Urban Gardening

One of the easiest plants to grow in a container, typically a 5-gallon bucket, is the lovely tomato plant. Whether you like the Beefsteak tomatoes or the small cherry tomatoes, they can easily be grown on a small balcony or patio. Place rocks in the bottom of a 5-gallon bucket that has several drainage holes, and then fill with a mixture of potting soil and sand. Plant your tomato and watch it grow. Just remember that container gardening will require daily watering.

Beans and peas also do quite well in urban gardening. Plant them like you would the tomato plants, remembering to add a climbing pole if you have runner-type, instead of bush-type beans and peas.

Even squash and melons can be grown in a container garden. Some urban gardeners use one 5-gallon bucket per plant, while others use 13-gallon storage tubs and plant two or three plants per tub. These plants can also be trained to grow up a trellis, which has the advantage of keeping the fruit off the ground.

There’s almost no limit to the types of vegetables that can be grown by urban gardening. If one has a small yard, yet might be concerned about neighbors harvesting your produce, simply plant in such as way as to hide your vegetables. This type of camouflage gardening involves planting flowers and vegetables together so that the casual passerby doesn’t realize that more than just pretty flowers are being grown.

Lettuce is a great plant for a camouflage garden as it can be picked and reseeded, yet may appear to be a filler plant between the flowers or lining the edge of the flower bed. Various herbs such as mints, lavender, chives, oregano, rosemary and thyme are perfect for a hidden garden.

Another type of urban gardening some survivalists are practicing is perhaps a more daring type of camouflage gardening and that is to plant vegetables in ditches, along the roadside, etc. This is especially good for root vegetables. The bad thing is that you will be relying totally on nature for the watering, which in some parts of the country could be an iffy proposition.

Just remember, like other types of survival preparedness techniques, urban gardening is just a matter of a little ingenuity and effort. This will produce a supply of vegetables that will feed you and your family for a long time. So whether you choose container gardening or camouflage gardening there are ways for the city dweller to grow food in a survival situation.