Urban Gardening with Curiosity Campus

We live in a flat, and have a balcony with some plants in a planter. Some things grow better than others in our planter. Some things don’t grow at all. Sometimes I hate those seeds that don’t grow. I imagine that they are already in their graves, their little seed ghosts haunting the earthworms. I laugh in the air, because they’ve died, and if they hadn’t I decide I probably would’ve killed them. I then realize I’m getting too worked up over seeds that don’t sprout, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to go do some Urban Gardening through Curiosity Campus (they also do courses on building drones, and working with Arduinos!) . Ironically, I find gardening very therapeutic.

Situated across the river from Valkenberg, there are horses, a few places to grab some food, wandering chickens, and a nursery, among other things.

We had a little lecture/chat with slides, about permaculture, complimentary plants, the optimum position to place plants in different seasons, and even how to offer sacrifices to the aphid gods (This sounds extreme, but having a sacrificial plant actually makes sense, even if it seems a bit “unhippy”).

After the lesson, we grabbed a coffee at the cafe (they make great looking breads!), and headed over to a shed where we each got a plastic box, with drainage holes, some anti-weed material, two big bags of sand, some bone meal, and 9 very happy looking seedlings.

I’d say this is great for anyone wanting to grow things at home to actually use, consistently. We don’t realize how wasteful we are until we try and reproduce it ourselves, and then we see how much plastic and organic matter we discard. We’ve started using our Bokashi bin again since the course, and making our own “tea” for the garden. It’s amazing how quickly it get’s filled up with something useful, that we would have thrown away!