Thursday, November 3, 2011

Vertical Food Garden for Small Spaces

Vertical Food Garden

With all the talk about vertical gardens, I just had to share this link.  Most of the vertical gardens I've seen are ornamental, complicated expensive to install, and labor-intensive to maintain.  There's a multi-story garden at the Whole Foods on 5th in Austin, for example, that is stunning, and that I always stop to admire, but often has half-dead plants.

This garden, however, seems practical and productive. It's just three rows of rain gutter nailed to a sunny wall, filled with soil, and planted with salad greens and radishes.  One of the commenters suggests adding a drip irrigation system as well, which would probably be useful in our hot climate because such a small bit of soil would dry out so quickly.  I do wonder about her siding though, and the problem of rot  from regular watering and contact with the soil-filled gutters.

In any case, I love this woman's garden and just wish I'd thought of doing something similar when I lived in central Austin, with our tiny, shaded yard.  One sunny wall could enough yield salads and greens to feed our family.