Space To Grow In-Survival Gardening Part 2

Space To Grow In.

For many finding “Space to Grow in”, is the biggest hurdle to overcome. Because of your economic status and housing situation. Perhaps you are part of the working poor. Consequently you do not own your own home and have a small backyard or none at all, perhaps you live in an apartment or duplex.

This part may be the part of the process that seems impossible for you. Maybe you are reading this book and are telling yourself I will get some knowledge and start my survival garden when I buy some land or live in a house with a big backyard at least. But I urge you to not wait till then to start. Like many people, if you wait to start your survival gardening when you have desirable conditions, you will never start.

I started my own survival garden while living in a one-bedroom garage apartment. Some may have a large area of land and would like to start doing: “Back To Eden Gardening.” This form of gardening has some advantages but it is my opinion that it is difficult for beginners to start with and completely impractical if you do not have ample land or if you only have a small backyard.

The Back To Eden Gardening Method, Space to Grow In.

The Back to Eden Gardening Method was made popular by a movie that you can watch for free on Youtube entitled: Back To Eden Documentary Film. This method is basically a no-till method of gardening directly on the ground using a wood chip mulching method to change the composition of the soil over time and is a long-term gardening method. There are many Pros and Cons of Back To Eden Gardening.

Things to Consider about The Back To Eden Gardening Method.

Back To Eden gardening Pros:

• Long Term Soil Use,
• Less Watering,

Back To Eden gardening Cons:

• Pulling Weeds,
• You need land,
• Impossible with small yards and apartment dwellers,
• Takes time to cultivate the soil initially,

Raised Bed and Container Gardening Method is a very practical, easy way to start your own Survival Garden and it is scalable. I’m not saying the Back To Eden Gardening Method is bad, just that it is not for everyone. There are more pro’s and con’s with the Back to Eden Gardening method but those are the ones that matter to me the most. With raised beds and container gardens you can build your own raised beds, you can use household items like old dressers or totes as containers, you can use cinder blocks, or you can buy relatively inexpensive pots or containers online.

Raised-Beds, Space to Grow In.

Think out side of the box! There’s no one way to make a raised bed to grow your garden in. You could constrict something that is made out of wood, 2×4’s or plywood, or even from old discarded pallets. You can use sheet metal frames or cattle troughs. It’s possible to build a raised bed using bricks and mortar. You could use old plastic totes as containers for a raised bed

A uniform size for raised beds does not exist. No gardening law about must-have size for a raised beds to work. You could have a raised bed that is only 6 inches deep or four feet deep. But if you decide to construct your own raised bed there are a couple of things you need to consider.

Things to Consider when building your own “Raised-Bed” Garden.

• What space do you have available? For instance, if you build a wide raised bed do you have room in your backyard to walk around all sides of it? Is the raised bed built next to a fence making the bed hard to cultivate on one side or pick the vegetables in the back? I recommend designing your raised beds according to your unique needs and location.
• What is your budget? Are you unemployed and low on funds? Do you have access to materials that may be lying around in your garage like old lumber or plywood?  Aesthetics may be important to you but if it’s just in the backyard a raised bed constructed of old plywood and odd pieces of lumber may be just fine.
• How high off the ground should it be? The higher off the ground usually means you will need more potting soil than lower raised beds. Store-bought potting soil is the most expensive part of gardening. Potting soil is a whole other topic for discussion. What type of crop you are planting will have a big factor in how deep you need the bed to be. A high raised bed is usually easier to deal with because you do not need to stoop down when you go to harvest it.

The Only limitation is your creativity. So do not let lack of space or money stop you from getting started. A raised bed is basically a big container for soil that is not pressed down like your footpath and therefore will be much easier to get good results with.

My favorite inexpensive container to grow a garden in pots is “Grow Bags”.

Grow Bags, Space to Grow In.

Fabric grow bags can be bought online from many different retailers. You can buy them on Amazon.com or even Walmart.com. I bought thirty, seven gallon-sized, fabric grow bags from Walmart.com and they have worked very nicely for me.

The only downside I found at all with fabric grow bags was that they do not retain water as well as hard plastic or clay garden pots. But you can line the fabric bags with garbage bags or cardboard or several other things to help them hold water longer.

Grow bags are portable. You can move grow bags locations from season to season to best get more of the needed sunlight for photosynthesis. You can move them when you move from apartment to house or vice versa. Grow bags are easily stored and put away when they are not being used. 

I have even grown garden plants right out of a potting soil bag. But seeing how expensive store bought garden soil is, it’s not the cheapest container to use.

Check out some of the ways I have used raised beds and grow bags over the last few years.