An Experimental, Indoor Apartment Pot Garden
By: Sunshine Zombiegirl
Tags: Garden, This Happened To Me, Pandemic, Plants, Gardening

An Experimental, Indoor Apartment Pot Garden

Author Picture, December 12, 2020

I learned how to garden from my mother and grandparents nearly forty years ago. In the desert, the non-existent rain and ground cover were necessary to keep plants living and thriving. My grandmother grew up during the Great Depression and valued self-sufficiency and careful planning. Poverty had always been a close thing for my mom’s family. We held a waste not, want not philosophy.

Somehow, though, I’d slipped into wastefulness all the same. I continued gardening once I married, but never with careful planning or need of good returns. Part of my attitude stemmed from gardening in the rich soils of the Midwest. Gardening is almost too simple here. Water falls from the sky in abundance.

My husband supported our family of four on his salary, so I focused on our children and different home endeavors. We all enjoyed the fruits of my lazy labors throughout the years. I rarely failed to plant. In some years, production was better than others.

Slipping into 2020, before we realized how bad the pandemic would become, my husband knew his job was ending. We were deep in the process of fixing up our home to sell. Things moved fast.

My husband’s job ended on March first.

Italy closed its borders, and we both felt ill at the beginning of March. I dove into action. I planned food shopping for a month of stay-in. My husband, wiser than me, brought home seeds.

It had been years since I started anything indoors from seeds. I held onto my egg cartons, and my husband graciously dug up the ground from our back yard to fill them.

Tiny plants emerged, and we were finally well again. My husband purchased large pots so I could transfer the seedlings. I knew we were only a couple months from putting our house up for sale, but I still planned on putting in a garden out back for the new owner as well as continuing with my pot garden.

It didn’t matter to me where we ended up — those pots were coming with us.

I cared for both small gardens until we moved in July. Two tomato plants, a zucchini plant, a cucumber plant, and a pepper plant migrated from an outside porch to window ledges that were the perfect size to hold them.

We harvested three cucumbers and one zucchini before both plants gave up producing and living. The tomatoes and pepper plants have been far more resilient. None of the plants overproduced. Infrequently, we’re treated to a few fresh vegetables to supplement our meals.

Keeping potted food plants alive is laughably hard. The tomato plants demand a lot more water than I’d realized they would. The pepper plant is on his own journey, where watering every three days is almost too much.

I tried snow peas, green beans, carrots, another cucumber, and zucchini in the recently vacated pots. Only the green beans decided to stick around for the experiment. I’ll try again in another month when I have more time and patience to restart the planting process.

I’ve learned three things with my experimental indoors apartment pot garden.

1. Negligence can’t replace diligence when potting indoors.

2. Don’t feel bad if the plant doesn’t survive.

3. Freshly picked veggies are always delicious.

Once we move from our apartment to our tiny house, I plan to continue gardening. I don’t need a pandemic to make me more food conscious, but it doesn’t hurt to plan ahead for the unexpected.