By Vanessa Richins

I’ve been seeing websites advertising “Survival Seeds” popping up.

Basically, they offer a collection of different heirloom seeds to have on hand in case of food scarcity, disasters, and more.

They can be pretty pricey - so are they worth it?

In one such pack I found advertised. there were 22 varieties, said to plant 1 acre. At a price of $149 (on special, of course!) , that means each kind of vegetable is basically $6.77. Some will be more, some will be less.

I searched out prices for the same varieties that were listed. Most of these are priced Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

It’s likely that you’ve heard about hydroponic gardens.

These allow people to grow plants without soil.

However, you might have thought that would be difficult to implement as an urban gardener.

Today, though, I discovered some pretty impressive plans for making your own hydroponic garden inside a sunny window. I found it on LifeHacker, who gave a link to the creators, WindowFarms. Their website announces that “Window Farms are vertical, hydroponic, modular, low-energy, high-yield edible window gardens built using low-impact or recycled local materials.”

I declare: Window Farms are awesome.

As I opened the PDF instructions that were available on their site, the first thing I noticed were all of the plastic bottles. The how-to calls for 1.5 liter water bottles. What a fantastic way to Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Many gardeners choose to store garden seeds–especially from vegetables–at the end of the growing season, but the seeds will not last forever.

The natural shelf life of garden seeds depends on the kind of plant.

Store seeds in a cool, dry location so they will last longer than their natural shelf life.

They can be placed in a sealed jar in the refrigerator with a moisture absorbent like rice, silica packets or powdered milk.

One Year

Seeds that can be stored successfully for one year include parsnips, spinach and sweet corn. Annual flower seeds can last from one to three years.

Two Years

Beans, beets, Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

For many of us, gardening season is coming to an end.

The leaves are changing, and the promise of snow looms in the near future.

While you may keep some plants indoors in the house or greenhouse, you anxiously await spring.

Some, though, are a bit more fortunate. They live in the warmer zones where it rarely snows and you can garden for most, if not all, of the year. I used to enjoy that (sigh), since I spent my first 20 years living in Zones 9/10 California.

Back home in Southern California, we would get rainstorms during the winter. Since I lived in the mountains, the wind would blow especially hard and the storm wreaked havoc on the yard. Our banana tree was destroyed this way.

When you have a container garden, it’s important to Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Germany has been leading the way in urban gardening for many years.

They started the current trend of green roofs back in the 1960s.

Michigan State University’s Green Roof Research Program states that “It is estimated that 12% of all flat roofs in that country are green and the German green roof industry is growing 10% to 15% per year”.

Berlin has been pioneering another current trend - urban farming.  Many of the 74,500 local gardens contain edible plants.  The fervor for local gardening began back in the World War 1 and 2 years.

However, Berlin’s senate, faced with the task of balancing a budget ridden with debt, says that some of the gardens may have to be bulldozed in favor of new construction.

Spiegel Online Read the rest of this entry »