So, the day after I planted all the seeds, it rained. All the seeds got redistributed into clumps! But they came up, and in the last five days, things have really taken off. Mostly, there is:
- bok choy
- mache (“corn salad”)
- rainbow chard
- green onions
- radishes
- purple carrots and fat orange carrots
- leeks
- fennel
- arugula
- beets

I’ve started eating the radishes, which are small, sweet, and hot at the same time. My neighbor also ate the leaves! And I’ve been picking the infant arugula leaves as soon as they’re ready, so the plants haven’t had the chance to grow any more that 2″ leaves. But the bok choy… so much of it. I have no idea what to do with it all, except make a lot of stir frys!

So far, so good. I can’t wait for the carrots and beets, though. It looks like weeds, but it’s all edible. Even the few dandelions that have crept in…

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Every time I’ve looked up starting a vegetable garden, there always seemed like an excessive number of questions to answer. There were just too many variables to get my head around. Even growing a simple vegetable and herb garden seemed like nothing but a big mess of putting out fires, a constant adjustment of soil, moisture, and chemicals.

While I like the idea of working outdoors and getting sun, I’m mainly after the garden’s harvest, not the activity of gardening. Like a lot of people, I have a limited amount of time. I don’t want to do a lot of work for nothing, so I’m reluctant to try a major do-it-yourself project unless I have a reasonable chance of success. The complexity of setting up even a small garden seemed to outweigh the potential results, considering I’m a beginner and probably couldn’t identify a tomato worm until it was too late.

But this year, I’ve found some good advice and resources that have simplified the process enough for me to feel confident enough to do it. Here’s what I have learned:

Get a book, ebook, or guide specifically about what you want to do, specific for beginners.
A generic book about gardening can cover everything from ornamental plants to growing grapes. It’s not that helpful, and will probably give you a lot of information you don’t need, while skimping on the specific topics you do.

I recommend looking for a book or manual specifically for your situation, whether it’s growing herbs in containers, companion planting for pest reduction, planting tomatoes, or shade gardening. Gardening is a lot of common sense, but beginners need all the help and assurance they can get. The more specific to your situation, the more the author will cover the topics that will help you.

If possible, follow a specific plan.
How can you plan a good garden if you’re a beginner? You don’t know what you don’t know, and that leads to trouble. I advise using someone else’s plan. The gardening guide I have recommends ten easy, nutritious vegetables that grow pretty well in indirect sun. This is perfect! It’s like a recipe for a garden — all you have to do is follow the instructions.

Deciding what to plant is probably the biggest issue that causes stalling, and you can’t usually afford to stall, since you’re following nature’s timetable. Next year, when you know more, you can experiment with more exotic plants. This year, leverage someone else’s expertise and follow their plan and recommendations for a solid start.

Choose something easy.
Don’t get too ambitious in size of your plot or variety of vegetables. Keep it simple and easy, because if this is your first vegetable garden, you just don’t know what’s going to come up that needs your attention. Be realistic and do a manageable garden, one that is easy to oversee and tend. If it works out, you can always expand next year.

Research any predators and potential problems before you plant.
I’m in the city. I already know there are aggressive birds and squirrels who eat anything, and so it’s my responsibility to come up with a plan. I also know that I have terrible hard and nutrient-weak soil, but my gardening guide resolves that easily. Pay attention to the wildlife around you, examine at your soil, and be realistic about the amount of sun you get. You don’t want bad surprises, but you do want to get as much data as possible to incorporate into your garden strategy.

Do your research before you start. Though I’ve never planted a garden before, I have done a lot of other projects, and it always pays to arm yourself with knowledge before you go into battle.

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As a city dweller, it has taken me many years to make the decision to grow my own vegetables. I’ve thought about it every year, but only as a nice little dream. This year, though, the rewards are so clear that I’ve decided the effort is worth it.

Expense.

Healthy, chemical-free eating is getting more and more expensive, but it’s so important to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables. More and more, people are discovering the negative long-term consequences of eating a diet high in refined sugars and grains. If you have children, it’s vital to teach them to eat well when they’re young, just as our parents did (or should have done), but to buy nutrient-dense organic produce these days costs a lot of money.

As soon as I got off the college diet, I took an interest in good food. Over time, my diet has gone from mostly refined carbs to mostly whole plants, but the expense is rising, as a result. While my decision to grow vegetables isn’t based on money, it will be fantastic to reduce my house’s grocery bill from late spring to early winter (the productive season of my garden.)

The ultimate in ecological eating.

