02071 Growing Food Without Land
The average person is still under the aberrant delusion that food should be somebody else's responsibility until I'm ready to eat it. — Joel Salatin, Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World
Many people live in urban areas and don’t have any land of their own on which to grow food. Here are ten ways that people can participate in food production activities even if they have no land of their own.
Community Gardens
A community garden assigns individual households a specific part of a larger garden, for that household’s exclusive use. In other models, a group gardens the entire space cooperatively, and divides up the production. To find a community garden, contact a local food bank or social service directory organization or the American Community Garden Association — http://www.communitygarden.org/ .
Someone Else’s Back Yard
You may not have any land, but someone you know — a friend, a relative, a co-worker — may have some land they would let you use for a garden — especially if you offer to provide them with fresh organic produce!
Rooftop Gardens
Rooftop gardens are the new urban frontier for growing food. Urban areas have thousands of acres of flat roofs. Nearly all of the annual vegetables can be grown in as little as 8 inches of potting soil. The primary issue with rooftop gardening is weight, so lightweight potting soils are best for rooftop growing. Most large urban areas have sources for such lightweight soils. An extensive collection of online resources for rooftop gardens is http://rooftopgarden.com/.
See this You Tube search for rooftop gardening: http://tinyurl.com/7vclpll.
Indoor Greenhouse Growing.
The pioneers of indoor greenhouse growing are marijuana growers, who produce a huge amount of their product every year in secret indoor growing systems. The concept however works just as well for tomatoes as it does for pot. Growing in an indoor greenhouse requires supplemental light to boost production. Use vertical systems to get more plants per square feet. I’ve seen estimates online of as many as 180 vegetable plants in an 8 ft x 8 ft growing area. Line the walls and ceiling with aluminum foil to bounce the available light around and make it more intense for the plants.
20 indoor gardening projects http://www.instructables.com/id/Indoor-Gardening/
Indoor gardening video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHsVD3FzrG8
How to begin an indoor garden http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVwAnbvEiy0
You Tube search for “indoor vegetable garden: http://tinyurl.com/77487qf
Container Gardening
Container gardening is a great option for people living in apartments and dormitories who have zero land. Chapter 02371 covers this at much greater detail.
Microgreens
Microgreens are a step up from sprouting. Harvest them when they are ten days to two weeks old. Popular micro-green plants include —
- All the lettuces
- Other salad greens (arugula, mizuna, spinach)
- Brassicas (cabbage, kale, broccoli)
- Herbs
- Beets
- Radishes
- Peas
To grow Microgreens indoors:
Use a tray that is about 2 inches deep and as big or wide as you can accommodate in your available space.
Put about 1 inch of potting soil in your tray (preferably homemade, see 02371 for details) in the pan and scatter your seeds on top of the soil, covering them with about 1/8 inch of potting soil.
Wet the potting soil, and keep it wet. Keep it in a place where it will get at least four hours of sun every day.
Harvest them when they develop their first set of true leaves. This will be ten days to two weeks after planting them. These are the leaves that come after the initial “seed leaves.” Simply snip the plants at the level of the soil.
Enjoy them as a salad, cook them as a side dish, or include them in stir fries.
Another method of growing microgreens does not use soil. Instead, plant the seeds on top of three or four layers of paper towels. Keep the towels moist during the growing period.
Both ways of growing microgreens benefit with a clear cover over the growing tray, to create a miniature greenhouse effect. With both microgreens and sprouting, your best deal will be to buy seeds in bulk quantities. Make sure you get untreated seed.
Sprouting
Sprouting is another easy method of home food production. It requires a supply of non-treated seeds. And the operative word in that sentence is “non-treated.” Don’t use seeds from small vegetable packets sold for gardening purposes. They’re too expensive to use for sprouting. You may be able to find local supplies at garden or health stores, or bulk food departments in grocery stores. You can order them online from a variety of suppliers. It pays to shop around, as there is a lot of price differentiation.
The easiest sprouting equipment is a mason jar and ring. Cut a piece of metal window screen to fit the top of the jar (so it laps over the glass edges of the mouth of the jar). Put seeds in the jar, put the screen on top, screw on the ring, and voila, sprouting jar. Or you can use cheese cloth to cover the opening.
The first step in sprouting is to wash the seeds thoroughly. Before washing, examine them and pick out any foreign seeds or rocks (they do come to us from fields.) Put them in a colander or use your sprouting equipment to thoroughly rinse the seeds. Agitate them in the water and drain completely.
