Citypickers - Experiments in Urban Gardening

I've long been curious about Earth boxes and their less expensive cousin, such as Citypickers.

Using intensive gardening techniques, you need 200 square feet of garden per person to eat during the growing season. My entire outdoor growing space right now is 20 ft by 7 ft, which is 140 square feet. So even if I used every inch of our balcony for gardening (something which no doubt would displease Lord Rat), I still would not be able to grow enough produce for one of us.  Ah, the banes of apartment living (or condo or town home for that matter).

Well, I probably won't be growing all of our own food anytime soon, but today I started with almost 4 square feet of garden, by planting a Citypickers raised bed, the dimensions of which are 20 in by 24 in.  I like that the CityPickers is square and it's not that bad looking.

I'd like to see how much produce I can produce on our balcony without uglifying it too much, and whether it would result in any decrease in our grocery expenses.  Although, I suspect that the ROI on this may be in the form of fresher, higher quality produce and the convenience of being able to grab the ingredients for dinner off your balcony.

I'm not sure how long you would have to use one of these in order to see a reduction in your grocery bill.  There is the initial cost for the CityPickers planter, the potting mix to fill it, the lime, and the fertilizer, not to mention any seeds you may buy.

My initial set up costs were $50.98, not including tax.  You are supposed to add fertilizer and lime every time you replant the Citypickers, and I guesstimate the lime and fertilizer will last me a total of 4 plantings, so in four plantings I need to grow about $50 worth of produce. After the initial startup, each planting will cost about $4.25

CityPicker: $29.99
Potting Mix: $9.97
Lime: $4.98 (use 2 cups per planting)
Fertilizer: $5.98 (use 3 cups per planting)

Total:$50.98

I am hoping to get:

6 golden beets

10 cherry bell radishes

1 bunch of kale

3 bunches of Swiss chard

2 bunches of winter spinach

I am guestimating that that is approximately $20 of organic produce.  Although, Swiss chard, spinach, and kale are all cut and come again, so they may actually produce quite a bit of salad.  I will also have the beet greens and radish greens to eat. Assuming each planting produces $20 of produce, I will be in the green by the third planting.

I plan on posting on the gleanings from my little garden.  If nothing else, it will be fun to grow little treats that you can't find easily in stores, green zebra tomatos and sorrel - you can't put a price on that.