Up on the Roof

Greenery sprouting from your college dorm or apartment roof...is it time to call the cops? Only if raised garden beds are against the rules in your dorm or apartment building. In addition to the early crops, soil health, and other varied advantages of raised bed gardening, the raised garden is portable for the iPod generation!

Organic gardening is totally tight with the college crowd. Grab your organic gardening compost (make sure your weird roommate doesn't mistake it for food) and plan a 4' x 4' raised bed garden for your balcony or roof. You can use that spare tire from your bike or order a custom raised garden kit. Don't forget to buy soil and use old plant cuttings, specimens from botany lab, wood shavings from the woodworking club, and so forth as organic gardening compost.

Raised garden beds are also great for condo complexes with shared lawns. But if you're not in a condo because you're working on that bachelor's or master's degree, transplantability is one of the other advantages of raised bed gardening. You can transplant veggies, fruits and flowers into larger raised beds or into the ground. Of course, by now you're in love with raised bed gardening...so is your weird roommate. You just don't want to know what he's growing.