Sarah Copeland
Morning Glory Gardening Expert
Bio:
Sarah Copeland is a food writer, urban gardener, passionate cook and curator of good living. By day, she’s a seasoned recipe developer, and has created over 1000 original recipes for publication. By night, she’s a consummate forager for edible adventures. Sarah is the spokesperson for and co-founder of the Food Network and Share Our Strength’s Good Food Gardens program, which brings edible education to produce-poor communities. She is also the creator of the blog, Edible Living: Seed to Table Solutions for a more Abundant Life. Sarah is currently working on her first book—a cooking, gardening and entertaining guide for Newlyweds—with Chronicle Books {2011 release}.
Sarah believes that Edible Living begins with fresh, locally sourced ingredients, and a passionate appetite for life. She finds inspiration in homegrown veggies, stinky cheeses, chocolate cake and her marriage to her husband, András.
Urban Gardening:
So you want to be a gardener? Whether you have ambitions to grown your own produce, or just a few herbs, it really doesn’t take much to get started. I promise.
Urban gardeners have the advantage of taking more pride in resourcefulness than perfection, so dig around in your kitchen and you’ll probably find everything you need to get started: a perfect shovel (a serving spoon), a rake (large fork) and plenty of starter pots (recycled yogurt cups, coffee tins or milk cartons).
Now that you have your pots, all you need is healthy soil and hearty seeds to get growing. First, poke holes in your recycled pots with a tack or nail to allow the excess water to drain. Then fill your pots with soil. Look for organic “seed starting” soil or “potting soil” which is light, sterile and designed to have the perfect mix of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, the nutrients seeds need to grow.
From here, seeds need only four things to grow: light, water, warmth and oxygen. Here’s how to help your seeds get all four.
Light:
Seeds don’t need light to germinate, but once the plant sprouts from the surface, most vegetables needs about 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. Choose a well-lit windowsill, atrium or grow lights to provide the light the seeds need.
Water:
Seeds are, by nature’s brilliant design, a storehouse of opportunity and nutrition locked in a dormant phase. To wake up, they need wet, warm conditions. Water the soil lightly before you plant your seeds, and then gently afterward by sprinkling, not dousing with water. Check the soil every couple of days. It should be moist, but not wet.
Warmth:
Seeds need warm soil to germinate, which is why we start them indoors in late winter when the soil outside is still too cold. The same abundant sunlight that will help seeds grow will also keep the soil warm.
Oxygen:
Potting soil is loose and light, which allows oxygen to reach your tiny seeds before the break through the surface. Don’t be tempted to dig up soil from your garden or last year’s pots, which is too compact.
So now that you’ve got a mini farm in the works, it’s time to start thinking about where you’ll transplant them when the weather warms in about 6 to 8 weeks. In the meantime, set the seeds to incubate in the warmest, sun drenched spot in the house where the window light will reach them all day. Before you know it, you’ll be seeing green.
It sort of makes the whole growing your own food thing seem easier than you thought huh? Here’s the good news—it is.
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