By Cindy Naas

My favorite thing about growing my own vegetables is the amazing salads I can make.

Salad season is my favourite time of the year. Mine starts out with the early lettuces and spinach and keeps right on through till the last chard and arugula have been eaten in the fall.

Here are some good bets for growing your best salads ever.

Greens

One of the easiest ways for an urban gardener to grow fresh salads is to plant mesclun, a mix of various lettuces, greens and herbs. This is easily grown in containers if you don’t have the room for narrow rows. I plant several long planting boxes with mesclun seed mix.

Mesclun is good because Read the rest of this entry »

By Cindy Naas

Recently, I received an email from a friend asking my opinion on growing tomatoes upside down.

Honestly, I didn’t have an opinion at the time, although I did suggest that the person eat a little something with her pinot noir before emailing me next time. However, after doing some research, I had to apologize to my friend.

Upside down tomato growing is becoming a popular way of adding tomatoes to a small garden.

I discovered that some people feel Read the rest of this entry »

By Vanessa Richins

Next time you are outside at night, glance up at the star-filled sky.

You may find the same inspiration that led Barry Mayled of Wales to create his celestial urban garden.

Mr Mayled is a long time fan of a British television program called ” Sky at Night”, featuring the famous astronomer Sir Patrick Moore. His entry into the Chelsea Flower Show demonstrates the garden potential for empty rooftops.

He explains : “There are Read the rest of this entry »

By Michael Nolan

It’s happened to the best of us.

We get excited about a new planting season only to have our hopes and dreams dashed when we learn — the hard way — that a particular plant simply can’t be easily grown where we live.

How much do you know about your planting zone?

No matter where you are in the world, there is a planting zone, and with that zone comes a recommendation as to what can and cannot be grown in yours. Read the rest of this entry »

By Reggie Solomon

• We know urban garden plots can be small and tight. For those of us who love tomatoes, Vanessa Richins at Tomato Casual, tells us about tomatoes’ top arch enemies in the garden when it comes to companion planting.

• Bill Stanley at Home Gardening Tips shares cylinder gardening basics for people who have small spaces and who want to garden vertically.

• Cindy Naas, here at Urban Garden Casual shares tips on how to build a water garden. Rees Cowden at Green Side Up offers additional tips on building a cheap and inexpensive water garden feature.

• Kathy at Skippy’s Vegetable Garden celebrates planting day in her community garden.