Author Archive

Last year, I built what I thought was the Most Indestructible Trellis Ever (MITE). Made with electrical conduit pipe and trellis netting, it happily accommodated all the peas, beans, and cucumbers I could grow in my community plot and I spent less than $20 on it, total. It worked great, looked nice, was cheap, and I could disassemble it easily for the winter. My only complaint: The netting I used had only 1″ holes, so I couldn’t reach my hand through it  to prune or pick vegetables on the other side. Here’s what it looked like, early in the season: This year, I scrapped the community plot because I didn’t have enough time to water—which is almost everyday in arid Denver—but I was eager to resurrect my Trellis. With upgrades, of course. Introducing the Most Indestructible Trellis Ever 2.0, which is so strong, I’m confident I could grow watermelons and

If you’re living in the city, you’re well aware of its joys: loads of restaurants, bars, theaters, sports teams, jobs, and people crammed together into a creative, vibrant urban ecosystem. The vitality, though, created by having all those amenities so close together means that space is at a premium. (In Manhattan, where real estate is still going for more than $1,000 per square feet, post-recession, there’s a crazy high premium.) So, you’re not going to be planting an orchard or enough crops to feed in the city. (Unless you’re these folks: http://urbanhomestead.org/journal/) That being said, you can still coax a load of produce out of a few pots on your rooftop or your backyard—John, for example, has 3 pots on his D.C. deck, while I have nine large pots tucked next to my fencepost in my postage-stamp-sized yard in Denver. With that little space, planning is essential. Tossing seeds around