Urban Garden

I always wanted to raise chickens. Ever since seeing them as a kid at the County Fair, I have thought they were great! What could be better than a pet that pulls its own weight, so to speak. With raising chickens you get comedic companionship, as well as the obvious, eggs! 

I'm 100% sure I could get S on board with the chickens, however, Baltimore City does not allow its residents to raise chickens on their land. Cue the boos and rotten tomatoes. 

So I decided to focus my hippy spirit on another type of country-meets-urban activity: the Urban Garden! 

We got SO lucky with our city apartment. Not only do we have a fire escape, but we have a *useable* fire escape. That is, one that has a landing versus a fire escape that merely has a latter to climb down. The perfect place for an Urban Garden!

My grandmother (who has the greenest of green thumbs) gave me two small tomato plants midway through the summer. Now, I do love a good project, but sometimes (most of the time?) I am a slow starter. Those two sad tomato plants stayed in their tiny containers in my sunroom for nearly a month before I decided what I could plant them in.

Enter the milk crate! I had the idea to plant the 2 tomato plants in a milk crate, and S had the idea to use the plastic sheeting so the whole process would not be too messy. So, I outfitted the milk crate with the plastic sheeting; securing it with gaff tape and poking holes in the bottom and sides to let the water drain out. Biscuit helped hold the plastic sheeting down with her heft.

Check our the rest of the Urban Garden story, after the break!

I used the proper ratio of tomato fertilizer to soil (and then threw in a handful of extra fertilizer for good luck!), planted those tomato plants, and put them outside where they belonged! (Look how sad and droopy they first looked!)

A few months, and a lot of sun, later, my awesome tomato plants were big and beefy! S bought us a rug to brighten up the fire escape patio..its hang drying in this picture because of the intense amount of rain Baltimore got in the months at the end of summertime.

It took many, many weeks, but my Urban Garden finally produced! I to date I have gotten about a dozen tomatoes, all about this size (some a little bigger). Sometimes on my way out to work, I will pick one or two and eat them on my way down the stairs to my car. Sometimes I will bring them inside and take cute pictures of them, to prove that I actually got my Urban Garden to work!

Delicious!