15 Ways to Start an Urban Garden
It doesn’t take owning a sprawling estate in the countryside or a hundred-acre homestead in Montana to start participating in some homegrown agricultural activities. Sure, having all of that space can help, but people all over the world have been finding ways to grow gardens regardless of their particular situation — including those who live in cities and densely populated areas.
It doesn’t matter if you live in an apartment building, own a flat in a skyscraper, or are in a cramped inner-city tract, if you live in the concrete jungle and you’re dying to show off your green thumb, look no further. We present, for your humble consideration, a few of the most popular urban gardening ideas out there.
1. Rooftop gardening
One of the most iconic forms of urban gardening is the classic rooftop garden. This one doesn’t pull any punches. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect: a garden grown on a rooftop. This rooftop can be the top level of a residential, commercial, or even an industrial building.
Rooftop gardens come in all shapes and sizes, from basic, functional veggie gardens grown for food consumption to gorgeous urban garden designs tailored to create lush, verdure escapes from the cold, hard reality below.
2. Indoor gardening
While the concept of gardening typically invokes images of working in the great outdoors with the wind in your face and the sun on your brow, there are actually quite a few different ways to garden indoors — many of which are ideal for urban agriculture.
Gardening in the not-so-great indoors can manifest as container gardening, aeroponic gardening, hydroponic gardening, greenhouse gardening, the list goes on and on. In fact, indoor gardening is such a broad topic that we’re going to go ahead and break down several different variations of the gardening method within this very article. Suffice it to say that gardening right within your living space is definitely an option when it comes to urban farming.
3. Hydroponic and aquaponic gardening
Bring on the H2O! Hydroponics and aquaponics are two different forms of gardening that lend themselves nicely to the city scene. If you’re wondering what the heck these two strange-sounding forms of horticulture even are, you’re not alone. At their core, both of these forms of cultivating revolve around the concept of gardening without dirt.
Instead of soil, both methods utilize a nutrient-rich liquid (read: water) rather than soil as the primary growing medium. The main difference between the two moist methods is that, while hydroponics focuses on growing things in the water, aquaponics takes things a step further by incorporating fish production in with traditional hydroponic plant growth. Both of these methods can be ideal to set up in an urban area where concrete is everywhere and dirt is in low supply.
4. Aeroponic gardening
If the idea of growing plants in water sounded weird enough, try growing them right out of thin air. Aeroponics is a radical agricultural method that involves growing plants in an air and mist environment that requires very little water and no soil at all. This other-worldly concept has literally been tested in outer space, where NASA has found great success with its aeroponics experiments.
Fortunately, you don’t have to be heading to Mars in order to benefit from aeroponics. It’s also a gardening method that can be pulled off right in your own urban living space.
5. Greenhouse gardening
Another form of indoor gardening that once again works well in a city is using a greenhouse. This one is particularly helpful if you live in an area where temperature fluctuations and aggressive weather can be a concern. If you’re worried about an April snowstorm or an early frost in the fall, you can always use a greenhouse to enhance your urban gardening efforts.
Unless you’re going commercial with your agricultural endeavors, Greenhouses are also typically quite small, which means they can work very well in a cramped cityscape.
6. Container gardening
Yet another DIY garden idea that is ideal for the restricted space of a city dweller is the ultra-compact gardening option known as container gardening.
Whether you’re growing your plants in a bucket, a bin, or a Solo Cup, growing your veggies in containers is a great way to reign in the physical size of your garden while simultaneously maintaining the scope of your agricultural ambitions.
7. Window and balcony gardening
This one is a twofer, and it goes hand in hand with the concept of container gardening. As you select the best vegetables for your container garden and go about finding a good location for each receptacle, you may want to consider putting them right outside of the window. You can do this by hanging a window box garden, filling it with dirt, and then growing plants and herbs that can thrive in a small space.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a balcony or even a full-blown deck or patio, you can also embrace the container vibe by setting up a balcony garden or deck garden right out in the fresh air and sunlight.
