Embrace Your Space: Create a Productive Urban Oasis in New Zealand

Description

As more of us flock to live in the cities, the trend for urban living has inspired Janet Luke to encourage city-dwellers to create productive green growing spaces, no matter how small. It could be a windowsill box with herbs or a pallet garden lining a wall - and the important thing is to enjoy the experience. If you grow your own potatoes in a pot on your balcony, the potatoes taste better! With step-by-step instructions using recycled materials and simple tools, low-cost easy projects are shown to utilise different spaces. Many projects can be completed within hours, some over a day and a few will take a weekend. Part one has sections on patio, wall, rooftop, windowsill and balcony while part two gives useful plant selections for screening, shelter and decoration, along with methods for pest and disease control. Discover the merits and disadvantages of different pots and planters, hand-make your own containers and learn from the numerous top tips a variety of things, including how to grow mushrooms in a dark corner of your balcony, and how to turn the aquarium into a hydroponic garden.

Janet Luke is a qualified landscape architect with a passion for sustainable design and eco-living. Her first book Green Urban Living: simple steps to growing food, keeping chickens, worm farming, beekeeping in New Zealand was published by New Holland in 2011, and following the success of this title, she has developed her profile as a commentator about gardening and self-sufficiency. She is a member of the team writing regularly for Element, the sustainable alternatives magazine produced by The New Zealand Herald, and was a speaker at the 2013 Readers & Writers Festival in Auckland. Janet is an annual exhibitor at the Auckland Home Show and runs regular workshops on Green Living.