#220 Urban Gardens in English

Speak English Now through mini-stories with teacher Georgiana

Hi, everybody! I am Georgiana, your English teacher and founder of SpeakEnglishPodcast.com. My mission is to help you speak English fluently.

In today's episode

- I'm going to tell you how you can get vegetables without going to the supermarket. And I’m not talking about magic :)

- In the second part, you will learn grammar without memorizing any boring rules.

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Very well. Let’s start!

Some things only happen in cities. Interesting things. One of them is urban gardens,

If you have an urban garden, you can grow your own veggies if you live in a city.

I'm talking about tomatoes, celery, broccoli, etc. It is an exciting option if you do not want to buy them directly from the supermarket or if you want to make sure that the vegetables are pesticides free.

Urban gardens appeared as a fad, but the truth is that they are consolidating in many cities. A good phrase to use in this case is: "they are here to stay". That is, it is not just a fad.

Where can we find these gardens? Locations vary. For example, there are large gardens in the suburbs of many cities. These are family gardens that produce all kinds of veggies.

We can also find urban garden projects in schools, where they have an educational function. I find it very helpful for children to understand that tomatoes are not "manufactured" in the supermarket but rather grown in the soil.

On the other hand, many apartments have a terrace, and people have some vegetables in small earthen containers. Some take advantage of the rooftop. There is usually quite a lot of space available.

I guess in general you can save money, but it's easy to overspend. You need tools, fertilizers, seeds, substrates... and a lot of patience. In any case, it's an outdoor hobby that is usually rewarding.

However, there are some disadvantages. The most important is that the contamination affects the plants. All contaminating particles fall on the surfaces. Many of them are metals such as lead, mercury, or cadmium. And I don't believe anyone likes the idea of eating a tomato with these kinds of metals in it.

Then there is the expense of the water, which can be significant. Nowadays, the water bill can go up quite a bit because there are more and more taxes.

So... Would you like to have an urban garden? If you already have one, you can tell me about it in the comments section.

Before I move on to the next section, go and get the transcript of this episode at SpeakEnglishPodcast.com/podcast

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