In the Seattle urban farming scene, there are a couple of guys – Colin and Brad – who seem to be everywhere. They run the aptly named Seattle Urban Farm Company, and under that moniker set-up and maintain edible gardens in backyards and on restaurant rooftops around the city and teach countless workshops for beginning new gardeners.
I’m not sure where they found the time, but they also wrote a book. It’s called Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard: A Beginner’s Guide to Growing Crops at Home and it’s an excellent reference for the beginning small-space gardener.
Colin and Brad. Photo by Hilary Dahl, used with permission.
Since Colin and Brad are experts in the area of small space gardening, I was eager to ask them all the questions I hear most often from new urban and container gardeners. They were kind enough to obligue with the following thorough and informative answers.
Q: What are the three rules a limited-space urban gardener should follow for maximum harvest?
Sunlight Is King. Think about your plant’s access to sunlight and water before setting up your garden. Your garden must receive at least 6-8 hours of sunlight per day for healthy growth and productivity. Think about your options for garden locations and consider sun exposure as the number one priority. Second priority is to make sure that it will be easy for you to get water to your plants on a regular basis. It is easy to end up carrying buckets of water through the house or knocking over pottery with an unwieldy hose, so take the time to figure out a watering system beforehand!
Feed Your Crops. Vegetables are “heavy feeders”. This means that they absorb large amounts of nutrients from the soil as they grow. In order to produce a maximum harvest, each crop needs an adequate supply of nutrients. Nutrients are supplied by compost and organic fertilizers, and both should be added to your soil before each season begins (and if you are planting in a space more than one time in a season, add them again between each planting).
Space Plants Appropriately. Make sure to follow the plant’s (or seed’s) recommended spacing requirement. Many beginning gardeners assume that, if they plant their crops closer together, then they will get more food per square foot. But…that’s not quite how it works: When crops are planted too closely together, they compete for sunlight, water and nutrients. When forced to compete, plant growth is stunted, production is limited and crops are more susceptible to pest and disease pressures. Remember, since the dawn of civilization, every gardener’s goal has been to maximize productivity in their given space. Spacing requirements have developed through generations of trial and error, so take advantage of this experience and listen to your seed packet!
A surprising amount of food can be grown in a few terracotta pots.
Q: Which vegetables and specific varieties are great for small-space and container growing?
Certain crops give a higher yield per square foot of planting space, but it is also important to choose plants that you are really excited about growing (that will make them easier to take care of).
In smaller gardens we recommend planting (some of our favorite varieties in parentheses):
- Head Lettuce (Deer Tongue, Flashy Trout Back)
- Arugula (Rocket, Surrey)
- Bush Beans (Provider, Royal Burgundy)
- Summer Squash (Jackpot Zucchini, Zephyr)
- Radishes (Cherriette)
- Cilantro (Calypso)
- Basil (Genovese)
- Tomatoes (Sungold, Black Prince)
Sungold tomatoes ripen reliably and do well on sunny patios in a large pot.
Q: What containers can small space gardeners use? Should anything be avoided – are those tire towers and pallet gardens a safe option?
Almost anything can be used as a planting container as long as it holds soil and has adequate drainage. That being said, certain materials are probably better than others. It is hard to know the stability and safety of many plastic containers, so we often steer towards untreated wooden containers (especially rot-resistant woods like cedar) and clay pots (glazed pots will not dry out as quickly as unglazed terra cotta). Found and repurposed items like old cast iron bathtubs or even old trucks can make great large-size containers as long as drainage is attended to.
Pallets are typically made from untreated lumber, so they should be safe to use. Avoid using chemically treated lumber in your containers or beds. Our tendency is to steer away from any materials that have an ongoing dispute about safety (pressure treated lumber, galvanized steel, random plastics, etc). Many people say that tires are very stable and shouldn’t be a cause of concern, and it is always tempting to use materials that are otherwise going to the landfill, but we prefer to use materials in which we have a high level of confidence about their safety.
Get creative in your selection of containers. Photo: Seattle Urban Farm Co., from their exhibit at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show.
Q: What techniques do you use to maximize the harvest in a limited footprint?
Interplanting. Interplanting can take advantage of otherwise unused spaces. A classic example is interplanting tomatoes and lettuce. Tomatoes are a tall, long-season crop (they take several months to grow to maturity) and lettuce is a short in stature and short-season crop (it grows very quickly). When planting your tomatoes, you seed or transplant lettuces around the base. The lettuces will grow to maturity without affecting the growth of the larger tomato plant (and may actually benefit from some of the shading the tomato will provide).
