hi i'm louis and i'm an urban gardener
and food grower in toronto canada
i'm going to give you a tour of my
backyard space as well as my allotment
plot
show you exactly how i grow food for
myself and for my family
in this small space
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growing food in an urban setting can be
challenging because we don't have that
much space
to grow the food we want therefore i've
supplemented my raised beds
with containers and i use a range of
different materials plastic
grow bags wood and terracotta containers
and these right here as you can see i've
got some peppers as well as some
eggplants growing
right alongside my raised beds one of my
favorite ways to grow herbs is in these
small terracotta pots
and the reason for that is that they're
portable so i can bring them into the
kitchen whenever i'm cooking
snip off what i need and bring it right
back outside and this is also a great
way for someone to start growing their
own food
if they don't have a backyard you could
do this right on a balcony
another innovative way to take advantage
of your small space is to use
rain gutters as a way to grow food these
are galvanized steel rain gutters
that i will grow radish in the spring
bush beans in the summer and radish
again in the fall in addition to growing
vegetables in my backyard i also have a
few dwarf fruit trees
this one right here is a pear tree it's
a dwarf so it stays small
i also have peach as well as plum
i started growing food in this backyard
space about five years ago and it's
grown
considerably year after year i built
these cedar raised beds
that house my flowers my brassicas
as well as my zucchinis tomatoes and
melons another great way to take
advantage of your small space
is to build raised beds like this right
here this is a waste high salad bar
in which i grow lettuce in the spring
and in the fall
and during the summer i will grow some
bush beans in here what's great about
bringing this raised bar higher up
is that it reduces the pest pressure so
it's a lot easier to maintain
throughout the season so something new
i'm trying for the first time this year
is actually growing carrots
in these blue storage totes as you can
see these carrots are very healthy and
very happy
when space is at a premium grow
vertically and this is exactly what i'm
doing with my melons right here
i built this diy trellis system to hold
my melon vines
as you can see they're growing up
trellising on their own and what this
does is actually liberate the space down
here
in the raised bed and allows me to grow
other crops like herbs beets
and lettuce and other shallow rooted
crops so in addition to growing food in
the backyard i'm also growing it in the
front yard
this front porch right here has several
containers
of herbs as well as other vegetables
like this pepper right here
i'm growing oregano i'm growing parsley
i'm growing mint
sage and other crops as well flowers
obviously
very important in any vegetable garden
still in the front yard i'm growing a
plum tree as you can see right here
the plums are still green but they
should be ready in about four weeks time
many crops can be grown in containers
including potatoes i have several potato
bags right here
they'll be ready for harvest in about
four weeks time
so that's it for the front and backyard
and now let me show you what we have
going at the plot
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so another way for city dwellers to grow
their own food is to join a community
garden
or if your city offers it an allotment
plot i have an allotment plot in
addition to my backyard
so i'm going to give you a quick tour of
what i'm growing here at this allotment
garden
since i garden 100 organically i have to
find ways to protect my plants
from different kinds of pests if you
look at this bed right here i've got
some chard and some beets
and in order to protect these crops from
leaf miners i use a tutu tool
that i actually bought from a fabric
store and this prevents the moths and
the flies from laying eggs in the first
place so one thing i'm growing at the
plot this year is about 75 heads of
garlic
i've already picked the scapes off this
bed and will be picking
and pulling the garlic in the next three
to four weeks
so we're also taking advantage of
vertical growing at the allotment plot
this trellis right here will house our
cucumbers and cooker melons
and as you can see the cooker melons are
already starting to climb
i'm also growing quite a few different
types of brassicas at the allotment plot
as you can see this cabbage right here
is pretty much ready to pick
another staple for every home gardener
is
chili peppers and sweet peppers so i've
got quite a few
in this bed right here including this
resin macedonian
which is almost ready to pick i'm also
growing about 28 different varieties of
tomatoes at the plot
and some of them have already set fruit
and others are actually ready to pick
well that's a wrap on our garden tour
today i hope that i've inspired you to
grow your own food
on your balconies in your backyards or
an alarming plot in your city
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you