All-in-One Gardening in a Box

The ability to grow a little food in your apartment is appealing: you can save some money, live a greener lifestyle and enjoy some of the freshest fruits and vegetables you’ve ever had.

Living in an apartment with no yard shouldn’t stop you from exercising your green thumb. You can grow plants on your balcony, and there are even products to make the process a little easier — especially if you’re starting your first garden.

The Farm in a Box provides a simple start to adding a garden to your balcony — and adds the ability to keep a few pet fish along the way.

The Manhattan model is a self-contained aquaponics unit, which makes growing organic vegetables simple. By using an aquaponics set up (combining a small fish tank with a small garden bed), you can minimize the amount of time and attention the system actually needs. Water circulates through the tank and garden bed, watering your vegetables for you.

The makers of the Farm in a Box recommend goldfish, small perch and minnows for the 7-gallon fish tank that provides the base of the Manhattan model. The garden bed sits on a frame above the fish tank and can be used for a wide variety of vegetables and fruit — although it may be particularly useful in growing fresh herbs for use in your everyday cooking.

It can handle all warm weather on a patio or a balcony, although to keep a garden in the winter, it’s best to bring the Farm in a Box inside and place it at a south-facing window. The unit can be used inside all year long.

With the Farm in a Box comes rubber-lined plant and tank beds, valves, hoses, a timer and a pump. You’ll need to add rainwater, gravel, aquarium fish and seeds. The unit is priced at $249.50.

If you are a more advanced gardener, you can experiment with aquaponics units on your own. There are a variety of  resources online, such as the Aquaponics How To.

You can even find a variety of videos on YouTube that will walk you through each step of building and stocking your own aquaponics set-up. Taking a do-it-yourself approach can be practical if you live in an apartment because you can build systems that fit your apartment’s layout better than a prefabricated unit might.