If you feel the need to grow your own fruits, veggies, and herbs but lack the soil and acreage to do so, you still have options. Whether you live in an apartment, arid region, or somewhere with plenty of concrete but no dirt, there are ways to cultivate a patch of green, indoors or out. To help you get started, here’s a selection of different ways to garden without land.
Container Gardening
Don’t have a place like a cement porch, apartment balcony, or backyard to dig and sow your seeds? Pick up a few large planter pots or windowsill planters, fill them up with soil, and place them wherever they can get the most sun during the day. Containers aren’t very good for growing plants with large and extensive roots. But they do lend themselves to growing plenty of other healthy and delicious fruits and vegetables like lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, eggplants, and more. You can use other containers like bins or barrels in place of planters, but be sure the spot where you keep your container gardens can handle the weight. Otherwise, happy planting!
Hydroponics
Want to bring the gardening experience indoors? Hydroponics makes gardening an all-year-round activity without the discomfort of hot weather, muddy ground, and most plant-eating pests. While hydroponic growing requires its own form of upkeep, including maintaining the proper amounts of light, temperature, and humidity, it’s still a fun and fascinating hobby. Start with a small and basic wick setup and work your way up to a more elaborate system for bigger and better yields.
Raised Bed Gardening
If you’re feeling handy, raise the bar, or rather, the bed, for your garden. Raised beds create a boxed-in area that holds soil and brings the garden up to waist level, reducing the chance of knee and back injuries. Plenty of plans are available online, and you can pick up the lumber and hardware needed for the project for one hundred dollars or less. Premade and ready-to-assemble kits are also available. Raised beds keep out many pests and are great for porches, patios, and other places where they have a chance to drain.
Join a Community Garden
One of the best ways to garden without land is to find a way to use someone else’s. If you have no land of your own, there’s probably someone nearby who has land to share. A community garden may operate somewhere very near your home. Community gardens are private or public areas owned by local governments, nonprofit organizations, or clubs. They’re shared by groups of individual farmers who either work the land together or take care of separate plots. Some community gardens provide free plots, but many require a small fee that goes toward supporting the garden. Find and visit a community garden to determine whether it’s a good fit for you, and make sure you can easily reach it at least twice a week.
