For all my urbanity, sometimes I dream hazy fantasies of a place where my short-fingernailed hands can comb through dirt. In these dreams, I'm wearing gauzy cotton or linen, and a graceful straw hat sits atop my head. Part Katharine Hepburn, part Martha Stewart, in these visions I'm experiencing some communal moment with Mother Earth as I till the soil and plant crops aplenty.
The likelihood of that actually happening is directly proportional to my getting older and moving further away from The Core.
So instead, I get out my ya-yas by researching where I can pick berries locally and volunteering for the occasional yard project at the parents' home in Symmes Twp.
In the immediate future, I plan on scouting out some berry picking (strawberries? raspberries? blueberries?) this holiday weekend. In the not-too-distant future, I intend on doing some research on container gardening.
That's how city folks grow their 'maters and basil, you see.
My future apartment is on the top floors of a lovely building in Over-the-Rhine. With plenty of fire escape space, I plan on making a little container garden to grow almost everything my heart desires. Peppers, squash and green onions do well in containers, and speaking of containers, we're not talking the traditional terra cotta pots you'd pick up at Lowe's or Home Depot. Just about anything would work well as a container garden - including an old pair of shoes or boots.
I'd love to see some mint growing out of a well worn cowboy boot.
Just because a girl plants down roots amid concrete and asphalt, it doesn't mean she has to miss out on the occasional opportunity to be one with nature.
Kate's Random Musings by Kate the Great is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
1 comment:
There are really only two hugely important things you need to worry about with container gardening: watering and drainage. For drainage, make sure whatever container you use has a couple of holes in the bottom, and then put about an inch of gravel at the bottom before you put in the potting mix.
With watering, you need to be vigilant. Check the soil every day. If it's not damp, water. If it is damp, let it be. But in the heat of the summer, you'll probably have to water every day.
I'm trying to remember where I bought it, but when I lived in Cincinnati, I lived in an apartment, and I found planter boxes that was designed to straddle the railing on a balcony of fire escape. Just bungee cord them in place for extra support, and you're ready to go.
They also make ones that hang off the outside of the railing.
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