Apartment Gardening

This won’t be my first garden. In California I had a lush outdoor tower garden — a vertical growing system that produced more food than I could eat alone. I had been collecting seeds for years, the way some people collect books, because seeds are possibility made physical. I bought land. I had plans. Then my life changed in ways I didn’t choose and I left it all behind.

In Colorado, during a rebuild — the first time I was starting over from scratch — I got an AeroGarden. I had it for a few months. It was one of the first things I bought for myself when I was putting a life back together. Then I had to restart again, and I left that behind too.

The AeroGarden for my counter in Canada will be the third one. Or the continuation of the first one. I’m not sure there’s a difference. What I know is that I keep coming back to growing things — even when I lose the soil, even when I lose the land, even when I lose the seeds I’d been saving for years. Something in me apparently needs to have roots somewhere, even if they’re in a hydroponic pod under a grow light in a one bedroom apartment.

My goal this summer is to grow these 16 herbs in a tabletop aerogarden in my apartment…

Pod 1 — Butterhead Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Pod 2 — Arugula (Eruca vesicaria)

Pod 3 — Arugula (Eruca vesicaria)

Pod 4 — Baby Kale (Brassica oleracea)

Pod 5 — Butterhead Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Pod 6 — Spinach (Spinacia oleracea)

Pod 7 — Baby Kale (Brassica oleracea)

Pod 8 — Genovese Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

Pod 9 — Genovese Basil (Ocimum basilicum)

Pod 10 — Chives (Allium schoenoprasum)

Pod 11 — Flat-Leaf Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)

Pod 12 — Mint (Mentha spp.)

Pod 13 — Cilantro / Coriander (Coriandrum sativum)

Pod 14 — Flat-Leaf Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)

Pod 15 — Mloukhiye / Jute Mallow (Corchorus olitorius)

Pod 16 — Flat-Leaf Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)

A Note on Nutrients

The AeroGarden comes with its own liquid nutrient solution — a synthetic mineral salt formula that works well but doesn’t align with where I want to take this practice long term. I’m going to try Neptune’s Harvest Fish and Seaweed blend — a natural fertilizer made from fish emulsion and seaweed extract that provides a full nutrient spectrum without synthetic inputs. It’s OMRI listed, it’s natural, and it fits the philosophy underneath this whole project: grow food as close to the way food is supposed to grow as a small apartment setup allows. I’ll note that organic nutrients in hydroponic systems require a lighter hand — too much and you risk clogging the pump — so I’ll be starting at half the recommended dose and adjusting from there. I’ll update on how it goes.