Next, soak the seeds in plenty of water. If you can’t find a specific reference, soak them overnight. The amount of time required for soaking varies depending on the seed. Check the internet or your seed source for soaking times. Agitate them in the water several times during this period, to make sure they don’t clump. You want every seed to be exposed to plenty of water.
Sterilize your sprouting equipment. One of the advantages of the mason jar and metal window screen method is that you can boil them to sterilize them. Alternatively, you can spray the equipment with undiluted hydrogen peroxide, warmed to a temperature of 130 degrees, leave it on for one minute, and rinse it off with clean water. If using hydrogen peroxide at room temperature, let soak for 10 minutes (but this is not effective against listeria). Soak your sprouting equipment for at least two minutes in a sanitizing solution of one tablespoon of plain bleach to one gallon of water. Rinse. Undiluted white vinegar, used at 130 degrees temperature, should be left on the surface for 1 minute, before rinsing. Never mix hydrogen peroxide and vinegar together.
After soaking put your seeds in the sterilized and rinsed sprouting equipment. Rinse the seeds 2-3 times every day. Run the water into your sprouting equipment at the full pressure of your local tap. Use cool water. Shake and swirl the container to mix the seeds with the water. Do not skimp the water. They need a full and generous wash.
After rinsing thoroughly, drain thoroughly. Swirl and shake your sprouting equipment to remove as much water as possible.
- Don’t take the seeds out and dry them, they need some moisture. They don’t need excess moisture.
- Sprouts need air. Don’t put the sprouting jar in a closed cabinet.
When your sprouts are ready to eat (5 to 7 days, depending on various factors too numerous to list here), after their final rinse, let them dry thoroughly. Once you stop the rinsing process, sprouts must be refrigerated. Don’t want to refrigerate them wet. Once they have dried, put them in an enclosed container and keep refrigerated. They will generally keep up to 6 weeks. You should eat them more often so they don’t hang around long.
A half pound of alfalfa seed will produce about 45 cups of sprouts.
Aquaponics
Aquaponics is about raising fish in containers and then using the water, fertilized by the fish, to grow food plants, with the water circulating back to the fish tank for a sort-of-closed system.
This system can be used by apartment dwellers. Consider how the number of 50 gallon aquariums there are out there, and 50 gallons happens to be the same size barrel or tank that many aquaponics practitioners use for their systems.
I don’t have direct experience with this method of food production, so I will refer you to the links and videos for more information. It is certainly possible in an apartment to set up an attractive and productive aquaponics system. If you can handle a fish tank, you can raise fish and salad greens in your apartment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaponics
http://aquaponics.ezjensen.com/
Apartment Aquaponics part 1: http://youtu.be/-8H30hFkVwk
Apartment Aquaponics part 2: initial setup http://youtu.be/BEbc75whUfg
Mini-aquaponics — http://youtu.be/J1RkJ_-BRkY
12 indoor aquaponics videos http://www.youtube.com/user/remeret
Mushroom Growing
Mushrooms grow on logs, and they can grow just as easily in a bedroom, kitchen, or utility room as they can on the floor of a forest. Here are some links with ideas about home mushroom cultivation:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/growing-mushrooms-at-home.aspx
http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/indoor/grow-mushrooms.htm
Growing mushrooms at home without a kit — http://youtu.be/PH5_vB8-gWk
Basics of growing mushrooms — http://youtu.be/ZHJQrsZFQdE
How to grow shiitake mushrooms — http://youtu.be/0WQ2gY6W4Mg
How to grow shiitake mushrooms — http://youtu.be/2369npAmYJo
Gleaning/Foraging
Gleaning or foraging in urban areas has some limited utility for acquiring urban food sources. The problem is that if all of the residents of a typical city went out gleaning and foraging wild and yard plants for food, the available supply would be quickly depleted.
One thing that people can do, as part of their invisible structure designs, is to support urban edible landscapes. The more food our cities grow, the better our food situation will be.
Fishing
Finally, we come to fishing. Many cities locate on or near rivers or large lakes, and fishing is a traditional past-time. Alas, fishing has been complicated in recent years by water pollution. Before you go fishing, check with your local fish and game officials to find out if it is safe to eat any fish you might catch. “Time spent fishing is not deducted from a person’s allotted lifetime.”