PASS THE PARSLEY, ROSEMARY
Hanging pots, raised planters and maybe an old tire are great spots to grow highrise herbs
With area in large Canadian cities at a premium, urban-dwellers are using vertical space to increase the size of their gardens.
A vegetable garden may seem impossible for anyone living in a condo, but practitioners of vertical gardening, such as Judy Kenzie, see endless possibilities — even for those with a tiny balcony.
“I started looking into vertical gardening because I needed more space. I started looking at my backyard, and it is 20x22-feet,” says Ms. Kenzie, owner of Strathcona 1890 Urban Seed Collections. “It is fully planted with all sorts of beautiful trees and other plants, and then I had a deck that was barren.”
Ms. Kenzie began by creating 17 different kinds of hanging baskets with edibles and used her deck as a place to experiment.
“I examined particular variables that could affect the success of a vertical garden,” she says. “Some vegetables have deeper roots than others. You can’t plant regular carrots in a shallow box, but you can plant chard there, and you’ll just get baby chard. I started planting with all sorts of things like that.”
Ms. Kenzie has now created other vertical garden applications that include shelf-like structures and trellises.
While there are products that help people create vertical gardens, Jake Harding, co-founder of Skyline Farms in Toronto, and his business partner, Gustavo Macias, reuse materials destined for landfill for use in vertical gardening.
“We’ve been working with restaurants and private businesses to design multidisciplinary urban farms and gardens for whatever leftover space they have,” Mr. Harding says.
“We’re working with different restaurants to design farms and one farm is at the Drake Hotel. The idea for their farm was to take advantage of any materials we could salvage and show that we could use the materials removed from landfills and use them to grow food.”
He says they are also using pallets for vertical gardening at another Toronto restaurant. The company has also been talking with condo developers about incorporating vertical gardening in the initial designs of a development.
“Vertical gardening is ideal for people who live in condos,” Mr. Harding says. “They have even less space … It just is really the only thing that makes sense for condos and apartments.”
When planning a vertical garden, he advises considering the root depth of plants.
“You can’t really grow root vegetables in some applications, but it is perfect for greens and herbs,” Mr. Harding says. “Tomatoes grow well, but you have to come up with an innovative way to trellis them.
“It is important to keep in mind what you plant where and what likes shade versus direct sun.”
If you spend the winter planning for your springtime garden, watch for drying winds that can happen in some condo building locations. You will have to cover the soil with mulch, use glazed or plastic pots rather than terracotta, and water often.