The Urban Gardener

Lately I've been hearing a lot about urban gardening for some reason. Personally, when I hear the term 'urban gardening' I think of plants covered in graffiti, million dollar rooftop jungles, or hippie co-ops. Really, it's just about doing a little something with the living space that you have. I'm definitely no environmental activist, but I see only benefits from growing some of your own vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

In our little French apartment we have enough room for us, but even a fly on the wall makes it start to feel cramped. Clearly, we really don't have room for food-bearing house plants.

What we do have, are nice Parisian window ledges. Most of the big ones here feature beautiful plants and/or flowers. Seeing as our ledge is as wide as the average French male, and we both have a penchant for killing flowers in record time, we thought it was a good opportunity to have a few legal herbs. While we obviously won't be making any extra income from our plants, or having any farm-to-table buffets, our little plants have already proven to be a fruitful idea - chive in omelets, cilantro in pico de gallo, homemade pesto, rosemary-infused olive oil, and cherry tomatoes in salads.

There's a ton of info out there about urban gardening - what plants are good for what conditions, etc. We have a fair bit of light coming into our apartment, so my only challenge is remembering to keep them watered. It's really nice to have fresh herbs available all the time. I think days of rushing to the store before dinner to buy expensive and enormous bunches of herbs that end up wilting away (or using dried ones) are over. They also help me to think creatively about meals and keep me excited to prepare them.

Cilantro, chive

 Rosemary, cherry tomato, basil, and lots of string to keep them on the 4th floor

Give it a go

GG