Monday, June 21, 2010

Introduction

Our apartment is located on the third floor of a large apartment complex that sits back in a "nature preserve". I'm not sure what the apartment complex itself (runoff, garbage, land use, etc) has done to the nature in our preserve but I'd be willing to bet it hasn't preserved so much as disturbed the flora and fauna. The landscaping does a pretty convincing job of disguising the fact that we are surrounded by strip-malls, interstate exit ramps, and probably the most poorly designed, traffic ridden road in Tampa bay.

I've become interested in the local food, organic food, and homesteading movements and started itching for some soil of my own to cultivate. However, my location makes this slightly impractical. I talked to a rep from our apartment complex about creating some sort of community garden but she said something about zoning and maintenance people, so I started looking for ways to grow food in containers in my apartment.

I began with a website: the very cool Windowfarming.org and a book by Maria Finn, A Little Piece of Earth: How to Grow Your Own Food In Small Spaces. The book is super accessible and even has illustrations for those of us who like a good picture to accompany our text. The important thing for me is to make the most of the limited space we have without crowding us out of our living space and to reduce our reliance on store bought produce. I'm an avid cooker so cultivating my own ingredients is an exciting next step in my quest the for ultimate fresh flava.

My first step will be to start composting. After work today, my boyfriend and I are going in search of a table top composter, the next step will be procuring a sack of live worms who will eat and poop my kitchen waste into a fabulous, nutrient rich sludge for my plants.