YOUR GUIDE TO THE URBAN GARDEN

SALFORD M3MAGAZINE

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YOUR GUIDE TO THE URBAN GARDENTHIS ISSUE INCLUDES

URBAN FARMINGGUERILLA GARDENING

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FARMLAND?

No? Think again!

In a world where space is fast becoming a premium and population increase means the demand for food is growing everyday Dr. Dickson Despommiers author of the book ‘The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century’ advises us that the sustainable solution to this problem is building skyscraper like structures in urban areas with floor after floor of farmland.However that really is a grand design for any gardening project we might think to undertake so New York artists Brittia Riley and Rebecca Bray came up with a small scale vertical farm anyone could build in their home, the window farm! Window farms are made up of plastic containers hung up in vertical columns in front a window area and using a simple air pump water and nutrients are distributed around all of the plants.

what really makes window farms special is that they are easy to make and very cheap as well as recycling those old plastic bottles.Window farms can be used to grow a wide range of food from peas to strawberries and turn

an area of any home into a sustainable, modern alternative to shopping at Tesco!To find out more and instructions on how to make your own window farm visitwindowfarms.org

Another innovative concept for growing within a limited space is an upside down planter. Utilising space with the ability to grow a variety of vegetables, fruits and herbs. For DIY Instructions search ‘upside down platers’ on instructables.com or you can buy the planters pictured above from boskke.com from £14.95.

Bridge/Railing planters are designed to fit over outdoor railings, fences or gates. The one pictured above is by Israeli company Greenbo and is a more stylish version than other bridge/saddle planters on the market and is available to buy throughbest4garden.co.uk

Don’t have a garden? Think again, Manchester has a number of fantastic community gardens which anybody can get involved with. They are a great place to meet new people and learn new skills as well as growing your own food. To find the one closest to you visit farmgarden.org.uk

Now you know where you can grow the question is what to grow?There’s a huge choice on what you can grow with varying levels of difficulty so here are a few suggestions.For window farm crops why not try vegetables like kale, lettuce or peas, herbs like basil, dill or sage or fruits such as strawberries. All of these like high levels of sunlight and are suited to the

Now all that’s left is how to cook all the food! Here is a nice simple recipe to create pasta and meatballs in a spicy cherry tomato sauce.

Ingredients

For the meatballs• 250g beef mince• 1/2 tsp fresh thyme

leaves• 2 spring onions, finely

chopped• salt and black pepper• 2 tbsp olive oil for

fryingFor the tomato sauce• 1 tbsp olive oil• 2 cloves of garlic

finely sliced

• 2 chopped birds-eye chillies

• 400g cherry tomatoes, blended

• 5 basil leavesTo serve• 200g tagliatelle

pasta, boiled

To begin with mix all the meatball ingredients (except for the oil) in a bowl then use your hands to mix them all thoroughly together, then divide the mixture into ten evenly sized balls flattening them slightly so they’ll cook more quickly.Heat the olive oil over a medium heat and fry the meatballs for 5-6 minutes until golden brown and

cook through.For the sauce fry the garlic and chilli in the olive oil for a minute then add the rest of the ingredients and allow to simmer and reduce down for 10 minutes.Then add the sauce and the meatballs to the pasta and maybe sprinkle on some mozzarella cheese over that for extra flavour.

farms moisture levels.Upside down planters could be used to grow chilli peppers which come in a wide range or varieties all with different attributes with varying levels of spiciness. A good choice of peppers that are both easy to grow, will yield a decent amount of crop and won’t outgrow their planters would be the birds-eye chilli or the apache chilli.Community gardens offer

a lot more space unlike the other methods we’ve mentioned and allow you to grow root vegetables like potatoes or carrots and vegetables like tomatoes that would outgrow indoor projects.Being outdoors means growing crops in season, seasons vary for different vegetables and varieties but as a rough guide for the ones we’ve mentions sow your seeds late March/April and harvest in August.

GUERILLA GARDENINGArm yourself with spades, water and a few seed bombs and prepare to plough!

Sick of walking past the same neglected, decaying piece of land? Tired of looking out of your window and seeing nothing but desolate concreted sites? Well the time is now and this time it horticultural!Guerilla gardening is about taking the solution to this problem into your own hands and turning those areas into environments you would expect to see on the Chelsea Flower Show. Going Guerilla is the practice of planting crops, flowers and shrubs on land that does not belong to you and may technically be illegal but that hasn’t stopped the growing number of people in the UK taking to the streets to improve them.The man at the frontline of this movement is Richard Reynolds (pictured). Back in 2004 he started a blogguerillagardening.orgdocumenting his midnight raids on unsightly patches of disused public land around London, the blog which has now grown into a community website has almost 60,000 subscribers worldwide. So if you are sick of seeing an area of Manchester or Salford then now is the time to act, you can enlist yourself on the guerilla gardening website and organise a project with a group of collaborators or choose to go it alone either way here are 4 handy steps to take when going guerilla!

01 02Look for a neglected piece of public space, somewhere that you feel would benefit from your efforts. Pick somewhere convenient to revisit as you are now this gardens guardian, you’ll have to revisit it for maintenance every now and again plus you’ll get to see the fruits of your labour!

Plan your mission in advanced. Make sure it’s at a time when the neighbourhoodbusy-bodies won’t be there! Utilise the online communities as well as recruiting friends and family, getting more people involved means you’ll be spending less time on each mission and can take on bigger projects.

STEP

STEP

GUERILLA GARDENINGArm yourself with spades, water and a few seed bombs and prepare to plough!

SEED BOMBSOne particular tool in the guerilla gardeners arsenal which has gained a huge amount of popularity is the seed bomb. The seed bomb is a small often round combination of compost, seeds and clay.

They are very useful when the area you are trying to reach is inaccessible due to fencing or posse’s of rabid squirrels. They are thrown like grenades onto a patch of land and the seeds within they grow an explode into life.You can make them yourself simply mix 5 parts clay, 1 part compost with 1 part seeds add in a little water and knead the mixture together then form into balls then let them dry out. And with that you can go out and attack an area of the city that otherwise would of remained safe!

You can also buy grenade shaped seed bombs online if you don’t feel like getting your hands dirty from kabloom.co.uk

0403Find a local supply of plants. Bare in mind that your criminal activity may become the victim of much more sinister criminal activity and your plants may be stolen! So get your plants as cheap as possible so you have the money to replace them if needs be. Choose hardier plants that will resist the cold, water shortages and being trampled on. Herbs like lavender and thyme are popular with guerillas for these reasons.

Don’t forget to take some plastic bags with you. Chances are they will be a lot of rubbish to clean up before you can plant anything, as well as all of the rubbish you’ll create de-weeding and emptying flower pots.

STEP

STEP

The Athenaeum Hotel, London

living wallsGardening Spiderman style. Back in 1988 botanist Patrick Blanc installed the first living wall at the Museum of Science and Industry in Paris, since then his walls have been installed all over the world.

Blanc’s walls do not use any soil or compost instead the garden is planted into slits cut into a felted fabric and is fed by drips of a nutrient rich water with are distributed around the wall, there then is a protective layer behind the wall to protect the building itself and then an armature at the bottom to prevent pedestrians getting wet. Blanc’s design can be installed anywhere indoor or out and on massive scales, the one installed at the Athenaeum hotel in London (pictured) grows up 10 floors!Small scale versions of these gardens can be grown at home either inside or out and there are various systems and methods to do so, gardenbeet.com offers a variety of different products to create your own wall depending on it’s use and location with the simplest starting at £9.95.