Skip to main content

Apartment Container Gardening Can Offset Rising Food Prices

 This is a guest post submitted from a fellow Urban Homesteader:

 

 

I have never had the inclination to become a farmer, but if food costs keep going up at the current rate, I may have no other option but to start a garden on my balcony. Every week the prices for basic foods are higher than the week before. No one is saying anything, but I am sure everyone has noticed. At this current pace, our weekly groceries will equal our monthly rent payment before the end of the year. I have no clue what is driving these prices, but something is going to have to give.

The economy and jobless statistics are still too unstable. Prolonged unemployment has thrown crushing blows within our family for the last two years. We have had to downsize from renting a house to an apartment. I’m not used to apartment living, but at least I have a roof over my head and am not camping in a tent, yet. Several of our family members have had to double up under one roof just to make ends meet. We do what we have to do and try to remain optimistic. We look for ways to cut costs, reduce spending, increase cash flow, and pray we will make it through this long crisis. Now, with the rising food costs, each week becomes harder and more impossible to make ends meet. This is devastating to the already stressed families barely able to pay for rent and utilities. We will have to make further cuts in our food budget to pay the bills.

Food is a basic necessity for everyone.

If I have to become a balcony farmer to insure my family will have food, I am sure there are others contemplating this same option. We are talking real survival, here. I suspect there are going to be quite a few balcony farmers throughout the nation in urban areas.

I remember during the late 1990’s with the Y2K millennia fears, people were starting organic container gardens in urban areas where they did not have a yard to plant gardens. Now, as some people are fearing the approach of 2017 predictions, I am beginning to see that trend reappear. I don’t claim to know much about dooms day predictions, but I do know that the crisis is real, and the biggest threat is not just jobs and money. It is the accessibility, and affordability of food. We would all be wise to do what we can to prepare ahead in the event prices sky rocket beyond comprehension. Besides, should a natural disaster strike, having your own food to pull your family through would be priceless.

Get prepared and start your garden, now. The more prepared you are, the less vulnerable you and your family will be to conditions, situations, and events which we have no control. 

Apartment Dwellers Can Grow a Garden, Too


Here is a great way to recycle your water and soda bottles to grow food, even if you live in an apartment.

• 2-liter bottle recycled garden container
1. Cut plastic bottle in half. 
2. Turn upper bottle half upside down. 
3. Insert cotton cloth remnant into spout, leaving half inside bottle and 
half out, to serve as a wick. 
4. fill lower half of bottle with water. 
5. place upside down upper bottle half into lower bottle half. 
(Cotton remnant will wick up water.) 
6. fill upside down upper bottle with soil and plant seeds or seedling. 
(TIP: Using different colored cotton remnants will add color to your recycled bottle garden.)

 

Best vegetables to grow on the balcony for apartment dwellers:

  • Peas
  • Green beans
  • Lettuce
  • Potatoes
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Squash
  • Beans
  • Strawberries

Remember, plants need pollination of their flowers in order to produce their fruit. You may have to do the work of a bee to pollinate your plants, since your balcony is probably not a bee’s ideal place to visit. The end of a Q-tip swab will do the trick easily. Just remember to poke the swab in the center of the plant’s flowers. Use a new Q-tip for each different plant. Pollen from a tomato plant won’t work with a green bean plant.

 

Share this Image On Your Site

The post Apartment Container Gardening Can Offset Rising Food Prices appeared first on Downtown Homestead.



from Downtown Homestead http://downtownhomestead.com/apartment-container-gardening-can-offset-rising-food-prices
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Air Condition Your Garden

July, it is the time of the year when air conditioning is as important in the garden as it is in the home. You, as the temperature rises, can cool off with an electric fan, a cool drink or by hiding away in a cool spot. Your plants are not quite that lucky; yet certain gardening techniques can be employed to help your plants through the summer months. The benefits of air conditioning in your garden will show up in the form of increased production, greater resistance to disease and pests and, in general, a more attractive vista. An improper over-heated environment during the warmer months often leads to wilt, dropping of buds and yellowing of foliage. Aeration of the soil is concerned with its exposure to the air. If this is lacking then your plants very likely will suffer this summer. Believe it or not but there are millions of tiny spaces between the soil particles and this is where air resides. Soils that become water-logged force out this air, a condition that leads to souring of ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harvest and Store Garden Vegetables

Vegetables gathered at just the right time can be stored naturally or, in many cases, by deep freezing, for use months later in the kitchen. Nature, however, makes its own provision for over- winter storage and the survival of the species, which involves either the production of seed (peas, beans, etc.) or roots to remain in the ground to produce seed heads the following season (parsnips, carrots, etc.). Vegetables in this latter group store much better if left in the ground and lifted as required, or stored in clamps. parsnips can be left in the ground throughout the winter Root crops should never be stored in plastic bags, for they will invariably rot. If you have well- drained soils, where slugs are not a problem, a winter hardy variety of carrot such as ‘Autumn King’ is best left in the ground; carrots stored in sand or peat often shrivel, rot or go moldy. Parsnips are certainly best left in the row; frost improves the flavor but it is a good idea to lift a few at a time during...
Post a Comment
Read more

Growing Your Own Rhubarb: Growth and Cultivation

Rhubarb is commonly eaten as though it is a fruit, although in fact it is a perennial vegetable. It is simple to grow, produces a good crop, and if tended with care, can last for up to twenty years. It prefers either full sunlight, or partially shaded areas. Varieties of rhubarb include ‘Victoria’, ‘Cawood Delight’, ‘Ruby’, ‘Champagne’, and Timperley Early’. Planting Out Your Rhubarb Rhubarb can be planted out in sets/crowns anytime between November and early April, and can survive temperatures as low as minus fifteen degrees centigrade, as it is virtually frost resistant. The sets are usually around 10cm in diameter. Before planting, ensure that you have a clear, well-weeded, open patch of well-drained soil, and that the soil is well fertilized. Dig down between two and three ft deep, place the set into the hole, cover with soil, gently firm out the surrounding soil, and ensure that the rhubarb is watered well. If you are planting more than one plant, you must space them approxima...
Post a Comment
Read more