8. Backyard gardening
Alright, this one was a pretty obvious urban gardening candidate, but it deserves a spot on the list all the same. While space may be tight, many city-dwellers do have access to small plots of land, and you don’t need much space to operate a functioning garden. Utilizing a dozen square feet in a backyard can be one of the easiest ways to grow a very traditional-looking garden right in the heart of a busy urban center.
Like indoor gardening, there are quite a few ways to go about backyard gardening, and we’ll break a couple of them down via the next few items on the list.
9. Tactical gardening
This one is near and dear to the heart of any prepper who loves to avoid waste. Tactical gardening is a home-grown approach to gardening that focuses on quick, inexpensive solutions. For instance, tactical gardening often involves using small spaces like an abandoned plot of land or a parking space-sized chunk of dirt in the middle of a city to create quick and affordable gardens.
Keyhole gardening — a spatially limited, impressively efficient raised bed garden that looks like a keyhole — is a great example of a highly productive yet tiny garden that often falls under a form of tactical gardening.
10. Square foot gardening
Another gardening style that is highly sensitive to limited space is square food gardening. Invented in the 80s, square foot gardening involves taking a small space — typically between 16 and 32 square feet — and planting each square foot with a carefully planned, economical combination of plants that maximize its potential.
While they can require a good deal of upfront investment, copious amounts of water, and plenty of overall attention, the pros of square foot gardening — things like a quick set up, high yields, and minimal time spent weeding — make this a popular urban gardening option outside of the obvious fact that you need very little space to set one up.
11. Greenwalls and vertical gardening
Greenwalls or vertical gardens are a sweet form of agriculture that flips the traditionally horizontal garden on its side. Instead of planting your greenery in a row along the floor, vertical gardens scale walls and create gorgeous green wallscapes that can be both productive and decorative in nature.
These “living walls” are excellent candidates for urban gardeners who are often pressed for floor space, but have plenty of vertical mileage to work with.
12. Community gardening
One extremely popular way to become an urban farmer is to look for a community garden to work with. Some community gardens can be rented by individuals who can then use the space to grow their own goods.
Another form — and one of our favorite urban garden options — is the collective community garden. These are worked on by a local community together, with everyone helping to share the load. In return, all involved are able to benefit from the larger horticultural creation. These benefits come in the form of physical, mental, and environmental health from the actual gardening as well as sharing in a portion of the literal fruits of their labor.
13. Streetscaping or street landscaping.
One of the best decorative urban gardening ideas out there is the concept of streetscaping. This takes your average street and turns it into a horticultural and arboreal project — often one that involves an entire neighborhood.
Rather than focusing on veggies, most street landscaping incorporates a more decorative flair. This lack of health food doesn’t change the fact that it’s still composed of inner-city gardening at its best, as everyone from a community gathers together to greenify a local thoroughfare.
14. Animal husbandry
While most of the ideas on this list revolve around growing plants, the truth is, “urban agriculture” most definitely includes more than just greenery. While it’s difficult to pop up a stable for horses or have cows roaming through a city’s streets, there are a few different animals that can often be quite easily raised in an urban environment.
Urban animal husbandry includes animals like backyard chickens, rabbits, ducks, and even pigs and goats, or at least Nigerian dwarf goats — yeah, they exist, and they’re used for milking by urban farmers. As long as your local codes and regulations allow it, there’s nothing stopping you from setting up a little animal farm right on your urban estate.
15. Beekeeping
Finally, we have bees. Yep, along with all of the goats, pigs, greenwalls, streetscapes, and aquaponics, you can literally host a hive of bees in your inner-city backyard.
If you’re thinking of setting up a hive, it’s important to associate yourself with all of the urban beekeeping best practices and to try to plant native species of plants in order to attract the right kind of local honey-makers.
Starting an Urban Gardening
It doesn’t matter what your particular situation is, there’s almost always a way for a city dweller to get into urban agriculture.
Whether you’re learning how to garden and you’re setting up an urban vegetable garden for beginners or you’re an old pro that’s prepping for the next pandemic, there’s always a way to produce your own sustenance, all without ever needing to give up that manmade, inner-city setting.