Save Money Growing Your Own Strawberries

Photo via staceyjoy's flickr

An expert from Rose Red & Lavender in Brooklyn, Kimberly Sevilla, took some time to talk urban container gardening with WG News recently. We already know fire escape gardens aren't exactly legal, but let's say you scoff at the law, or better yet, have a small balcony or outdoor space or even an ounce of natural light peeking in through your window... what do you plant?

You can grow "everything from flowers and herbs to vegetables and fruits. Throughout the ages, container gardening has been extremely popular and a convenient way for urban dwellers to grow delicacies on small patios and balconies." Herbs, lettuce and strawberries do especially well growing in containers, but Sevilla notes that cherry tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and eggplants will also grow easily. An in fact, alpine strawberries can even thrive with little sunlight.

Suitable containers include anything from olive oil cans to pickle buckets and old tires—and we suggest hitting up this interview for a full rundown on what to grow and how to do it. Any other urban gardening tips out there?

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Carlson in Food on May 13, 2010 4:37 PM

Comments [rss]

Knickerbocker

Here is the big industry secret on why store bought strawberries taste like potatoes.

They are not ripe, and the red color is fake.

Here's how they do it.

Strawberries are picked green, then transported in containers that are filled with nitrogen gas. The nitrogen makes the berries turn red without actually ripening them. Green strawberries are less likely to bruise in transport, so they are better suited for the long bumpy trip to your house.

They are still strawberries, and the nitrogen will not harm you, but they taste terrible. You want to eat a real strawberry, get them in season only from a farmer's market or grow your own.

kafkask

You're 100% right. That's what they do to all produce, and that's why tomatoes always tast like shite.

r1b2

Our home in Boerum Hill has a small yard. We are growing a bunch of things in containers: 2 types of peppers, 3 types of tomatoes (including one gorgeous heirloom variety), strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, mint, oregano, rosemary, lots and lots of flowers, lavender. The strawberries are coming in lovely, lots of tomatoes appearing, blueberries coming in. Beautiful and very exciting.

nicemarmot

The real plus about growing your own strawberries is that they taste about a million times better than those crap-berries they ship in from California.

SP

If you have a sunny window, they grow well in hanging baskets, like those tomato ones they sell on infomercials. But you can easily make them yourself, and they're perennial so you can have them year round. My parents have alpine strawberries from switzerland in their yard that make strawberries well into the early winter, and you can see them under light snow cover.