Tiny Yard Container Garden: How to Grow $1,000 of Food

No space? No problem! Like most people, Mark Ridsdill Smith has a small front yard. Unlike most people, he has made it his mission to educate the world about how it is possible to maximize the yields from his limited space with his project Vertical Veg.

Using containers to take advantage of the vertical space available, Mark grows an estimated $1,000 worth of food in his garden. In this week’s episode, Ben goes to see for himself just what can be done with a space this small. So fret not! Grow vertical veg!

For more on Mark and Vertical Veg, check out his site here: https://www.verticalveg.org.uk

And for even more small space inspiration and for how to get started on your own container food garden, watch this next:

Binge watch these videos! Swat up and get more bang for your buck!
🌱 X 🤓 = 💰

Grow more in the same space:

No raised beds? Grow in straw bales!

See how much you can grow in a family garden

If you love growing your own food, why not take a look at our online Garden Planner which is available from several major websites and seed suppliers:
https://www.GrowVeg.com
https://gardenplanner.almanac.com
https://gardenplanner.motherearthnews…
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It’s just amazing to be able to live in a city 
and pop outside and pick super fresh food.
For many people a front yard is a place 
to hurry through on the way to the house, 
but today we are going to 
meet Mark of Vertical Veg, 
who has transformed his front yard into 
a place of productivity and plenty.
Mark, thank you so much for having me along today.
You’ve got so much packed in here.
Why in containers though? What 
was the thinking behind that?
Well simply but it’s just a concrete space here 
and I really wanted to grow some food and really  
the only way to do that without digging up all 
the concrete is to to grow food in containers.
What I’m noticing immediately Mark is that it’s  
got some quite nice height here and 
you’re nicely screened from the road.
How are you achieving that?
I see you got some apples here for example.
What else have you got here?
So we’ve got a variety of 
different fruits giving height.
 
