Urban Garden: Starbucks Coffee Grounds & Trader Joe's Scraps Builds Perfect Garden

Baby cantaloupes on the vine this a.m. Just the size of an olive. Grown from seeds of #cantaloupe served at the #Fishackathon for the @girlscouts. Liz Taylor (@subseaconcierge) my cohost at the #USStateDepartment #DivisionofGlobalPartnerships event also a big Gardner. Ocean people tend to love the whole globe, land & sea.💗

A photo posted by Kaki (@kakiflynn) on Jul 30, 2016 at 9:39am PDT

So much to learn from growing a simple garden.

At KakiFlynn.us, we work with women and girls that explore everything, from space to the ocean.

The most important of all, of course, is the one vessel we travel in our entire lives - our bodies.

This summer, put together an urban garden made up entirely of scraps from groceries.

Not one extra seed or plant was bought.

Even the terrace grown to support the sprawling cantaloupe vines was built using left-over wood from a neighbors newly renovated wood floors.

First, watch this video from our friends over at Amy Poehler Smart Girls.

In this video, a planter box is used. I put my food scraps directly into the ground, and used Starbuck's coffee grounds as the majority of my soil.

Lots of ways to do this, but best to start simple:

FRIEND'S GARDEN A few leaves of basil saved from delicious Vietnamese dinner with my friend & fellow #OutwardBound instructor @erinmccann36 now 3 #basil plants and many more bowls of soup. How? 1) Basil leaves still attached to 3 inches of stem (obviously raw) 2) Put in coffee cup filled with water 3) Leave in for a week; change water daily (use leftover water to water other plants) 4) Plant in ground after you see roots growing from stem; may be 2 weeks - these don't have to be long roots. Plants grown from friends my favorite #compostgarden #urbangarden #plantstrong

A photo posted by Kaki (@kakiflynn) on Sep 4, 2016 at 9:22pm PDT

YUM YUM. We are so used to getting food scrubbed & packaged, we freak when we see dirt on our food. These are new onions growing out of an onion slice from #TraderJoes. 1.Buy onion with skin on; roots intact. Will look shriveled and brown on bottom of onion. 2. Slice off bottom of onion on root side; quarter inch thick. 3. Bury in soil roots down, dirt just covering top of slice. 4. Water daily. 5. In week or two, green sprouts that look very similar to garlic sprouts (look like long thick blades of grass) will start to grow. 6. Snip off blades to use in recipes, but not all of them at once. 7. After a month, new onions will start to grow to the size you see in the photo. Leave in ground to grow full-size onions, snipping off green tops sparingly in the meantime. So cool. The soil mostly @Starbucks #coffeegrounds #compost #vegetablegarden #onion #urbangarden

A photo posted by Kaki (@kakiflynn) on Jul 24, 2016 at 11:30am PD

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AWEEE. Baby Bok Choy. Mini-compost garden. Goal: Trader Joe's Apartment garden. Can't spend any extra $. Done! How? 1) Go to #Starbucks, ask for bag of free coffee grounds. I used about 5 to mix with 8 inch x 8 ft. Strip of dirt. Perfect testing ground 2) collect food scraps that will replant: carrot tops, garlic cloves with green sprout showing, cherry pits, tomato seeds, banana pepper tops, onion bottoms with dried roots, Bok Choy bottom, avocado pit, orange & lemon seeds. Cantaloupe seeds. Piece of ginger, sprouted potato 3) poke holes in compost/dirt mix 4) plant above seeds etc. about 8 inches apart. 5) Water daily 6) Out of town? Use Trader Joes iced-tea glass bottle. Fill w/water. Stick in ground upside down with neck buried at angle. Will self-water. #PlantStrong for the Planet

  

A photo posted by Kaki (@kakiflynn) on Jul 22, 2016 at 9:02pm PDT

Garlic 

Good news:
One of the easiest to grow is garlic.

Bad news:
Ate it before taking a picture. Oops.

Grow Your Own:
1. Head of garlic
2. Pick one piece of garlic; peel off skin
3. Stick in soil or pot, just covering piece.
4. In just a few weeks, will see long green stems that look like really thick blades of grass.
5. Snip off with scissors.
    Don't want to just break off, because causes more damage to plant.
6. Mix in stir fry, hummus, or sprinkle on salad.

Have your own DIY Garden tips?

I want to hear them, and will link to them here if you have a kid-friendly page!