Guerilla Gardening

When we lived in Brooklyn, we owned a tiny, 600 SF 1-BR apartment in Park Slope, with no outdoor space save an emergency staircase. This was one of those hair raisingly horrifying, metal staircases attached to the exterior of the building. We were on the fourth floor. Our building had been renovated to introduce an interior staircase that would serve as our way out in an emergency, but this relic of the pre-renovation condition remained. This is a pretty common feature in much of the older brownstones in Brooklyn.

In the warmer months, I would take advantage of this tiny plot of space for plants and vegetables. This space wasn't much bigger than 6 SF, if that. But to a New Yorker deprived of any outdoor space to call his own, this was very precious space.

Living in Delmar, we obviously have a little more space. But we still do not have any indoor space to cultivate much in the way of plant life. With the imminent arrival of Spring, I have been incessantly dreaming of what vegetables to grow once the ground thaw in earnest and all the piles of old ice and snow finally melt away. Our house suffers from a dearth of space near the windowsills, and this has been a source of much angst and brain wracking for me in recent weeks.

My solution was to seek out some unused, unclaimed window in my office building and appropriate it for some starter beds. I work in a very large office building, and I just realized there is an adjacent bay that is completely empty of occupants. It has a huge window, and there are lots of boxes being stored there, awaiting archiving.

My plan is to set up my starter seeds on the window sill, securely tucked away behind those boxes and take advantage of the daylight afforded by the big windows. Unfortunately, the location only gets direct light in the mornings, as it is close to due east. But this is still a palatable and exciting solution for me, one I am eagerly looking forward to executing next week. Pics to follow.