Urban Balcony Gardens

Just the other day I went on a walk through my neighborhood and noticed that there really ain't that many balcony gardens around. Even though there are a lot of reasons for starting your own balcony garden, it seems that most of people in my neighborhood don't think so or simply don't care.

Most of the balconies are left empty, letting the concrete jungle take over. However, those balconies that are transformed into urban gardens are mostly flower gardens usually created for pleasing the eye.

I must say that I haven't seen any veggies or herbs on these urban balcony gardens, but on the other hand you can't see what's growing on my balcony either. Some of them are simply to far away for my eye or even camera to capture it right. That's also the main reason why you haven't seen a single photo of my balcony garden from the street view, but maybe one day with a better camera that will change. For the time being, I'll be posting photos of various balcony gardens I stumble upon while walking the streets of Zagreb, just like this one.

First Cherry Tomato Harvest

Yes indeed, it's a tomato celebration day! My urban balcony garden is rewarding us on a daily basis, but these are my first vegetables harvested this year. Unfortunately, we've had some bad weather lately and we've a lost a significant amount of fruit.

However, it was a sweet harvest! It feels great to produce your own homegrown organic veggies in the middle of the city.

Urban revolutionaries

A few days ago I stumbled upon a great web site owned by Dervaes family, a family of real urban revolutionaries I might add. I was really overjoyed with their work and I definitely support their mission.

The name of their web site is Path to Freedom and as they say it is a grassroots, family operated, viable urban homesteading project established to promote a simpler and more fulfilling lifestyle and reduce one family's "footprint" on the earth's dwindling resources. The Dervaes family managed to transform their ordinary city lot in Pasdena, California into an integral urban homestead. Apart from producing most of their own food, they've managed to decrease their homestead’s reliance on earth’s non-renewable resources using solar panels, energy efficient appliances, and biodiesel processor. It really seems like the Dervaes are doing their best to live as sustainable and self-sufficiently as possible in an urban environment. There's also an important educational dimension in their work, to quote them Path to Freedom's mission is to educate individuals and families to integrate sustainable living practices and methods into their daily lives. Take a look at their magnificent urban garden and enjoy!



Thanks to Path to Freedom for inspiration and for bringing permaculture closer to the people!