Grow your own - food - in an apartment, anywhere!

[mzteris]

I found this in the Frugal Living group on DU - and thought it worth spreading around -

http://www.windowfarms.org /


it sounds like a really great idea!

[elocs]

1. Nice idea for those who want to garden. I don't.

I do, however, support my local Farmers Markets, both of them.

[whistler162]

2. The only problem is the compost heap.....

the neighbors keep complaining!;)

It's a interesting idea.

[elleng]

3. VERY KEWL!

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Mike K]

8. I don't know what part of Brooklyn you're from -

but I lived in Park Slope for most of my life. I had a brownstone on Berkeley Place (near 8th Ave) and my across-the-street neighbor had a garden on his roof. He grew all kinds of things, including four productive pot plants in big wood tubs.

His name was Gene. He was a very generous, very nice fellow and I miss those wonderful days so much it hurts me right in the middle. One of the dumbest things I ever did was sell that house.

[BrklynLiberal]

10. I live in Seagate...near Coney Island, but my sister lives in Park Slope

She is on 6th Avenue between Lincoln and St John's

I don't know about anything else, but you can be sure that brownstone is worth much, much more than it was when you sold it.
When my sister moved there in 1978 or so, it was considered an "iffy' neighborhood.

Now it is totally gentrified, lots of kids and dogs..well there were always lots of dogs.

I sued to drive to Prospect Park several times a week just to let my dogs run loose during the "no leash hours."

I know exactly where Berkeley and 8th Avenue is...Lovely street there.

You are not too far away to be able to come around and visit the old neighborhood every now and then.

[Maru Kitteh]

5. What. You mean like - eat vegetables in their natural form?

Radical dude.

[mzteris]

9. like - not canned or frozen or processed or

anything?

uh - yeah, dude. Like wow.

'sreallly good stuff, ya know?

:smoke:

[Hannah Bell]

17. vegetables grown in plastic bottles fed with bottled nutrients are more natural than

vegetables grown on big farms fed with bottled nutrients?

plus the pump & power?

the advantage to this v. conventional shelves & pots = ?

[struggle4progress]

26. There oughta be laws against that! It reminds me of public nudity!

Our society is going downhill! So many things remind me of public nudity nowadays! It didn't used to be like this!

[snappyturtle]

6. WOW! Wonderful website. Since I'm leaving TX (yeah) and

moving to ND, I think this hydroponic window garden is a super idea!

[tavalon]

7. I left Texas four years ago and never looked back

What a bizarre, bizarre state.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[catzies]

11. Subject of a good NPR story this morning on Weekend Edition. Good find.

:thumbsup:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125504307

[d_r]

12. do you have to register to look at anything?

usernmae: bugmenot and password: bugmenot work


OK: I really like the use of old plastic bottles for the hydroponics, that it is great, but it doesn't seem to me that using an electric fish tank pump to pump air through three bottles to grow three plants is really that good of a use of resources....why not just plant the lettuce in a pot of dirt on the window sill?

[Touchdown]

13. Look at the stoners getting ideas!

:rofl:

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Grow mushrooms! In the dark, in your basement!

They need expensive media, like um, newspaper, sawdust, dead tree trunks. Sunlight optional. Water occasionally.

[eShirl]

21. +1

[piratefish08]

40. I have a nice little batch going right now. It can be a very fun and inexpensive hobby to grow

'any' kind of mushrooms in a very small space.....

It's easy but not simple - you learn a lot about sterile processes when raising shroomies.......


:hi:

[jtrockville]

15. Is plastic the best choice? Doesn't it leach?

[Hekate]

16. It really does look like fun. There's a "backyard chicken" movement, too.

TY for sharing!

Hekate

[tango-tee]

18. Thinking of chickens. I knew someone who kept a rooster in her apartment

and took him for walks on a leash.

I don't know where she currently resides, but I believe the rooster is no longer with her.

[Sebastian Doyle]

23. Had a neighbor with a rooster a few years back (this was within city limits)

Wouldn't have bothered me, except the little bastard was apparently blind and would cock a doodle his fool head off at 3:00 in the morning.

I remember one particular hungover morning screaming out the window "If you don't shut that fucking bird up, I'm having fried chicken for dinner tonight!!"

[Hekate]

27. Chickens are kinda fun (I have 4) but a rooster would be a problem. A big, noisy, problem.

My daughter had them at her preschool, which had to be evacuated in a major local fire last year. One dark and smokey night I received "the girls" in a dog crate, and the rest is history. Aside from digging up the landscaping and pooping generously, they're very sweet, and their eggs are great.

Turns out our local ordinances are "silent" on the subject, and if you go online you can see examples of small backyard/garage/what looks like city rooftop in the snow/and I don't know what all else chicken coops. Usually people don't have a rooster unless they're in the countryside and are trying to raise baby chicks.

Thirty years ago I knew of a woman who kept a few goats in her back yard, maybe 5 streets away from where I live now. I never saw them, but I knew a gal whose little boy couldn't drink cow's milk and she told me about the goat-lady. Amazing-- goats in a suburb.

