By Cindy Naas

1. A good sharp trowel

try a variety of handle shapes in order to find the perfect fit for your hand. More expensive does not mean better in a trowel, but a good stainless steel solid shaft is important. A trowel welded onto its handle is more likely to break in dry or compacted soil.

2. Secateurs, or hand pruners

I own Felco bypass pruners, and I could not garden without my secateurs. This is the one tool I am willing to spend a fair amount on. Mine are easy to use even for people who have weak hands, and I bought the optional leather hip holster so my secateurs are always handy whenever I am outside in my garden.

3. A shovel

My shovel is a square-bottom transplanting Read the rest of this entry »

By Cindy Naas

Previously on Urban Garden Casual, there was an excellent post about having your soil tested for contaminants, which is a very good idea.

Assuming that your soil has gotten a clean bill of health, the next step in getting your own urban garden growing is to make sure you have the best soil possible.

Nothing you can do later will be as important to the success of your garden as preparing the soil correctly now.

First, decide whether you will be gardening in the earth or in a collection of pots and other containers. Soil preparation is very different for those two growing conditions. This post will address preparing your own patch of dirt for growing vegetables, and later I’ll tell you how to grow anything in a pot!

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By Michael Nolan

In this installment, we’re going to take a look at a few creative ways to use what you already have instead of buying expensive pots for your container garden.

Egg Cartons
My partner always looks at me funny when I rinse and save my empty egg cartons. When it comes time to start the seeds for a new gardening season, I pull them out, fill them with some nutrient-rich compost and voila!

I’ve got seed starters that didn’t cost me a penny. I did start buying eggs that come in cardboard cartons so that I can simply cut them apart and drop them right in place in my garden.

Toilet Paper & Paper Tower Rolls
Those sturdy paperboard rolls can easily Read the rest of this entry »

By Reggie Solomon

If you’re a winetaster, you’ll enjoying gardening like one as well.

Grow two or more types of each vegetable in your garden so you can compare and contrast tastes like a wine taster.

In this way you can build your palette to recognize and discern the subtleties in taste within a particular vegetable group as was noted in a previous posting.

You can conduct this experiment with every vegetable in your garden or choose two of three of your favorite vegetables on which to experiment. Read the rest of this entry »

By Reggie Solomon

Choosing what to grow in your garden takes on special significance due to most urban gardener’s constraint of space.

When you’re in an urban garden you’re much more likely to be aware of what is growing than you are in larger non-urban gardens.

Choosing what to grow in a small space can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be if you use the tips below.

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