners, nothing’s better than a box of these.

These botanical bon bons are made from seed balls rolled in red clay. Primed for planting, simply drop them in potters or a plot of earth for bushels of herbs. Handmade in Seattle, a box of eight can grow greens like Lemon Balm, Chamomile, Borage Blossom and Anise, or kitchen staples like Basil, Parsley, Chive and Winter Thyme.

Retails for $14.95.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.com

ColumnReaders tell us what they’re growing in their summer gardens.

As a fun way to look at what’s in season across the country and in other parts of the world, we took this month’s Seasonal Superfoods on the road. We asked our readers via Facebook and Twitter what they’re growing, where they’re located and how they prepare the goodness from their gardens and compiled the results below.

If you didn’t get a chance to participate, leave a comment below and let us know what you’re doing with your garden’s bounty!

Lisa: Toronto, Canada—Lisa says she’ll be eating her Heirloom tomatoes sliced or like an apple.

Teresa: Boise, Id—Heirloom tomatoes in tarts and sauces will be all the rage in Teresa’s kitchen.

Katy: Rhode Island—Tired of kale chips? You aren’t the only one. “We are sick to death of kale chips,” says Katy. She suggests trying something different and putting Kale in green smoothies.

Leslie: Oakland, CA—If in Oakland, Black Mission Figs eaten off the tree or preserved are par for the course.

Susan: Merced, CA—For those lucky enough to have sage grow year round like at Susan’s place in Merced, the opportunity for it to be folded into Thanksgiving stuffing with lemons from her very own tree is the plan. She also likes to add her extra to turkey, chickens, pork chops, tomato sauces, vegetable curries, frittatas and chicken soup. “Cherry tomatoes are easy to grow and great eaten in salads or right off the vine.”

Wade: Lebanon, OR—Blueberries, lots of blueberries! Wade likes to eat them “hot or cold in breakfast cereals or frozen in a bowl with milk poured over them. And of course nothing is better than picking and eating the big plump ones in the garden.”

Haven Bourque: Oakland, CA—”I wrap fresh-caught sardines stuffed with garlic and herbs in the fresh-picked, blanched grape leaves from my native California grape vine and grill or roast, and serve topped with garlic yogurt sauce. You eat the whole thing- leaf, sardine and all. Accompany with roasted tiny okra, over rice.” Purloined from Claudia Roden’s Middle Eastern Cooking.

Oliver: Oakland, CA—”Herbs, lots of fresh herbs: parsley, thyme, dill, marjoram, spearmint, oregano, and basil. They’re great in nearly anything we make. One of our favorite easy dinners is a cheese and herb omelet, but also stews, soups, pastas, and bruschetta with fresh heirloom tomatoes and grated parmesan and pecorino. Spearmint in mojitos and in frozen pops with fresh fruit.”

Laiko: San Francisco, CA—Laiko’s Early Girl tomatoes, sage, two different kinds of oregano, rosemary, lavender and Meyer lemons all grow to full-on fruition on her back deck in San Francisco. We think she’ll be starting her own tomato sauce business soon enough.

Susie: Berkeley, CA—”Tomatoes but they have this problem on the base from lack of calcium,” she says, and because of that, she’s become an eating machine gobbling them straight off the vine.

Sarah Bird Lewis-Hammond: Brighton, UK—Sarah’s Purple Runner Beans and Lemon Crystal Cucumbers are more than adequately growing this summer. How is she eating them? “Lemon and orange glazed salmon with bean and bulgher wheat salad. Cucumbers got eaten as they were. Delish.”

Marianne Swallie—Marianne is all about oven roasted tomatoes. “Toss with olive oil, salt, pepper, whatever herbs you have growing in the garden and bake slowly at 170 degrees. When they are withered and yummy, cool them off, then pop them into your mouth and enjoy! If you can force yourself to part with a few, they freeze very well and come out in December to add a little bit of summer to your winter-time pasta recipes.”

Abigail Wick: Berlin, Germany—Cherry tomatoes and potted basil are growing crazy on her terrace. “We make vegan thin-crust pizzas with them, plus arugula, toasted pine nuts, and browned garlic. In short…bliss.”

Amy Stevenson Hall: Auburn, AL—In Alabama? “Peas, eating fresh and freezing, putting up cucumber pickles and banana pepper pickles (and just eating raw). Sadly, the tomatoes, okra, and squash have run their course. Sweet potatoes weren’t very sweet this year.”

Blissoma Natural Body Care and Candles: St. Lewis, MO—There’s no shortage of okra, cucumbers, green beans, squash, cantaloupe and watermelon in St. Lewis. “Our pumpkins are still just babies right now and our tomatoes went in late. We’ve made several gallons of refrigerator pickles, and we eat a giant melon-based fruit salad every morning. We’re going to make a giant batch of oven baked/breaded squash fries as well. Yum!!!”