Hekate

[tango-tee]

33. Tolerance levels vary greatly among neighbors.

When I was a little girl in the late 1950's living in a very modest suburb, we had chickens, geese, ducks and rabbits. No one minded, because everyone else had them, too. My grandma even had a lamb. There were vegetable, fruit and flower gardens fertilized with manure. All the neighbors did this at the same time, I guess so that all the entire neighborhood would stink to high heaven all at once, and get it done and over with.

All those years later in my old neighborhood, there would be a firestorm of complaints if someone had chickens cackling or actually used manure to fertilize. The yards are immaculate and sterile, hardly a butterfly or junebug in sight. It all looks so manicured and artificial, and sad.

[Hekate]

35. It is sad. The original design of individual houses included a small plot of earth specifically for

... growing fruits and vegetables, because the contrast between the health of city dwellers and country dwellers could be pretty stark. The all-grass notion seems to be specifically post-WW II, when war-time austerities gave way to the abundance and cheapness of large-scale farming. The 1950s were close enough in time to those old days... My mom (1924 - 2007) once commented in passing that when she was a girl, "It was a pretty feckless person who didn't keep their own chickens."

In my community there's a small movement to turn lawns into food, called, appropriately enough, Food Not Lawns. You just have to get over your front yard being immaculate. http://www.independent.com/news/2008/oct/09/food-not-lawns/

Hekate

[Touchdown]

31. I got a beagle. I can't do that. He'd be bullied all the time by the rooster.

Walking up with a swagger, and saying... "I say! I say, DAWG! Boy now, git over here! I'm gonna show you how to get Prissy to lay eggs!"

[tango-tee]

34. At my aunt's farm, the rooster hated me.

He really did. As soon as he saw me, he would race across the courtyard, really to go for the jugular. I was scared to death of that beast.

[Hekate]

36. We had a duck that would do that to my little sister. We ate him. The chicken book I'm reading...

... says if you have a mean rooster and can't train him out of aggressiveness, get rid of him pronto. Life's too short for that nonsense, and you can always have another in waiting if your hens are raising chicks (my hens are there for the eggs and because actually the girls are kind of sweet-natured).

Mr Hekate was very hesitant about taking in our daughter's hens for the very reason you mentioned: as a small boy he was traumatized by a rooster, too, so he thought the entire race was hostile. Gradually he came to like these, and now he's friends with them. :D

Hekate

[tango-tee]

37. On the other hand... I raised two goslings when I was about five years old.

They were my responsibility, they actually sat on my lap to be stroked, I would feed and take care of them - and they grew up to hate my mother. Don't ask me why. They chased my mom back into the house as soon as they caught sight of her in the yard.

Their fate was inevitable. They became Christmas dinner 51 years ago. Once I realized what had happened, I threw a tantrum of a magnitude that has kept our family from ever having roast goose again until this very day.

Dad became belligerent, once, about twenty years ago at a restaurant, and ordered roast goose. Said he didn't care if I threw another fit right then and there. When it arrived, with red cabbage and potato balls, he looked at his plate, tried a bite, looked at me and wistfully said he wasn't all that hungry after all.

[Kind of Blue]

19. Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention!

I didn't even think that anyone outside of the group would be interested when I posted there. :hug:

Of course, I KnR!

[mzteris]

28. i stop by the "Frugal Group" every so often

to get new ideas.

I meant to give a link to YOUR page but totally forgot. My son was bugging me to "HURRY UP, MOM" 'cause he wanted to get on the 'puter.

That's one of the problems with the "groups" - is that a lot of good stuff gets missed by the G.P.

[Kind of Blue]

29. Aww, I think it's Wonderful that you did!

Do you think that you might start one?

I'm keeping a running list of those who are interested on this thread, the Frugal Group and another group I frequent. Maybe to start an ongoing thread in Frugal, as DUers start their own to share tips from the Window Farming community at large. But I'm still going to do it even if I'm the only one :rofl:

I'm so excited about this that I could bust - really :)

[mzteris]

30. i actually have a yard I can use . . .

but haven't gotten around to doing it in a few years. :(

Of course, if it were inside, I wouldn't have to worry about the GD BUNNIES!!!! eating my freakin' plants!

[ellie]

20. I have been writing

several articles about hydroponics recently. It is very cool idea.

[Kind of Blue]

24. Where can one find your articles?

I'm going to being Window Farming this month.

[femrap]

22. K and R

What a fabulous idea! :think: :bounce: :wow: :wow: :wow: :thumbsup: :woohoo: :applause:

[KittyWampus]

25. I love this thread

xoxoxoxoxo

[Ignis]

38. Kicking for visibility

:kick:

We've been growing (some of) our own veggies for the past two years using square-foot gardening and above-ground bins. It's been a blast, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a tiny bit of space. You can do more with a square foot garden than you'd think!

[bridgit]

39. I'm all for it

http://gardeninginsmallspaces.com