Hello from Ontario!

[sdavie]

Welp, I'm a new user here. I live in a tiny 450 sq. ft. apartment in central Ontario with nothing but a tiny fire escape and fire escape landing as outside space (we have access also to a front porch but it's really dark and we mostly just have a bbq there). I am happily engaged to the man of my dreams, Luke, and we have a 6.5 month old fawn Pug named Pippa (or Miss Pips, Pippy, etc.). My fiance is an Engineer and I am studying to become a Veterinary Technician and we both love sustainable living, permaculture, vegetable gardening and making the best use of small spaces! Our goal this year is to have a wee vegetable garden on our fire escape, mostly in pots, but with some inventive design ideas that will allow us to maximize the space we have.

This weekend we will be building the first phase of our garden beds, which will be a 10" deep cedar bed that will slot over the roofline of our downstairs neighbour's kitchen. This bed will have hoops made from pex piping to create a poly tunnel over it. We are also planning to put in a table top bed that will sit underneath our fire escape on the ground below to house our spinach and lettuce as it's darker and cooler down there and hopefully that will help prevent them from bolting when it starts to get hot and humid here. You will notice there is a planter box that hangs from the railing, my fiance is planning on making another to go there and those too will be planted out.

This past weekend I planted some spinach, lettuce, scarlet runner beans, haricot beans, and homesteader peas. We will also be putting in tomatoes, peppers and hopefully potatoes in home depot buckets.

I guess you could say that we're sort of Urban Gardeners, to be quite honest I'd have chickens if I could but I just don't have the space. We have no backyard or access to one, the area behind our apartment is all just parking lot with very little grass at the front and that is on a main, very busy road.

 

[ninnymary]

Welcome! I'm glad that your lack of space has not prevented you from gardening. You are being creative and resourceful. Good for you!

Mary

 

[digitS']

We are glad you are here!

Not only did I used to have a pug (Chrissy) but my grandfather was Canadian .

He was born in Quebec just north of the border but, pretty much, grew up in London, Ontario. When he was a young fellow, he moved to BC. My grandparents lived there but, also, near here!

Have you thought about growing sprouts? They can make quite a contribution to your diet.

Most all of us do, at least, some container gardening. We will be looking forward to learning about your experiences.

Steve

 

[sdavie]

hi digitS'! my fiance actually went to University of Western Ontario in London I haven't really considered sprouts, I'll definitely look into that as an option. I love alfalfa sprouts in just about everything.

Our big issue will be space, really, and we won't be moving to a home of our own for another few years (I have 2 years of college plus this coming year out of school before we can really think about buying a home).

 

[bobm]

How will you or anyone else get out of the building in case of a fire with all of the containers and plants on the fire escape ??? Check with your local fire department as I would surmise that this activity would be not to their and building owner's insurance company's liking.

 

[sdavie]

How will you or anyone else get out of the building in case of a fire with all of the containers and plants on the fire escape ??? Check with your local fire department as I would surmise that this activity would be not to their and building owner's insurance company's liking.

We have two exits and none of this will be blocking the stair way or our ability to get out. This fire escape only services us, it's a townhouse split into an upper and lower unit with both having a front and back exit.

 

[897tgigvib]

SDavie, when I lived in Montana, some of my time there was in an upstairs apartment...

...with a fire escape...

...and a landing on it...

It faced southeast. On it I grew Tomatoes. Inside my apartment I literally turned half the living room into an indoor garden with hanging 4 foot fluorescenta and the huge southwest window. My bedroom had a southwest facing window not as large. I had another indoor garden there. Amazing how many things can be grown on a fire escape. None of them fell during 2 earthquakes we had. the containers for the plants were close to the wall, and large enough to have some weight. There was always plenty of room for fire escape purposes.

Eyes get kind of vertigoey when looking down to the ground through the metal grating, other than that no problems at all.

plenty of drainage, good potting soil, and the rest is just good gardening. Oh. Watch out for whiteflies.

if you have problems with spinach bolting too soon, you may want a few swiss chard.



after you do 10 posts you can do photos. remember your login stuff, and welcome here! We're just regular folks here. well, some of them are super special regular

 

[sdavie]

Lol the looking down through my fire escape is no issue at all, we use it as a regular exit because it opens onto our parking lot and who really wants to walk an entire block to get to their car! I wish I could grow anything inside unfortunately we don't get much light in the actual apartment, with no windows facing anything close to south, the three windows we DO have are in areas occupied by the dog and she would definitely eat anything and everything if given an opportunity (she tried to eat my cactus!).

 

[897tgigvib]

Yes, the fire escape for most of us was the regular walk too in and out. Plenty of room, and only one time did someone bump a plant noticeably, and that was a labor day so they were probably drunk those apartments often had a college student living offcampus...

the vertigo thing, that's just me, lol! actually usually kind of cool...

 

[Mickey328]

Hello, and welcome from a transplanted Canuck living in Colorado!

As Marshall mentioned, fluorescent lights are an indoor gardener's best friend. You can generally get the 4 foot shop lights for a very reasonable price and the plants do very well with them. If you have room to make some open shelves you can hang the light from the ceiling and give them what they need

Another thing I've seen recently are the "bottle tower", made from 2 litre soda bottles. It only takes up a small amount of floor (or fire escape landing) area but you can grow a LOT of stuff in it since it's more vertical. There are several good videos floating around...one on Youtube is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uDbjZ9roEQ

Might be just the ticket to increase your overall production and it's space and money saving.