kids dogs and gardens

I have wanted to bust out of my black thumb mode (meaning my gardens don't grow) and become a great citizen of the garden city by having a nice garden. However, my attempts have been derailed by dogs and neighborhood kickball games. It seems the best place to grow stuff in my yard happens to be the best place for kickball games so I haven't been willing to fence it off from the dogs.

Basically I find a nice plot of chemical free grass a nice thing for kids and I like to grow flowers on the side. I find food production overwhelming even on a small scale.

I support the neighborhood gardens and Garden City Harvest the best I can for now.

Maybe someday soon I can change my ways and be a part of the thousand gardens.

Maybe the thing to do is to find nooks and crannies where kickball won't hurt anything. 

Did you know that northern kiwi likes shade?

Another nutty idea:  There are people who have created a network of little wooden platforms on their roof - and they have a container garden on their roof.  You would get a lot more sun up there!

At my current location I find that I suffer from the same problem.  I live in a trailer park the house are packed like sardines and the only patch of grass that I have the neighborhood kids walk through to get to the bus stop.  So this year I am going to beg my mother, who has a nice fenced in yard, if she could possible spare some room for me to grow some tomatoes and other veggies.  I would love to try the on roof idea, but the neighborhood cats have claimed it as there perch.

Have you thought of growing things inside? There are quite a few things that seem to do well in pots.

paul wheaton wrote:

Another nutty idea:  There are people who have created a network of little wooden platforms on their roof - and they have a container garden on their roof.   You would get a lot more sun up there!

How hard is this to do?  Clearly you don't want to make the containers too heavy or water them too much so that the roof starts to suffer.  Is there a waterproof layer b/t the container and the roof.  Can plants grow well if they're slanted down (like most roofs) or do you make the containers flat?  Would certainly keep dogs and kids away!! 

If you start out small growing food is not so hard, we grow a lot of our food in containers, my dad even made me some planter boxes with wheels on them so we can move them around & get the right lighting.

Lettuce is pretty easy to grow & good for you, I get the salad mix starts from the farmers market.  Lettuce dislikes full sun so we keep it in the shady part of our space.

My daughter also likes to grow radishes in pots, they are easy to grow & they grow fast.

If you are not a member of 1,000 gardens social network  perhaps joining will help keep you inspired.  Luv D

Any ideas on how to keep cats out of household plants? My kitten keeps trying to use mine as a litter box/ scratching post.