When I began growing greens, vegetables, and herbs on the balcony of our second-floor condo a couple years ago, it was a new way of maintaining some things I’ve loved to do all my life: be outdoors, get grubby, and experiment/play with my food. Maybe because, at about the same time, I was all but housebound with a newborn daughter, it also became a valuable form of (mental) exercise and a completely tangible way of maintaining who I was amidst the maelstrom of becoming a mom. When I wasn’t changing dipes or nursing (or, Hell, even when I was nursing), I was reading about gardening, blogging about it, trying out new things, and, ultimately, building this website. Gardening and writing about it is now a pretty big part of my life — a “hobby” that is fast becoming some sort of labor-of-love cum lifestyle.

From here, I see it going in one of two directions. Either I will learn how to cobble together enough gadgets, light and/or dirt  to grow a part of my family’s food source right here at home, year-round, northern New England winters be damned. This fits my love of semi-scientific observation and wacky invention and will probably involve some wintertime hydroponics. Or, (2), my garden will become more self-sustained and nature-bound, instead of technologically inclined — a route that will probably also include a good deal of experimentation and invention, but will also involve designing and growing gardens with more sustainable resources, investigating stuff like how moon phases affect plant growth and, ultimately, what the dirt wants from me.

However it morphs, this site will always be about intensive food gardening, first and foremost. And it’ll ultimately reflect my interest in the process of the thing and in writing about it. For me, the real joy of small-space or intensive gardening is the creativity and resourcefulness it demands. It’s more about an investment of time than of money, and a commitment to using (and reusing) simple materials such as kitchen compost and open-pollinated vegetable varieties to go green in a basic and meaningful way: with fundamental, local sources of plant nutrients and seed.

If you’ve gotten this far and want more, then you’ll probably want to get up from the computer and go garden. Do it — I understand. When you come back, read what I’ve written about designing small green gardens and sustainable vegetable gardening methods. Comment with your own ideas, and keep in touch via the Getting Fresh blog feed and the (grossly neglected but undaunted) email newsletter.