I had the opportunity to tour the apartment building of permaculture author and instructor Dave Boehnlein, author of Practical Permaculture in late September. He and his partner Yuko Miki showed how permaculture principles can be fully adopted by apartment-dwellers, both indoors and out. This post will focus on their outdoor interventions, and will be followed by Part 2, discussing indoor interventions.
Boehnlein first got permission from his landlord to create a little garden in what was a weedy terrace on the side of the building. They did a sheet mulch over that area, and planted kabocha squash (Cucurbita maxima), which was wildly productive.
After one year of doing squash, they built raised planters for annual vegetables, planted herbs, and a Grecian bay laurel. All of the herbs are for the use of the entire apartment building, while the annuals in the beds are reserved for Dave and Yuko.
Boehnlein made a point to knock on the doors of his neighbors in his building, introducing himself and asking them if they liked to cook, and showed them the culinary herbs he had planted around their building, inviting them to harvest. Oftentimes, they produced more lettuce than any one person could eat, so he shared his harvest door-to-door around his building.
Their next step was to plant 3 trees in the parking strip across the sidewalk from their apartment building: 2 persimmon (Diospyros kaki) and 1 yuzu (Citrus junos.)
After a year, he got permission to put in shrubs in between the trees, using gooseberries (Ribes uva-crispa) and currants (Ribes spp.) to create a fully-planted, edible parking strip. Eventually, Boehnlein said, “I kept asking the landlord, ‘can I do this? Can I do this? Can I do this? And at this point the landlord finally told me, ‘Stop asking me questions, quit bothering me, and do whatever you want.'” He attributed that success to making sure he took care of things along the way to make them look nice.
After attaining carte blanche with his landlord, Boehnlein planted an espaliered peach tree anchored to the wall under the eaves, so it doesn’t get rained on, which makes it more resistant to a fungal disease called Peach Leaf Curl.
In addition, they also created extensive container gardens around the building, including: fig trees, cucumbers, blueberries, basil, eggplant, peppers, and beets.
In order to use as little water as possible for the garden (as water is on the landlord’s dime), they used ollas, an ancient watering technology utilizing unglazed terracotta pots, in their raised beds, and a wicking bed container, in which the soil is elevated above the bottom of the container by a couple of inches, creating a reservoir which is filled through a length of pvc pipe sticking out of the soil’s surface. The result is beds that never wilt, even on the hottest of summer days.
The plantings around their apartment building constitute permaculture Zone 1, which contains high-use crops like Cherry tomatoes, zucchini; things that require more attention. Their Zones 3 & 4 are located at a community garden plot: it contains crops which require less attention, such as potatoes, winter squash, and daikon.
By planting along the sidewalk in the parking strips, they have created a space in which neighbors and passersby can engage with permaculture. They’ve met neighbors for the first time over the interface of a citrus tree, which provoked a discussion of how citrus can grow in Seattle, and introduced another to the taste of currants. These discussions build community and create potential for future connections.
Planting a permaculture mini-orchard in a public place like a parking strip is not without its challenges. Certain prized produce might disappear overnight, vehicles can cause damage (one persimmon tree had to be replaced because a car drove over it), and people may even take cuttings from your yuzu (a tree that can’t be propagated by cuttings). It’s imperative to keep the public right of way as clean and free of hazards as possible, so keeping things tidy must be a priority.
Moving to the east-facing side yard, we are greeted with a raised planter and a tidy assortment of potted plants, including several edible perennials such as daylily (Hemerocallis spp.) and hosta (Hosta spp.) at their apartment entrance.
They envisioned this convenient planter as a place for salad greens in the spring and summer, as well as perennial vegetables such as kale (Brassica oleracea), negi (Allium fistulosum), and perennial arugula (Diplotaxis tenuifolia). It is fitted with pvc brackets and pipe so that greenhouse plastic can be draped over it in the winter. (The pipe has been painted to prevent a chemical reaction between the sheet plastic and pvc.)
These 2 potted trees sit in the side yard for the time being. Chinese mahogany (Toona sinensis) provides edible young leaves and beautiful fall foliage. Hardy rubber tree (Eucommia ulmoides) is a Chinese medicinal and a great street tree. They can survive in pots for a few years before they need to find a permanent place to put down roots.
An inspiring thing to note was that their next-door neighbors, after seeing the raised bed Dave and Yuko built, decided to build one for themselves. This is hard evidence that permaculture is contagious. If everybody in the neighborhood provided a little bit for themselves, we’d all be a lot more resilient.