“Eating locally” is a growing trend, but it’s hard to do. As people’s awareness grows about the impact of mass conventional agriculture, getting locally-grown organic food is becoming more of a priority. Again, it’s more expensive to buy it, and availability is spotty because you have no control over which markets will stock local produce. Growing it yourself — can you get any more local and seasonal? You’re really reducing your footprint — no transportation-induced greenhouse gases, and optimally, replenishing the soil with your kitchen-scrap compost.

Variety.

Sometimes, you just can’t get the ingredients you want! When you have a vegetable garden, you can grow produce you can’t get in markets. Specialty vegetables with low demand and delicate old varieties that can’t stand the rigors of transport can be yours if you grow them yourself. Heirloom tomatoes at premium markets can be $8 per pound — that’s over $8 per tomato — if you can get them at all. Some of those fruits are so delicate that they’ll bruise in transport; modern produce is bred to be tougher, but often has less flavor.

Self reliance.

Being able to grow your own food gives you power. You aren’t as dependent on the grocery store — or anyone else at all. You can use what nature gives you and live more directly off the land. This, for me, is the coolest aspect of starting a vegetable garden this year. I’m excited to become a grower, not just an eater.

It will be great to provide fresh and delicious food for my family and friends — swiss chard, heirloom tomatoes, sweet peas, baby cucumber, ground cherries, picked right from the plant! My son, who will be three, is taking an interest in where things come from, and he’ll be able so see for himself how food comes from the earth, not from cans, bottles, and boxes.

For other city veggie gardeners

I’ve started a list of resources for urban gardeners interested in growing food plants. If you want to get updates on new articles, resources, and product reviews, and links about growing fruits and vegetables, just sign up for my gardening member’s list with the form below. (This list is only for garden stuff, not anything else on the site.)

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What I hope to yield in the summer!

Since I’m a nerd, I don’t feel right about doing anything new unless I read a manual or take a class about it. I like the security of having an expert or good instructions by my side, especially since I attempt a lot of projects and don’t have time to muddle around.

I’m committed to a vegetable garden.

Growing a real, thriving vegetable garden has always been a fantasy of mine, and now that I’m in a house co-op, I can finally do it! There’s plenty of space, mostly indirect light, but some good sunny spots — the hard part will be clearing my hijacking of the (admittedly pretty ugly) yard with the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the first thing about gardening. All my house plants die within months! I’m so citified that when I first moved to San Diego, I was amazed to see fruit actually growing on trees. So, there’s a bit of a knowledge and skill challenge.

Still, I really want to do it this year. I want to turn the crappy crabgrass lawns into productive land. I definitely want to cook and eat delicious stuff. And, my lack of self-reliance bothers me. Right now, I’d be up the creek without a paddle if I couldn’t go to the grocery store. So, this is an investment in my (and my kid’s) survival skills.

There are a ton of forums like Gardenweb and Pioneer Thinking, but those are good if you have specific questions or have a certain amount of knowledge already. But I need a lot of basic knowledge, so naturally, I started looking for good books. (Well, I usually buy ebooks to save space in my tiny abode.)

Enter Food4Wealth

There are a ton of “info products” to choose from, especially ebooks with cheesy, salesy websites. But I found someone — Jonathan White — with a good-feeling site, real credibility with a degree in Ecology and a consulting practice in garden and landscape planning, nice real photos of him in his garden. Plus, he answered my emailed question (about squirrels) honestly within hours.

The only thing I don’t like is the cheesy name — Food4Wealth sounds like a pyramid scheme, or something. I guess I just distrust any product with “wealth” in it, but that’s just me.

This is an eco-friendly, nearly hands-free method of gardening.

This will be us!

Plus, I was really intrigued by his style of gardening. I had visions of digging, hoeing, and planting rows — not that it’s bad, I like to work outside — but I was prepared for a lot of labor and battling of the elements. Gardening is all about trying to create order out of chaos, right?

Not so, says Jonathan White. Instead of fighting and trying to control the way things grow by planting everything in blocks or rows of sameness (aka ‘monoculture’), his “ecological gardening” method mimics a natural ecosystem. It requires a lot less weeding, digging, killing, and battling — it just works on its own, according to him. Plus, it’s a lot more “natural” than typical block-planting organic gardening, which, though it’s chemical-free, still engages in warfare with the land.

As he says in his FAQ:

“Humans like to see themselves as separate from Mother Nature. As a species we prospered when we learnt how to cultivate food, so it’s difficult to turn back to where we came from- nature. It might even feel like a step in the wrong direction. But if we can let go of our need to control every living thing on the planet, and start to work with nature, we actually gain more control by being able to grow food more efficiently than ever before. It’s a paradox- but it works!”

