Once you pass the pavement, the Ozarks offer the perfect view of the sustainable lifestyle: miles and miles of rolling hills and farmland, countless crops and the long-standing tradition of living off the land.
It’s living inside the city limits that makes people think that same lifestyle is out of their hands. Admittedly, there’s not a lot of farmland in downtown Springfield, but that doesn’t have to stop urban dwellers from growing and enjoying their own harvest. In Fresh Food From Small Spaces: The Square-Inch Gardener’s Guide to Year-Round Growing, Fermenting, and Sprouting, author R. J. Ruppenthal takes this rural idea and puts a decidedly city spin on it. Ruppenthal gives a pretty comprehensive “how-to” for urbanites who want to eat sustainably in their own spaces.
The key advice? You don’t need much space to grow your own food. Small living spaces lend themselves to growing “sprouts on a counter top, salad greens on a windowsill, dwarf fruit trees on a patio, [and] tomatoes on a balcony.” Mushrooms and sprouts can thrive indoors, while many vegetables can be grown just fine in containers outside.
Ruppenthal’s Top 5 things every urban ecoist should know about urban gardening:
- “You can grow a lot of different food crops in limited spaces, even in apartments, condos, townhouses, and other small homes.”
- “Start with something that is relatively trouble-free (such as salad greens, peas, or even tomatoes) and work up from there. You will learn a lot from your successes and your failures. If you try some simple crops and do everything you can (such as provide good soil and water) to ensure their success, then you will experience some success.”
- “Do not be afraid to fail. All of us have our hits and misses. Sometimes you forget to water or you planted the wrong variety for your climate, or for whatever reason, a particular plant simply was not happy. …The only difference between a ‘black thumb’ gardener and a ‘green thumb’ gardener is that green thumbs learn from their mistakes, try again, and keep trying until they get it right. Then they replicate and build upon their success. There is a learning curve associated with gardening, just as there is with anything else.”
- “People do not realize that they can build a garden bed directly on top of concrete, stone, or rocky soil. Almost anything can grow well in containers, but even a patio, driveway, or walkway can be converted to a productive garden bed by building the soil up (as opposed to digging down, which you would not be able to do without a jackhammer). Twelve inches of soil is deep enough to grow almost anything. This really increases the available growing space in cities; so much of our good space is paved over, but it is no longer off-limits to creative gardeners!”
- “Try to reuse your resources in the garden. I wash my produce in a bowl or basin, then dump that water back into the garden. It conserves water and saves a small amount of good soil from going down the drain. Then compost your food scraps along with any coffee grounds, newspapers, cardboard, and old plant material. Start a compost pile or buy a tumbler, bin, or worm composter. For plant fertilizer, though, do not rely on your own compost: you will need to add some organic fertilizer as well, which is available from your local nursery.
Ruppenthal adds that if you have the chance to grow just one type of food in your small space, in order to save money, the most viable option is potatoes. “For a survivalist crop, nothing beats potatoes (and homegrown potatoes taste great!) You can grow a meaningful amount of potatoes in a pretty small space. Spuds pack more calories per square foot of soil than any other crop. They can grow in most climates and in most soils [and] you can store them for months at a time.”
Whether you’re a trying to cut back on your carbon footprint, newlyweds trying to save up money, or a student avoiding fast food and the dining hall, urban gardening is an easy and sustainable goal for your own square foot of the Ozarks. Are you a city-dweller getting into gardening, or an experience green thumb with tips of your own? Share them in the comments!
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(Quotes from R.J. Ruppenthal from the Makenna Goodman interview on the Huffington Post, November 16, 2009.)
