A question central to this blog is this: “What is the bare minimum one can do to be practicing permaculture?”
While my personal living situation, living in an apartment with some pretty generous outdoor space, is definitely better than the minimum, perhaps it can serve as a mid-range example for those with slightly smaller or larger spaces.
All of my plantings are within containers, but I did attempt to employ some permaculture principles and strategies within them.
Integrate rather than segregate and Use & Value Diversity
Instead of trying to segregate plants by container, I integrated several different companion plants into one container.
The asparagus, as a perennial whose roots need to be fully established deep in the soil over the course of 2 seasons before it can produce harvestable spears, I planted first, as its roots would form the foundation of my planter’s underground architecture. I then planted mustard, from the Brassica family and dill, from the Apiaceae family. Dill is an aromatic herb which deters cabbage moth worms and other brassica-loving pests. And, like others in the Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae) family, dill’s umbrella-shaped flower clusters attract beneficial predatory insects, such as ladybugs, parasitoid wasps, predatory flies, and lacewings.
Later in the season, after the mustard and dill had run their course, I planted strawberries, a perennial plant which produces runners to form a ground cover through the late summer/fall season. They have a lifespan of only 4 years, but every runner they produce results in a new plant with a new 4-year lifespan. I planted their roots 4 inches deep in the soil, so their roots would draw nutrients from a different level of the container than the deeper-planted asparagus. Click here for a more in-depth look at strawberry-asparagus companion planting.
Within the container, and within the entire garden, integration and diversity promotes resiliency and encourages symbiosis.
Self-Regulate; Accept Feedback and Use the Edges
The “Self-Regulate; Accept Feedback” permaculture principle simply means to be open to modify dysfunctional behaviors. “Use the Edges” means to make the most of the areas of increased energy and diversity along edges. As my landlord had put down weed barrier over most of the plantable surfaces around my apartment building, I resigned myself to restricting my plantings to containers.
However, there were some margins where undesirable plants like bindweed kept popping up. After weeding these edges for what I hoped was the last time, I planted a packet of Botanical Interests’ “Edible Beauties,” and “Bring Home the Butterflies” seed mixes in the small corner of bare soil. In two months, I had an extremely diverse edge habitat. While the bindweed was not eradicated, it at least had some competition in its niche, with an array of plant species which flowered at different times, attracting many more pollinators and producing more edible yields than bindweed alone would.
Hopefully my garden can serve as at least a flawed example for putting permaculture principles into practice. I will attempt to record my creative interventions in my own garden, and we might obtain some yield of knowledge as the seasons change.
Very interesting!