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If you’ve got limited space but are determined to get your garden growing in containers, you don’t have to give up delicious fruits! Gardening often brings to mind a bounty of fresh vegetables, beans, corn…as many fruits are tree-borne, taking years before the first fruits are ripe for eating. But you can grow fruits in containers, too! Take a look at some of these delicious eats:

1. Strawberry: Who doesn’t love a ripe, juicy strawberry? They’re not just incredibly delicious (and nutritious)—they’re pretty darn easy to grow in containers, too. They’ll do well in hanging baskets as well as grounded container garden planter. Give them lots of great sun and enjoy the delicious flavors.
2. Blueberries: Another berry that does well in containers is the blueberry. Give them a good, acidic soil (and a few years—it can take about 3 to produce berries) and they’ll thrive, giving you a gorgeous plant year round with fragrant flowers in spring and bright, fiery foliage in the fall.
3. Figs: One of the most incredible tasting fruits on earth, the mighty fig actually likes the constriction of a container. They like the heat and sun—and if growing from seed it will take a while before they fruit, but quite worth the wait!
4. Tomato: Forgot it was a fruit? Yes, it’s probably a good idea not to add it to your fruit salad, but the tomato is indeed a delicious fruit. And when you grow your own, they’re so addictively yummy that you just might gobble them up like a peach or a plum. They do well in containers, like a good bit of sun, and unlike some other fruits, can produce within weeks of planting.
5. Pomegranates: These fruits are rich in history, valued for their delicious flavor and many health benefits. While nothing beats the shade of a full-grown pomegranate tree bursting with fruity goodness, you can also grow them fairly easily in a container.  Dwarf pomegranate trees only reach about 5 feet in height while still producing yummy fruits. Enjoy!

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Lizard10979

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You know that we love plants, edible and those that are not.  Did you know that having plants around you increases your creativity? No wonder writers and artists always escape to the calm of nature to do their work.  Another benefit of plants is that they actually remove toxins from the air you breathe inside.   Check out this great list of plants based on the NASA study.

The Health Benefits of 10 Purifying House Plants

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Philadelphia and New York City are on a mission to green their cities through school gardens. Check out this article for more details. We applaud this amazing effort!

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Many countries have limitations on GMO crops, others ban it in certain circumstances. Hungary is one country that has a zero tolerance policy that enforces it strictly. According to trueactivist.com, they recently destroyed GMO corn crops.

Photo by: True Activist

The GMO conversation is polarized and political.  If you are against GMO’s, we feel growing your own garden is an excellent form of activism.  Need help getting started? Just email us at info@urbanfig.com.

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living

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Raising chickens is the new thing. We found this great article featuring stylish coops for your backyard. Who says that raising chickens can’t add art to your backyard?   Need a little inspiration for raising chickens?  Meet the Brunos.

Photo: sillydog/Flickr

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living

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The local movement is alive and well.  There is a healthy urban farming industry happening in Chicago. The city is supporting this new super local farming by introducing local labels for produce.   Buy local couldn’t be easier.

Photo by grist.org

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living

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This is a great product to start your first garden.  The Nourishmat is practically a “paint by numbers” garden template.   It comes with pre-selected seeds and with a watering system.  If you try this, let us know how you like it.  If you don’t have as much space as the Nourishmat requires,  check out our apartment style planters.  Happy Gardening!

Photo by Earth Starter, LLC

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living

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It’s easy to profess the anti-GMO rhetoric and maybe alienate those who don’t understand GMO’s completely. To me, the best way to fight the GMO war, is to back your argument with scientific studies.   GMO propaganda is widespread: claims of high yield, low pesticide use and absolute safety. But in actuality, none of these claims are true, based on actual science.   If you would like to explore this topic in more depth, we encourage you to visit responsibletechnology.org or read 10 Reasons to Avoid GMO’s.

Food Democracy Now just published a great article by a former GMO scientist who now refutes the industry’s claims.

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living

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The world’s rainforests are in jeopardy. Globalization, for all its many helpful offerings, takes unbelievably harsh tolls on our world’s precious and limited natural resources. Industries deeply connected to our food supply are now essentially waging war on valuable rainforests around the world.

According to National Geographic, “During the past 40 years, close to 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down—more than in all the previous 450 years since European colonization began.” And,  the percentage could actually be higher than that as a result of selective logging, a practice not as blatant as clear-cutting. “Scientists fear that an additional 20 percent of the trees will be lost over the next two decades. If that happens, the forest’s ecology will begin to unravel.”

And that’s just the Amazon. Vital forests in Indonesia, Asia and even Canada’s Boreal Forest all face similar predicaments. Whether logging, transportation, cattle, soy or corn farms, precious ancient rainforests that took thousands of years to grow, are disappearing from sight in a matter of seconds.

Aside from producing oxygen for our planet, rainforests are home to countless animal, plant and insect species. People live there too. They produce some of our most prized foods, medicines, flowers, stories. Interwoven into each jungle is a blueprint for a unique ecosystem that thrives with functionality as well as awe-inspiring beauty. To lose our forests is more than just tearing down trees; it’s tearing down our history and our future at the same time.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

While you can make informed purchases—noting products, brands and companies that support the preservation of our world’s vital forests, there is another, even more powerful step you can take. It’s one you probably never thought about: grow your own food. That’s right, a garden can prevent rainforest loss.

By taking your own nourishment into your own hands and out of the hands of corporate greed, you decrease the demands for those products. Processed foods rely on corn and soy derived products in exceedingly large amounts as well as palm oil and dairy products that too may come from a rainforest.

When you stop buying packaged foods you decrease your dependency on paper products, which slows logging. Walking outside to your garden for fruits and vegetables eliminates transportation of foods by trucks, which rely heavily on fossil fuels that pollute and damage our precious rainforests. You save water, too. It’s a precious resource drying up around the world, especially in our vulnerable rainforests.

Do more than just plant a garden for fruits, vegetables and flowers. Do it to reclaim this planet, to bring it dignity, fecundity and balance. Plant a garden. Save a forest.

Keep in touch with Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

Image: Jill Ettinger

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One of our favorite topics: composting!  They’re doing it in India to start gardens and we can do it here too!  Want to learn how to compost?  We have several articles to help you learn about the process.  My favorite part about composting?  Knowing that all of the food scraps (and there are many) go into my compost bin and not the trash bin.  Did you know that 20% of the waste in our landfills are food?  Scientists have actually found lettuce heads that are 20 years old!  Without oxygen, food doesn’t break down.  But in a composter, your food waste will turn into amazing compost in 8 weeks!

Read Gaga with Garbage Here.

Photo: M. Periasamy

Carol Carimi Acutt aims to inspire everyone to grow their own food with ease. Grow, cook and compost for better food and better living.