Add flowers. Find room to add a few flowers. Many annual flowers will attract “beneficial insects” to your garden. Beneficials are insects that prey on common garden pests. By encouraging these helpful insects to your yard, you will reduce pest pressures on your crops, leading to healthier plants and larger yields (and a prettier garden)! Good flower choices include:
- Alyssum
- Cosmos
- Sunflowers
- Bachelor Buttons
- Marigolds
- Cilantro (if you leave it in the garden to flower after harvesting the leaves)
Succession plant – sow little and often. Plan for succession plantings. If you have an understanding of each crops lifespan (a basic guideline will be noted on seed packets as the “days to maturity”), then you can plan to fill in holes in your garden throughout the season as crops are harvested. Many of the most popular crops have a short lifespan and can be planted in the garden numerous times in the course of a single season.
Good examples of crops to succession sow:
- Lettuce and other salad greens (arugula, mustard greens, spinach)
- Radishes
- Bush Beans
- Kale and other cooking greens (chard, collards)
- Beets
- Carrots
A huge thank you the Brad and Colin for taking the time to lay out what beginning small space gardeners need to know to get the most from their backyard farm, even if that farm is only a few pots on the patio.
Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard – About The Book
Photo by Hilary Dahl, used with permission.
Colin and Brad hit all the key concepts for successful veggie growing in this book, and while many gardeners will find this work helpful, I think it really speaks to the unique needs of beginning, small-scale growers.
How do I shoehorn a tomato patch into my driveway if that’s the sunniest space I’ve got? How do I keep my crops watered in August if I want to go camping for four days? How much garden should I grow if I’m the only real veggie eater in the house? What about if all six of us love veggies? How do I build a raised bed? Ok, I built a raised bed – now how much soil do I need to fill it? Why did my lettuce plant grow a really long stem all of a sudden? How many beets should I grow?
These are questions I hear over and over, and Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard answers them and more, then throws in a pretty comprehensive crop profile encyclopedia at the end too. If you are in your first couple seasons of growing and you find yourself with more questions than answers when you look at your raised bed, or if the idea of vegetable gardening sounds great – until it sounds way too overwhelming to try – then this is the book for you.
More experienced and confident gardeners will probably already have much of the information in the book internalized, or may have already collected various references that go into similar content. It’s greatest strength is in demystifying the basics and presenting them as a comprehensive overview.
Get Your Own Copy
I’m always excited to do book reviews, because I really love books, but I’m happiest when those reviews come with goodies for my readers. The publishers of Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard are sending out a free copy of Colin and Brad’s book to one lucky NW Edible reader. To enter, leave a comment below with your biggest newbie gardening question. Hey, maybe if we’re lucky Brad and Colin will even drop by to answer a few of them! (No promises, though.)
And though it’s not strictly a requirement of entering this giveaway, I highly encourage you Facebooker’s to “like” the Seattle Urban Farm Co.’s Facebook page….not least because yesterday they gave away a $100 gift certificate for Bogs boots (possibly the best gardening boots in the world!). That’s a Facebook page that’s not joking around.
Contest open until Thursday, June 21st at 9 pm. Continental US residents only (sorry International readers – it’s only because of shipping). You can ask as many questions as you want, but only one entry per person will be counted. Good luck!
Update 6/21: Contest now closed. Winner to be announced soon. Thank you to everyone who entered – everyone asked awesome questions!
0
My step son gardens in a very small space and one of his top three rules is “be ruthless”. In small space gardening you don’t have the luxury of letting things straggle on. To get the top production amount from his garden he ruthlessly pulls plants out after their prime even when they might have a bit of produce still to come. In this way he maximises the amount of food harvest from a small space.
Here is the first post in the series of small space gardening where Izaac produces lots of food from only a few square metres.
http://suburbanjubilee.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/gardening-in-small-spaces-part-i.html
How do coffee grounds work as fertilizer? What sort of properties does it have for soil amendment? Do they act as mulch if you put them on top of the soil? Sure seems to.
Basically, if I put coffee grounds on my plants for awhile, will it only grow me gorgeous greenery with no fruits/veggies?
Coffee grounds are a good soil amendment, but shouldn’t be added to the soil in great quantities or with great frequency. Because the grounds are very acidic, over-application will acidify the soil, making nutrients less available to your plants!
The hardest problem I have with my small space garden is controlling pests. I had some beautiful beets the first year I planted which were full of grubs. I also have a lot of snails in my garden. I really hate those damn things!
