When I talk about urban gardens I don’t mean parks and gardens or displays that are created and maintained by the city or by gardening clubs.  I’m talking about the gardens made by people who live in the city – and most specifically – while not dismissing in any way the wonderful creations of people who actually have real, honest to goodness, dirt to play in – I mean container gardens on patios, porches, balconies and decks. Because they are the work of someone who is working against the odds.  They are labours of love.

There are many, many people who do not have any realistic option outside of a container garden and many of them face really significant obstacles.  Think of someone living in a condo or townhouse with no yard, but with a nice sized balcony or deck – a perfect opportunity for some great container ideas. But what if they travel?  Gone for a week in July in Toronto and come home to find everything dead- how many times will they let that happen.

And yet..   Did you know that in a Ipsos Reid poll that was conducted in 2006, 44% of Toronto households grow some kind of food?  Take the economic issues and put them aside for a second. Take the issues about knowing where our food comes from and put that aside for a second as well and just look at 44% of households in Toronto growing some kind of food.  Only 54% of households have access to a yard, so that means that there are a lot of people who are overcoming some rather significant obstacles in order to grow at least something of their own to eat.  What that says to me is that there is something in us that is soothed, or fed or nurtured in some way with the act of growing something and personally in spite of the beauty of a flower bed or wonderfully landscaped property, there is something about a vegetable garden that simply makes it one of my favorite places in the world to be. 

It got me thinking, why don’t people grow more vegetables on their balconies and patios and porches and decks – at least on the ones that have some sun.  Since I believe that the underlying desire is there, what will make this possible?

What came back to me is that busy people need first of all some help in selecting the containers and the plants that could possibly do well in the environment they can provide.  They need something that looks good.  They need the best possible crops to reward their labour and they need a system that will require a minimal amount of maintenance.  The answer I’ve found is an outdoor hydroponic system that I’m spending the summer of 09 testing and improving to make it look better,  cost less, be flexible for different crops and be almost foolproof to operate.

To that, in keeping with the way of the world today, it’s important to grow organically and they need a system that won’t be crashed by  a power failure.  The magicherbgarden is about my plan to bring those things together and create a product and an information source that will enable hundreds and I hope thousands of landless urbanites to successfully grow vegetables of their own on balconies, decks and patios.