You can grow sweet potato vines indoors as a house plant. They won't produce tubers indoors, but the leaves are edible. You can eat them in a salad or as a cooked green.

I am trying this book right now - http://www.chelseagreen.com/blogs/unlock-secret-perfect-salad-soil-sprouts/ - the author gets daily salad quantities for a family of four with a space investment of one bookshelf. It does use a lot of seeds, but in the same light you can see it as a way to get fresh food out of your pantry storage of dried whole peas that the family doesn't quite like...

What kinds of seeds do you think you might try?

Sprouting without soil, I've done a couple kinds of beans, lentils, radishes,broccoli. The last two are too "spicy" for me to enjoy without really diluting them in other food. But for some people that would be a plus. The former are unpleasantly starchy without, again, burying them in other food.

The broccoli seed was about $16/ pound. Beans and lentils are cheap these days, of course.

The ability to have something fresh anytime of year would be welcome, though.

For winter cold apartments, I would suggest peas that germinate at a fairly low temp, for example, snow peas or sugar snap peas.

I've been a renter for the majority of my adult life. We moved frequently when I was a child even though my parents could afford to buy their houses. It was only because of my dad's generosity that my husband and I were finally able to buy a house (I was 43 and he was 51 at the time).

I think I bemoaned our unsettledness (a quick tally shows something like 32 moves in those 44 years) more than the lack of home ownership, though being a renter contributed to the sense of not belonging to a place, of being at someone else's mercy or whim. That can be quite demoralizing.

But still, there are things one can do in a space that isn't one's own, or in a small space. Micro-livestock are a thing!

You can compost with worms if you don't have a yard but do have a balcony or patio - I wouldn't personally do it indoors due to the way fruitflies can breed like crazy... but you could even farm the fruit flies and feed them to something!

When I first moved in to this current house (in spite of having a large yard), I made a 5 gallon bucket worm composter. (google it, there are several tutorials). I maintain it along with a "trench" style pile now.

I'm also raising mealworms (still learning) and am thinking to someday have coturnix quail (they can live in an apartment and produce eggs regularly!!).

No matter where one lives it's possible to increase resilience. If growing food is out of reach, it's still possible to be more involved in producing consumables (fermenting, baking, canning, drying, sprouting) or coming up with another skill that you can trade for things you don't do yourself.

I don't see anything contradictory with improving your life, collapsing when you have the flexibility to do so, and living in a rental or small place.

Contact your local community center about starting a community garden.

Contact your church

Contact your kid's school.

Contact a local senior center.

Contact your employer

Contact a local food pantry.

Contact your maintenance department (planters full of edibles)

Teaching others is a big part of being a Green Wizard. Offer to show other folks how it's done.

I've rented as well. I'm young and not sure when/if I'll be able to afford land, but I really love to garden. When looking for places to live, I try to find somewhere that has a garden, and always ask the landlord before signing anything if gardening (and having chickens) is allowed. Even if they say "no", at least they are aware that there are a lot of people looking for a place to grow veggies. If they seem unsure, I usually try to sweeten the deal by offering to do all the lawn care and tree/shrub maintenance in addition to starting a veggie patch. The money that they save on hiring a gardener seems to be very effective in greasing their palms!

That being said, it's really difficult, and the places that allow gardening aren't necessarily the cheapest units, but if you get enough like-minded people to split the rent, then it can work out to be less than the market rate per person.

Some of my friends trade farm labor a couple days a week for a fraction of the harvest. Since lots of local farms are run on a shoestring budget or at a loss (because they're the family farm or a hobby farm, not a huge industrial agribusiness), and owned by elderly people who just can't work as hard as they used to, these places are often very willing to have extra help for what amounts to free, as the harvest would otherwise rot due to shorthandedness.

Harvesting fruit from abandoned trees/shrubs is also great, especially if you can do long term storage. I agree with what others have said about buying things in season and preserving them as well (or asking grocery stores, or dumpster diving, or simply knowing the “right person” to hook you up with free food). I've canned 40-200lbs of tomatoes every year despite not regularly growing saucing tomatoes. This is not new. Even my grandmothers and grandma-in-law, who grew up in rural areas (two on remote farms) would buy or trade for specialty items in the summer to preserve. Not everyone needs a peach orchard or a field of sweetcorn.

