Maya Chen-Reyes
Grow fresh food in your apartment without losing your security deposit
After killing my way through seven basil plants, three fiddle-leaf figs, and one supposedly unkillable succulent, I finally cracked the code. Now I grow salad greens, herbs, tomatoes, and peppers in roughly five square feet of floor space. No yard required.
Grow fresh food in your apartment without losing your security deposit
UX Designer & Apartment Gardener
Vertical Gardening Guides
Renter-Friendly Food Growing
Practical guides for growing food in apartments, balconies, and small spaces without permanent installations or losing your security deposit. Written by someone who killed a lot of plants learning what actually works.
Sky-High Harvest
The Renter-Friendly Guide to Vertical Gardening
The complete guide for apartment dwellers, renters, and small-space gardeners who want to grow real food without a yard, permanent installations, or prior gardening experience. After killing seven basil plants and surviving a catastrophic fungus gnat infestation, Maya Chen-Reyes developed the practical, renter-safe systems in this book. Learn to grow salad greens, herbs, microgreens, and even dwarf tomatoes in as little as 5 square feet - with zero damage to your apartment and your full security deposit intact.
The Upward Garden Cookbook
Simple Recipes for Your Indoor Harvest
Quick, delicious recipes designed around what you can actually grow in a small space - from windowsill herbs to dwarf tomatoes.
About Maya
I spent my twenties convinced I was genetically incapable of keeping plants alive. My houseplant graveyard included three fiddle-leaf figs, seven grocery store basil plants, and one succulent that somehow rotted and dried out simultaneously.
Everything changed during the pandemic lockdowns, when my 480-square-foot Chicago studio started to feel like a beige prison cell. Desperate for green, I began documenting what actually worked in my north-and-south-facing windows - and more importantly, what did not.
Three years and roughly forty failed experiments later, I had a thriving vertical garden producing lettuce, herbs, microgreens, and cherry tomatoes from five square feet of floor space. By day, I work as a UX designer for a fintech startup. By evening, I tend my apartment garden - which has moved with me through two apartments, survived three roommates, and never cost me a security deposit.
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