Before we get started if you would like to know a little about me…..
Hi, nice to meet you. My name is Krin.
I used to be a massage therapist specializing in body listening (check out this link to learn more about body listening), but after I became injured I started to become interested in new passions.
I have been actively learning about urban edible gardening since about 2005, slowly at first because most of my life I have had a rather ‘brown’ thumb..one, I am horrrible when it comes to watering, two, for years, I was about as hands off as it got to gardening as it got, other then helping my mom carry her hundreds of cacti and tropicals in and out of the house every time the weatherman predicted a freeze. My mom, on the other hand, seemed to have the most incredible green thumb with quite an extensive cacti and tropical selection till one year we were gone from the house and one of the rare freezes came through and wiped most of it out. But the ones that survived, the sturdy plants, she kept and allowed them to take over. Which made for a lush yard, but little of it was edible or so I thought….
But rewind for a moment, one of my first exposures to the idea of anyone being able to grow an edible garden was when I was staying over at a friend’s who had fresh lettuce growing in some large blue plastic container. He was renting the place, so he didn’t feel comfortable growing in the yard, and as a student he didn’t have money for anything fancy, so he dumped some dirt into a plastic bin, sprinkled some seeds, and voila “fresh salad greens”. That was in dry lands of Colorado.
Then we moved to Seattle, to an apartment with a balcony, and across the street in the nearby park, they had something called a p-patch. where I saw my first sunflower plant, well, many firsts,though most of it was just flowers, but the idea of mixing beauty and edibles as one.. is an important one. It was always a joy to walk through that it was inspirational..but, alas, the wait-list was several years long to get a patch. But I had a balcony, albeit COMPLETELY in the shade. To be honest, I don’t recall what I grew now, but the problem wasn’t the shade..it was remembering to water the darn plant that once again got me, and which has gotten me over a lot..
But then we moved back to my hometown and my old home in Houston and in my head it would be easy to grow an edible yard even thought I hate watering, but its Houston, right, where it always rains.. (not) nor did I want to have to weed,or well, do any work ..one…have you been in Houston in the summer? heat, mosquitoes, yuck…and the winters.. not exactly pleasant..bc i hate humid cold. Give me a Dry crisp cold, yes, humid wet cold.nope. Sure there were a few nice weeks in spring, and some in fall, but the rest.. well…i may have been born in Houston, but well…still… plus I am a lazy gardener and didn’t know anything about edible gardening.. and I am not that great about learning from books..besides everyone had their own opinions and they all seemed to contradict.. but then one day as I was pulling out the most agonizing snails vine which truth be told, i am still battling a decade later, and mom’s ornamental ginger which had taken over the yard so I could have some yard, somewhere in all that, I learned about dandelions and the marvels of edible weeds or what others considered weeds. Did you know dandelions are one of the most nutritional plants out there, far more nutritious then most stuff you get from the grocery store..and so began the beginning of my learning about edible weeds.. because if I am going to have weeds, there are darn well going to be EDIBLE weeds!
I wanted to see what else would grow, but I sure as heck do NOT have the patience to start plants from seeds the traditional way.. so I tried the lazy mans way of learning about one’s garden.. I bought some super cheap seeds in bulk and spread it everywhere…and found out what popped up, and what do ya know, that year I had mustard and kale with leaves wider and longer then the cat .. that was a good year. but I was sold! to be able to have greens, fresh darn greens that I could pick right outside the yard in the middle of the night when we had forgotten to go the store.. something to add to the macaroni or to the tv dinner… so there was some fresh vegetable.. of course a couple years later I lost nearly everything in that summer drought we had since I didn’t water a thing… but whether it was ways of how to succeed with squirrels (which apparently like to eat your broccoli), the snails, the squirrels, the birds, the heat, the numerous other things that can get your plants, since then I have learned a LOT ..a lot of tricks, and a LOT of knowledge…. mostly through plain old trial and error… and what i’ve learned, I’d like to share..
but the biggest thing i’ve learned.. no matter where you live..whether it’s an apartment with no balcony or a home with a large area, whether it’s cold or hot,dry or humid, i am sorry , but there really is not a good excuse for you not to have at least a few fresh greens available to eat year round for those months you don’t feel like shopping….other then the fact that you just haven’t tried…
so I invite you to join me on this site..and become inspired.. let me share with you my experiences and all that i have learned.. let me introduce you, and encourage you and reinspire you to feel confident in being able to have your own edible oasis no matter where you live.
let me join you on your own edible journey.. i am here to inspire you.. to encourage you.. to help you make it possible!
Welcome!