We’ve also got some pallets 
and they do two things really:  
partly they raise things up 
which is nice to sort of garden
Abolutely, yeah, save the back!
They also give different heights which is nice,
but the other thing they do with the patch is  
quite good is is it gives you a sort of 
distinct place to sort of put the pots, 
whereas if they’re all on the 
ground it becomes a bit of a  
sort of sea and a bit of a jumble.
I’m not saying this isn’t a jumble,  
but you know it makes it just makes it 
a bit easier to sort of look after them.
Yes, you’ve got sort of 3D kind of puzzle 
rather than just all two dimensional here, yeah.
Well let’s let’s have a look around the back.
I’m loving this kind of step ladder arrangement.
How have you put this together?
Well this this came about, I made this 
when I lived in London about 12 years ago, 
but the great thing about it is is that it 
does give you instead of having one level  
you suddenly have three levels.
And often you find higher up as  
well as giving you more space, often 
you find you get more sun up here. 
So for example I haven’t got anything 
on the bottom layer because actually  
it’s a bit of a marginal place to go down there,
but up here it’s really good in sunshine actually.
I really like the fact that it leads the eye 
upwards and then at the top you’ve got these  
vertical thrusts from the onions here 
and it kind of I don’t know – I love it.
It just leads it all skywards here, yeah.
Lots of flowers here obviously, 
I’m guessing to attract the bees.
Yeah, I mean partly to attract the bees,  
partly because I feel it’s important 
you know it looks quite nice.
Yes.
So a few flowers. We’ve got a 
rose and this is honey wort,  
but bees love the honey wort.
Here this is really good. 
I’m not sure what this is called. 
We know it as ‘bog brush’.
The technical name is is it persicaria,  
probably is we call it ‘bog brush 
plant’ but the bees love that as well.
Obviously the wildlife’s finding you here, it’s 
obviously on the map, that’s beautiful, brilliant.
I noticed something interesting over there Mark .
This looks quite far along for 
still quite early in the summer.
What’s happening here? Are 
you saving the seeds or..
Yeah they do look like they’re they’re dying 
don’t they? And it’s a bit of a shame really. 
I don’t really like having things look like 
they’re dying in my garden, but yes exactly.
This is a variety of pea called Avi Joan 
and they are, it’s a heritage variety.
They are the most delicious peas I’ve ever tasted  
in my whole life and I was given 12 seeds 
from them, because they’re quite rare,  
by Adam Alexander who also calls 
himself a ‘seed detective’.
So he found these pea seeds from 
some so I’m basically trying to  
save as many as I can to swap with other people.
Honestly they are just divine these peas.
Right, so so you’re trying to almost like save the 
variety or at least give it a long-term footing?
Yeah, to grow myself but 
also to to share with others.
And the benefit of sharing with 
others as well as spreading the  
word is that what sometimes happens 
is that you run out yourself and if  
you know other people have got it 
you can go back and get it again.
That’s true, that’s very true, yeah. Great.
One of the things I really love growing and 
actually I have a few less at this time of  
year. In the autumn I have and spring I have 
a lot more, but is is these micro greens.
And there’s lots of reasons 
why I love growing them.
Partly you can grow a lot 
in a very very small space.
So if you just, for example, 
just see this this tray here  
which is full of a arugula or or 
rocket, actually when I cut that, 
I don’t know if you can see but 
I’m actually going to get a lot 
and it’s only been growing 
for like just over two weeks.
So this is and there’s lots and lots of 
things, so lots of variety you can grow.
So this is regular rocket, these are pea shoots.
I haven’t had fantastic germination cause 
one way of growing them is just to use up  
old seeds and just some old pea seeds, so the 
germination hasn’t been great, but you know. 
Not bad though, is it?
Not too bad there. There’s enough there.
This is one of my favorite. These are 
sunflowers and then these are actually  
just coriander seeds from the spice store.
I see!
It’s a really really low cost way of growing them.
With these you can eat the 
whole thing with the root  
and root’s got a lovely a lovely 
sort of coriander flavor as well.
I’ll give that a taste.
It’s nice to be with another gardener, 
they don’t worry about washing them.
Yes quite! You don’t need to wash it.
Mark, we chatted earlier and you 
told me you got worms! [Laughs]
But I hear you’re a big fan of 
them and well aren’t we all?
Are they in here ?
They are indeed, yes.
Oh show me them! Let’s go and … yeah oh I can 
immediately tell these are very pampered worms.
They’ve got all sorts in here. 
You’ve got obviously kale 
leaves and all sorts of scraps. 
I can see see mango in there. 
What else are you putting in here?
Sort of all our scraps from the 
kitchen, so tea leaves, coffee grounds.
You shouldn’t really put too 
much onion and citrus in but  
once it’s well established like this it’s fine.
I mean basically anything in small quantities. 
Well not anything – not meat and not fish ,but 
but but any sort of veg scraps in small…
Yeah exactly anything from a normal compost heap.
They’re fantastic for small spaces because, 
you know, you can make them any size you want, 
so it doesn’t have to be 
this big, it can be smaller. 
But if you can have fit one this big then 
you can add in all your peelings, you know  
all your other sort of veg scraps from the garden.
You know when you have your carrot tops and your,  
I don’t know, you know when you pull out a run 
a bean plant you have quite a lot of leaves and  
things and you can put them all in which is 
nice to feel like you can recycle everything.
This is actually the thing the main 
thing I use to feed the garden.
As well as using the worm compost the other  
way I really like to feed my 
plants is with folia feeding.
And you can sort of apply any almost 
any liquid fertilizer can be absorbed  
through the leaves as well as through the roots.
And one that I really like to 
use this is liquid seaweed.
Okay.
Because I’ve got a lot of plants here, to do 
it quickly I use this quite big spray gun here.
You know I can do my whole garden 
with just one tablespoon full.
Seaweed is very rich in lots of different 
minerals and lots of different microelements  
so you’re just helping to ensure that plants 
have got got what they need they need.
Also I quite like it.
As good a reason as any!
Blueberries that we’ve got here are 
quite a high value crop and I noticed  
you’re going for some things here that 
are quite pricey to buy in the shops.
Is there – have you ever worked 
out how much you’re saving on  
your grocery shopping bill by growing your own?
Yeah well I did when I lived 
in another flat over there.
We had like a backyard and in six months I grew 
about $500, $700, £500 pounds, that’s $700 dollars
Wow
worth of food and I think here 
I’m growing quite a lot more.
It’s a bigger space so I would estimate 
sort of more like $1,000 dollars 
of food here but that that’s partly because 
yeah as you say a lot of stuff is high value.
You know blueberries are expensive, microgreens,  
things like fresh salad is 
very expensive you know.
I don’t think that’s always the 
reason why people do it but it is  
a way you know you can – it is a way of 
getting high quality food at a low price, 
particularly if you reuse the compost and 
use recycled containers and things like that.
Absolutely.
I know you’re very passionate 
about growing in pots and  
containers and making the most of a small space.
Why should more people be growing 
like this and and you know,  
where does your passion come from for all of this?
I think there are sort of lots of reasons.
That’s really sort of why 
I really I really love it.
It’s partly that it’s just amazing to be able to  
live in a city and pop outside and 
pick like super fresh food I think.
When I lived in London I imagined I had 
to have an allotment to do that or I had  
to have a big garden to do that,
but actually you don’t, you can do  
it and actually this space is actually really 
quite large compared to what I had in London.
I literally just had a small 8 foot by 4 foot 
balcony so this is sort of quite luxury in a way.
But even in that very small space 
we could still pick fresh food on  
a regular basis and it it really 
does transform the food you eat.
Mark has a great resource actually 
on growing in containers and pots  
and really packing things into the 
smallest of spaces and he’s got a  
a website as well so I will pop a link 
to that down below, so do have a look.
Mark it’s been a real pleasure, thank you 
so much for showing us around the garden.
Thanks ever so much for coming here, 
it’s been lovely to show it to you.
Thank you.