There are a lot of options if you really look around.

If it is food growing an apartment dweller wants to focus on, then they are probably going to have to connect up with someone wo actually has soil. So start asking people. If you live in an area where some people do have little yards, start putting the word out that you are loking for a little garden space. Work out whatever deal you wish for that. In real life I'm kind of a reserved person, but for almost 40 years I've been able to find garden places in the city. Once I had to go to city hall to find out who owned a vacant lot. I called them. They lived way out in an adjacent county and were happy to let me use the lot, so long as I wrote them a letter tellin them what I intended to do and waiving them from any legal responsibility for any mishaps. Done!

Another time I asked a neighbor if they would like me to make a little garden of gladiolus, zucchini, and butternut squash in their back yard. Done.

Then there is the spot I talk about here frequently. The orchard. It is on city-owned property. The city has so much vacant land that it is a huge expense. I asked for the nearest lot I could find, and for $5 for a five year lease? Done! See if your city has a progam like that. Here, it is called a "garden lease" and is through a department called Land Reutilization Authority.

Then of course, there is also guerilla gardening. I've done that, too, and so brazenly and extensively that, looking back on it, I'm surprised I had the guts. It was about 115 square feet. Watch for arable spaces and take it as far as you feel comfortable.

Also an apartment-dwelling greenwizard interested in food growing ought to find out what is forageable in the area. If you lived around me, I'd encourage you to learn to recognize apple trees and pear trees. There are some delicious crab apples out there that have been planted around shopping centers and office parks. The callery pears (and similar varieties) that people have planted for the glorious white spring bloom sometimes carry huge masses of berry sized fruits that I understand ferment to a nice cider called perry. I've seen one of them bear fruit as big as an egg. These trees have become invasive with groves of them sprouting up along the interstate highways that cut through the newer suburbs here. It would be a public service to collect their fruits.

Hi David,

Yes, I agree, it is more of a mind-set. Having experienced somewhat of a collapse twice now, (well may be best described as two bumps down the fractal collapse ladder) I'm experiencing life in 2 disparate small working class towns. The first was very very rural/wilderness living in WY, wherein everyone had the access and opportunity to retreat into their own little off-grid bug-out, grow their own food/animals, weave their own cloth, etc.. My current town in northern NV is much more grid-tied, almost suburban, more noticeably 'poor'. I've lived hand to mouth for most of my young adulthood in the biggest of cities too.

In all cases, my #1 advice and top priority would be: make friends. Just as the 'How DO you survive?' question is answered in 'The Hunger Games': "You have to get people to like you". Humans are herd animals - we need and rely on each other. Even Grizzly Adams traded and interacted with the Native Americans. He wasn't a hermit. #2 would be honing barter-worthy essential skills, (plural) Almost none of us, either rural, urban or suburban can actually grow and make all of our food and necessities. Certainly not without help from friends and neighbors.

Growing is a great skill and yes, you can treat yourself to 1 nice salad every other month from your apartment garden, or you can grow spices and medicinal herbs to trade/barter, but neither will completely sustain you. What you're getting from it is the knowledge, experience, and skill in the art of growing - which I suspect will take you a lot further than the actual fruits of your indoor garden. The same can be said for a big outdoor bug-out garden though.

1 great hack I found in our little WY mountain town was working for a local grocery store - they almost always had to throw away a few crates of over-fresh, but still edible / can-able produce every week. I took it home and made preserves or canned sauces. Free! They were thrilled that it did not go to waste and they didn't have to pay to have it carted away - I would think almost any local grocery manager would be the same - regardless of corporate policy - most people don't like throwing good food out when they know it could help feed someone. Make friends with your local grocer, whether it is a mom-n-pop store or a big impersonal chain like Kroger's. It's still locally run by local people, your neighbors. (Old Chinese saying "The mountains are high and the Emperor is very far away".) Honestly; I'm thinking it would be worth it to take on and keep a small 1-day-a-week job at our local Smith's just to have that food connection again.

But what I'm learning from both of these two little towns is the essential survival necessity, goodness and life blood of neighborliness, family, friendship and communal helping each other. It makes life better, bearable and even great to have that. Without it, we won't get there.