Looks like a lovely book, and thanks for the heads up about their FB page.
I definitely want to know how to keep my garden watered properly, especially when I’d like to go out of town in the summer. Also, how to better succession plant.
How long does horse poop have to sit before it can be used in containers? How much/what proportion to regular garden center potting soil? Why did my poor tomato turn spotted, then yellow, then crisp?
I am trying straw bale gardening this year. I seem to have a lot of volunteers coming up, likely from my homemade compost, and I am wondering if it might be a good idea to leave them to grow as my unplanned “succession planting” method? I think I need to do some thinning and I have not identified all the volunteers yet, but they are small and I really feel bad pulling growing plants!
thank you!
What’s the best general fertilizer for veggies?
http://littlehomesteadinboise.blogspot.com/ There’s photos here of what we’ve done in limited space, on a city lot…
I just saw these guys in a magazine last week and thought “I’d love that book”!
My question: what is your favorite fertilizer for intensive small space gardening.
Can blueberries or huckleberries be grown in large containers so they can be moved?
Do you mulch potted plants? I have some pole beans in pots and I haven’t mulched the tops…I noticed the dirt gets really hard and tends not to absorb water that I give them every day…maybe I’m just using the wrong type of soil though……I”m very new to this container garden thing.
My husband has a raised-bed garden that gets larger year by year. Every year he (we) have a problem that perplexes us. Last year we had great cucumber plants with no cukes on them. This year seems to be better. It would be great to have a go-to text to answer some of the dilemmas that arise. Jo @ Let’s Face the Music
My balcony garden is being eaten by sparrows. What’s the best way to discourage them from eating peas and lettuce?
I’d love a copy of this book! My question is the same as several others: What’s a good fertilizer to use on the veggie garden? I use kelp meal and fish emulsion already, do I need more than that?
Ooh, I would love a copy! My question is this: How can I make my own cost-effective potting soil? I have an ever-growing container garden and organic potting soil is expensive stuff!
Mine is more kind of a meta-question: Is it rude to ask the vendors at the local farmers’ market for advice? They generate so much beautiful looking produce and my friend has no compulsion about asking them why the veggies we’re growing aren’t doing as well, but I always feel a little bit like it’s asking them to undercut their business.
Our current concern is that our bok choy never forms nice heads. Last year I think it got too hot too early, so it all bolted. This year I think it’s not getting enough light.
This looks like an excellent read!
This book looks great! My question would have to be – As a fresh college graduate with a small apartment and a smaller budget what are the best plants, techniques, and tools to give me the most bang for my buck?
Sounds like a lot of great info packed into one book. And I love the old truck “planter”…what a great photo.
I’ve planted my small bed & numerous pots, but neglected to add amendments – what can I do at this point? What is a good quality organic fertilizer? Thanks!
philosophical question…why do people plant so much zucchini and then struggle to give it away?
Any tips on keeping the neighborhood cats out of my veggie garden?
I would love to be entered in your contest, and I would love to learn more about square foot gardening. I currently have four 4×6 raised garden beds and I’m experimenting with a hugelkultur. I would like to plant a tree and am trying to decide which tree would be best in a 10×13 space, or if that’s enough room for two trees.
You might look at my posts on backyard orchard culture for more info on small space fruit growing. http://nwedible.com/tag/backyard-orchard-culture
I live in Portland, OR & I just started my very first organic vegetable garden in my backyard. I’ve never grown anything before! I’m so afraid of killing plants or having them devoured by pests. I try to read gardening tips from many sources, but feel overwhelmed by how much there is to learn & fearful that I will mess it all up. My biggest question is how do you balance planting enough vs. too much in your small space? I want to plant enough seeds to be able to select out the strongest ones, but then I don’t want to have so much going on in there that they can’t thrive & produce. signed, the virgin gardener
Oh, wow – I can’t even tell you what my biggest newbie question is…I have so many of them, and many have been covered here already. I successfully grew some tomatoes and peppers in old cat litter tubs last summer, but next year I will have my own little piece of urban paradise in Buffalo & I’ll be starting from scratch trying to design a space that is beautiful and productive. I’m adding this book to my library request list if I don’t win a copy! xo
I have a new garden on a former lawn – and the vegetable plants are just sitting there looking puny. I know I should have done soil amending before I planted, but I didn’t, and now I have wimpy plants growing in clay-ey soil that’s clearly not providing them with what they need. What can I do now to give them a kick-start?
When I glanced at this post through Google Reader I saw part of the title as, ” . . . Spice Gardeners Must Flow.” Go right ahead, call me a geek, I can take it.
