Not every garden needs a backyard, and Lisa Seger's story shows it in a pretty unexpected way. According to the Houston Chronicle, Seger, who lives with her husband and more than 30 goats on 10 acres near Waller, Texas, is a goat farmer and cheese maker. Their actual yard space is small because her goats need most of the land for grazing. So instead of building another raised bed, she filled the drawers of an old metal filing cabinet with soil and grew herbs in it. It’s a small story, but it shows how little space you really need to garden.
The space problem most young renters know about
Seger wanted more variety in her garden, but didn't want to add more raised beds. She wanted something visually interesting, and a way to grow more without having to build another 4-by-8 or 4-by-12 raised bed. So instead she experimented with what she had lying around. It's a dilemma plenty of people can relate to, goats or no goats: a small rental with no yard, no raised beds, and no obvious place to dig
From filing cabinet to hanging teapots
Seger dragged the filing cabinet out into the garden and filled its open drawers with dirt. It worked for years until the metal finally rusted through. And when it did, Seger didn’t quit. She constructed a little fence out of hog-wire paneling and hung thrift-store cups, a coffee pot, a kettle, and other containers from it, drilling drainage holes in each before filling them with soil and transplants.
