DIY: get ready for spring

15 sky planters, ceiling-suspended indoor herb garden, Green Follower

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I know it's out there somewhere, spring that is. So to get past these warmish, but uncertainly so, days and brown earth, bare tree vistas, let's look forward to spring and summer. What better way to do it than plan your garden and plant the starts.

Even if you don't have the land for a garden, you can put together an herb garden on your deck or porch. If even that is not available, how about a kitchen herb garden (this one's year-round). For planting outside one of the most important things is to know your zone. Orchids in the great Alaskan outdoors don't quite work. Even basil, usually planted from seed outdoors, doesn't do well here if not started indoors or in a greenhouse (if you're lucky enough to have one).

This collection of webpages on starting seeds indoors will get you going: Burpee, the seed seller (your seeds don't have to be only vegetables); Organic Gardening; and Popular Mechanics. Martha Stewart has an excellent photo essay on herb basics that includes the requirements for growing plants of all kinds.

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Herb Basic, Martha Stewart

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If you decide that a kitchen garden best suits your needs, there are many options, some quite expensive. For simple container solutions, take a look at the selection offered by Green Follower. Organic Gardening has a list of the "10 Best Herbs for Indoors." One of my favorites is parsley--it's pretty and nothing beats fresh parsley when cooking. Five garden kits are reviewed at About > Indoor Gardening. At Urban Gardens you can find an article on 6 Types of Hydroponic Gardening Systems and Countertop Planters, plus some historical information. And don't forget to check out 'indoor herb garden kits' at Amazon.

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parsley, Organic Gardening

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Getting your hands dirty can be a good thing.

-- Marge

DIY: Seedbombing and guerilla gardening

My thought was to offer a few ideas for indoor gardening (more about that later), then I discovered Greenaid. Quoting the introduction at the sponsoring organization's site Commonstudio,

As cities become the pre-eminent human habitat, new questions are emerging about how we can better empower urban dwellers to feel more connected to their everyday surroundings.A growing movement known as “guerilla gardening” hopes to spark these larger shifts in consciousness and action, and a tiny but powerful tool known as the “seedbomb” has been used by guerilla gardeners for decades to transform the forgotten niches of the urban landscape.  Made from a mixture of clay, compost and seeds, these green “pixels” can be thrown or planted virtually anywhere, creating more vibrant places worth caring for.  Greenaid is Commonstudio’s multi-year initiative focused on making seedbombs more accessible to the general public by channeling the power of social enterprise.

A couple of their projects are seedbomb vending and D3 (Dream it, Design it, Do it).  To offer seedbombs to consumers and potential bombers, they put up some prototype vending machines in the Los Angeles area.

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Greenaid, SeedbombVending, The Commonstudio

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With the D3 project, a program for K-12 students, Commonstudio asked: "How might we build creative confidence in young people by channeling their interests through the lens of design?"

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D3 methodology, The Commonstudio

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If bombing and other green guerilla offensives are not your thing, how about a vertical green garden in your apartment or flat?

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Flora Grubb, Vertical Garden, Inhabitat

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If you like avocados and want to make use of the seeds, here's how:

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AlissaSueK, Growing Avocado Plants From Seed, Instructables

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-- Marge