Plant without a rhythm and you won’t attract the cutworm….
I have so many questions that it’s hard to pick just one. How much water do plants need and when to water are the hardest for me living in a high desert area. Sometimes, I think that I am over watering but I’m just not sure. Would love a copy of this book. Thanks
Pfft. What question DON’T I have. Loved their truck full of great stuff at the Flower Show 2 years ago- I think it even had chickens in it!
What advice do you have for parents of young kids? I want to involve my kids in gardening, but I worry my 3-year-old and maybe the 5-year-old will destroy the plants.
We have flood irrigation. Awesome given that our water for the garden costs $30 a year. However we have to run the garden straight on the ground (as opposed to raised beds) and the water gets to it through channels between the rows. Is there anything I can mulch netween the rows with that wont wash away but that might keep the weeds down?
This looks like a great book! I’d love tips about how to keep neighborhood cats out of my new raised beds. Also, is tomato pruning necessary?
Please tell me how to get rid of morning glories. They have hopped a hard-won perimeter and are everywhere. Right now I’m just depriving them of leaves/growth to feed their roots and yanking them up wherever I see them, but I know the borg mothership is under there reaching for all corners. 🙁 And if I take even a day or two off, I’ve lost SO much ground. Halp! 🙂
I would love some tips on incorporating vegetables into my existing landscaping. I’m hoping that the pumpkins that I plant in the landscape will help to keep the weeds down as they grow and cover the ground!
How do I get rid of/control ants in my (organic) garden?
I’m in my second summer of gardening and as someone that also lives in the Nw I want to try starts from seeds but things are So unprede with weather and frost dates that I just cant figure out when to do see statts
ashley – check out my monthly to do lists. I talk a lot about starts.
We’re in the Midwest and have several raised garden beds, as well as several in-ground beds. We use collected rain to water to the extent possible, but the process takes a day and forever since our tanks are just gravity fed. Any suggestions on faster watering systems (open to the idea of pumps, drip systems, soaker hoses, etc.) We just don’t know where to begin. Much as I love the “free” water, I’m secretly happy when we run out because watering with city water is so much faster. 🙁
I am in my first season as a gardener…some of the things planted are doing fantastic (peas), and others are just barely making it (beets). I would love to know what kind of pests affect different veggies, and how to combat them organically.
This book looks awesome! I love composting coffee grounds and ash from our fire pit, but how much is too much? Does it need to be composted or can I just start adding it to the soil? Also, Cabbage Moths (Is that the correct name?) have moved in on my lettuce. How do I discourage them?
Thank you for the give-away!
How do I get rid of pill bugs?
I am growing my first garden this year entirely in containers. I planted bush beans in a tub but want to know if I will get more if I put in a trellis, and will they grow up it?
Is there a good calendar for northwest crop planting – especially winter crops?
What are the best soil amendments and when do you add them?
What is eating my kale?
Have you looked at mine, Stacy? Scroll down on the page one or two items…it’s a giant year round planing and planting spreadsheet: http://nwedible.com/downloadables
Kale: cabbage moth caterpillars. BT or hand squish. Look carefully, they are sneaky.
I have loved rhubarb since I was little. My grandfather had plants in his backyard with leaves the size of elephant ears and nice substantial stalks. I purchased a nice healthy specimen 3 years ago and it’s only done ok in it’s fully sunny spot. I water, I fertilize, still no change. It starts each season sending up it’s flower, which I cut off and then only a few scrawny stalks take stage…I divided this spring and it’s going gang busters but still only pencil thin stalks! What can I do to beef those guys up?
My leeks got all woody in the center before I even thought to harvest them (they were still not much wider in diameter than my thumb) I’m leaving them to flower, but wondering if there are tricks for getting leeks to thicken up. Mine look like chives! Oh, and do bush beans need support? or can you just let them, well… bush. Thanks!
What are the best varieties of potatoes for growing in containers?
Request a copy of the Irish Eyes seed catalog. They have a chart in there that lists which varieties are good for container growing. It also tells you tons of other info about potatoes so it’s a real resource.
I have a problem with flea beetles on my greens, they are eating them to pieces… any easy/organic way to keep them away?
look s like a good read and full of wisdom that i need plenty of. moved from huge garden in country that i threw seeds at the earth and i had a garden to city container gardening that really cramps my style if you get my meaning. would like to win the book , but if i don’t is it for sale anywhere?
I would love a “cheat sheet” for estimating how much to plant to feed a given family size. This looks like a great book!