People who are aged or otherwise incapacitated due to injury or illness may no longer be able to cope with the general maintenance jobs that owning a home with a large backyard entails. Even the job of mowing the lawn may be too much to handle, so another option has to be found.

The first option is to hire someone to come and do the gardening for you. This will involve cutting the grass, trimming the edges, as well as any other general gardening chores that must be completed to keep the yard looking tidy. But this will be an ongoing cost that may be too much of a burden.

The answer that an increasing number of people are turning to is to replace their existing lawns with synthetic grass. Installing artificial grass will mean a larger up front outlay, but will also mean far fewer costs over the longer term. Rather than having to pay someone to come and cut the grass on a regular basis the new artificial grass will only require a minimum of maintenance to keep it looking good.

Putting in synthetic grass in place of the original grass will also solve environmental concerns such as water usage, a problem that is becoming more prevalent in regions where water restrictions are the norm. By replacing the lawn you may not be removing green grass anyway. For a lot of people the lawn has long since been replaced with a dust bowl after their grass has died off and has failed to grow back.

The low maintenance and reduced costs of synthetic grass have failed to impress some people in the community who believe the grass looks fake and too perfect. This issue is also being addressed by some synthetic grass manufacturers who have been producing variable length grass that also contains the odd brown grass fiber to replicate normal die-off.

All in all, modern artificial grass is a solid product that is capable of solving a number of problems that have been lurking in the yards for ages.

If you live in a city (well in a particularly built-up city), the chances are that you’ll live in an apartment and having a garden is completely out of the question.  This is such a shame for many people, but especially so for those who love to grow their own plants and vegetables.  However, just because you live on the 15th floor in a New York apartment block, it doesn’t mean you should be denied the pleasure of nurturing your own plants.  It’s entirely possible to build your own mini greenhouse in the apartment, albeit it will be small (and don’t tell your landlord!)

The Gardman Mini Greenhouse

Firstly, just to differentiate: I’m not talking about mini greenhouses such as those by Gardman.  These types are similar to regular greenhouses, except (you guessed it) smaller.  If you’re interested in these types of greenhouse, I’ll quickly cover the subject before continuing:

They come in various varieties.  For example, the 3 tier mini greenhouse is basically a tubular frame made of steel, which contains three shelves for growing your plants and vegetables.  Instead of the glass that is often used in traditional greenhouses, a clear PVC material is used to shelter the inside of the greenhouse from the elements.  And again, instead of the door in a traditional model, there is a zip-up panel to gain access to the inside.  The benefit is clearly the space saving and cost saving over a traditional greenhouse.  Gardman also produce a 4 tier mini greenhouse as well as various other products for the space-constrained gardener.

So back to the apartment farming…

To make the apartment greenhouse discussed above, you’ll need to pick up a few strong cardboard boxes, at least 6 inches in depth.  You’ll also need some wire coat-hangers or similar, some insulating plastic, and some clear and thin plastic shopping bags.

Take the first box and insulate the inside of it with the thicker plastic.  Make sure that the plastic is completely covering the cardboard – we’ll obviously need to water the plants, and if the plastic doesn’t cover the whole of the cardboard, it’ll get wet and start to disintegrate.  After this, stick the plastic thoroughly to the cardboard with some tape.  You should have previously bought some premium soil from a garden centre – it’s at this point that you can fill the box.

Take a coat-hanger and unwrap it.  Then bend it into a U shape.  This will then be stuck into one end of the box to support to roof – if it’s too big, carefully use some wire cutters to shorten it.  Make two more U shapes of the same size and add one in the middle and one at the other end of the box.

Plant the seeds as per the instructions on their packaging.  After this, you should water the seeds (but not so much that you “drown” them, which would prevent them from growing just as much as no water would).  Then label the box with what type of plant you have in there.

Finally you’ll need to add the roof.  Stretch (but not too tightly) the thin clear plastic across the U shaped supports.  Use a staple gun to staple it to the inside of the box at one side, and then “tuck” the other sides into the soil.

And that’s really all there is to it.  Simply place the whole thing in sunlight in the apartment and water regularly.  You can make as many boxes for as many different plants as you’d like.