Sounds good to me!

So, I ordered the ebook/video, and it is every bit as friendly and knowledgeable as the man comes across on his website. For a beginner like me — interested in a low-labor, high-yield, and eco-friendly backyard (and frontyard) garden — I couldn’t imagine a better resource. There is even good-quality video footage of him doing each of the steps, which is awesome, since I’m a stranger to hoe and rake.

It’s not fancy — anyone can (and does) do it.

Even though it’s a modern method, this style of gardening is dead simple and easy to understand, thank goodness. There’s no pH balancing of soil, and no special ingredients or equipment, just a straightforward gardening plan, complete with exact dimensions and where to put your rows. He even recommends a “top 10″ for the first year’s planting based on several factors.

I have to say, the low effort of ecological gardening was a letdown, at first. I was prepared to go into battle and rather liked the idea of hard work in the dirt (burns calories!) But you know? I’d rather be the miracle grower of delicious food for the co-op!

Highly Recommended

I seriously recommend this manual to anyone who is a beginner at gardening, or who has tried it with mediocre results for tons of labor put in. I’m so glad I found this first — it’s going to save me a lot of work, and result in more eating (always a good thing.)
If you’d like to learn more about Jonathan White and his ecological gardening method, visit his site, “Food4Wealth,” here.

If you want to get updates on how my garden grows, you can just fill out this form here. This list is only for garden stuff, not anything else on the site.

Even organic essential oils have an impact.

How can they not?  They’re still grown on farms.  Any human activity on the planet will have some kind of effect, and thinking that using organic and natural products don’t have an impact is not realistic.  It will still have an impact, but one that may not be as harmful.  “Wild crafted” essential oils are those made from non-farmed natural sources, but there are concerns that this practice will endanger plants, as no cultivation efforts will replace them.

I’m not an expert on aromatherapy or essential oils, other than using them for their scent properties, but here is a more in-depth look at this issue from someone more knowledgeable.

Synthetic musks.

One of the biggest questions is the effect of synthetic musks.  Natural musks, which have to be cruelly harvested from animals, have been banned since the 60′s, so the only other alternatives are expensive musk-like plants, which can get close but lack that animal quality, or lab-made fragrance.

Musks are used in just about everything scented, and there are a lot of synthetic musks in drinking water, lakes and streams, fish, human blood, breast milk, and other disquieting places.  No one knows if musks are carcinogenic in humans or not, or if they are a real threat to the environment, but it is well worth thinking about.

http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Synthetic-Musk-Risks24mar99.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_musk

Phthalates & Children

One of the recent concerns is children’s exposure to phthalates — present not just in fragrance, but many other products.  Children absorb more than adults, and the potential consequences are disturbind.  Phthalates may disrupt endocrine function, especially in boys, and lead to lower fertility in adulthood.  Phthalates in fragrance is the tip of the iceberg, but many baby products, such as powders, lotions, and shampoos, do contain it.

I have never advocated the use of any of these products, and when people ask me how to make them, I say, “Don’t.”  Scented products are fun to use, but you just never know when it comes to children.  Use plain, unscented products with minimal preservatives and no fragrance in leave-on products such as baby powder and lotion — not even essential oils.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/phthalates-47020418

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NEWSCIENCE/oncompounds/phthalates/phthalates.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate#Health_effects

I have a son (now 2) and, while I do take potential risks seriously, I cannot stand articles such as, “What’s Turning Our Boys Into Girls?”  Such pieces of “journalism” only make the problem seem ridiculous because of the unsoundness of the writing!  Please beware of people looking to turn this into sensational news pieces, but do look for reasonable information to help you make up your own mind.

Plus, plastic is not excellent!  Who likes to use cheap, disposable junk?  Most of the plastic I have is either recycled or vintage, like my son’s toys.

What threat do you pose as an individual “manufacturer?”

The worst offenders aren’t scented bath and body product and perfume, but the more common stuff used in greater quantities — laundry detergent, especially dryer sheets, cleaning products, hair care products, dish detergent, and things like that.  Those are always heavily scented, often to cover up the bad odors of other ingredients.

If you’re concerned about the environmental and health effects of making personal care products, but you don’t want to completely stop your hobby, consider changing to all-unscented household products, such as your kitchen and bathroom sprays, laundry products, and dish soaps.

Join us in an excellent lifestyle based on creativity, high-quality, and frugality -- become part of the Excellent Living Guide community! You'll be invited to participate in member discussions, projects, events, and special PDF tutorials on making more cool stuff. Read about ELG values and sign up here.