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate,  on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Images: Manjithkaini, Joe Quick, Richard BH

Oxygenate your space – and defy gravity while you’re at it.

If you happen to dwell in a cramped apartment with precious little counter and shelf space, these handmade ceramic sky planters are for you. Using Slo-flo irrigation technology, the Boskke feeds water directly to the roots, thus minimizing water loss. The way they hang is much simpler than it looks, or more complicated depending on your perspective. Place your plant into the planter, lock into place, flip, fasten and suspend. Fabulous.

Prices start at $49.

Look for Lustables daily at EcoSalon. 100% gorgeous green finds, and never sponsored. Submit your favorite to tips@ecosalon.

Guest authorUrban gardening expert Mike Lieberman shares his tips.

The number one excuse that apartment dwellers have when it comes to growing their own vegetables is that they have no space. They also believe that growing one or two things is a complete waste.

These are just excuses. Lots of space isn’t required. What is required is a bit of creativity. It’s worth the time and effort if you grow even one herb or vegetable. It will make a difference.

Did you know that on average food travels 1,500 miles to get to our plates? By growing some of your own, it will help to cut back on the intensive resources that go into food production and transportation. It will also help you to re-establish your connection with food. There are plenty of simple reasons that I can list to grow your own food.

I started apartment gardening in the spring of 2009 on my fire escape in New York City. Despite being on 2′ x 3′, I was able to grow plenty of veggies. Since then, I’ve moved to Los Angeles and now have a balcony garden.

Growing veggies without much land can be your reality, too. Here’s how you can start your own vegetable container garden.

Decide on a Location

First thing is first. You need to pick the location where you are going to start. An important factor to take into consideration is how far from the water source your garden will be. The last thing you want to do is be carrying water through your apartment to your garden, but there are ways around that.

Don’t Just Think of the Floor

After deciding the where, you need to figure the area that you are working with. Don’t just think of the space on the ground. Think windowsills, ledges, railings and the space above you. Get creative.

Conditions of the Area

Figure out how much direct and indirect sunlight your space gets. If it gets at least 2-3 hours of direct sunlight, you are good to grow. My balcony garden is east facing and gets about 4-6 hours of early morning sunlight, so I grow what works best in those conditions.

What to Grow In

You can either go to the store and buy some containers or make self-watering planters, which is what I use. Self-watering planters use two containers and require little maintenance after they are built. They are constructed from two 5-gallon containers (you can get these from your local flower shop, deli, restaurant or farmers market for little to no money).

If you have the space to hang some plants, then you can use soda bottles to make hanging planters or buy new ones. Herbs such as basil, oregano and mint do well in these.

What to Grow

This is the big decision. What will you grow?

This could very well be determined for you by your space and sun conditions. Since I get limited sun on my balcony and use smaller containers, my selection is pretty small.

From there, you can grow things that you know you like and will eat or you can experiment with new veggies or new versions of veggies that you like. That’s up to you.

I always suggest growing greens and lettuces because they don’t get to be too big, grow pretty easily and you know that you’ll use them.

Herbs are the other thing that I recommend. They are likely the best economic value. When you buy herbs in the store, you have to buy a huge bushel when you only need a few pieces. Most usually goes to waste. By growing your own, you can take what you need and let it continue to grow. It’ll always be on hand.

No Excuses

Now you have a foundation to get your urban vegetable garden started. You don’t have to plant a ridiculous amount. Remember, just one plant will make a difference. We are humans. We grown food. Land, space, money and lack of experience shouldn’t be excuses. If I can do this, why can’t you?

Guest author Mike Lieberman is the man behind Urban Organic Gardener, where he share his expertise on urban gardening, green living, and real food. You can also connect with Mike on Twitter and Facebook.

ColumnEcoSalon’s best gardening articles to get you going.

We’ve sprung forward. Now it’s time to coax life from your own backyard soil. Get out there and start those starts, sow those seeds, and grow your own food. Here’s a handy roundup of our best gardening articles to help you get started.

It all begins with the soil. Without healthy soil, your plants won’t thrive and create great tasting produce so here’s a step-by-step guide to building what I like to call, sexy soil.

1. If you’re worried about what dangerous heavy metals and contaminants might be lurking in your urban loam, get the dirt here.

2. Not sure what to plant? Start with the 10 easiest plants to grow at home.

3. Lack the luxury of a traditional backyard? Don’t despair, you can grow in milk crates, on walls, and even in your front yard.

4. Need a little more direction on exactly how to plant and tend your garden? This article breaks it all down for you.

5. Kids can learn so much about food and the cycles of nature from gardening, so don’t get all hung up on creating the perfect garden, get the kids involved, and let them loose. Here’s how.

6. Maybe you don’t want to go it alone? Need some moral support? Try yard sharing.

7. Got the vegetables down? Try raising backyard chickens, or maybe even fish.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.