Kemp - Permaculture in Pots: How to Grow Food in Small Urban Spaces

So, why grow your own food? Growing your own food, even only a little of it, is fun in and of itself plus you get very tasty results! Its good for your mental wellbeing, and if you do it right, its good for the planet as well. Its hard to underestimate the satisfaction of eating something youve grown yourself; and just messing around with earth and seeing seeds sprout and turn into plants is a rewarding and sometimes even magical experience. In urban areas, many of us have very little regular contact with the natural environment; growing a few plants in pots is an easy and fun way of getting back in touch with nature and natural processes, even within the concrete jungle.

But why permaculture? Permaculture is a way of doing things whether thats growing food, constructing communities, or anything else which focuses on creating a sustainable, self-reliant system, and a sustainable human environment. Its a great way of making sure that when you create your garden, youre working in environmentally beneficial and sustainable ways and sustaining yourself at the same time.

As a concept, permaculture can be applied to a huge range of situations and human activity, but it first arose from ideas around plant systems: aiming to create a way of growing food that is sustainable, productive, and which works with the environment (both in the broadest sense and in the very local sense of the space in which youre growing things) rather than against it. Its an appealing way to work: as a gardener, working with the plants, yourself, and your space to create a system in which all of the pieces can fit comfortably together.

Urban Permaculture

A permaculture approach can be particularly useful in urban areas, where you have many more constraints. If all you have is a paved area, you can still grow vegetables in pots or other containers, but that does mean that your system will operate slightly differently from if you were growing in the ground. Using a permaculture perspective will allow you to observe and consider your space and situation, and make decisions accordingly. A south-facing balcony with a concrete wall at the back could be an excellent home for warmth loving fruit and tomato plants; a north-facing roof garden will need something different. The pots may in some ways limit your space, but they also make it easy to move plants around to experiment and find out how you can get the most out of the various plants. Permaculture is also about making the most of the available space, using edges, height, and companion growing. Thinking about yourself and your space as a holistic system can even help you save money for example, by setting up worm composting to make your own compost rather than having to buy it in every year.

Thinking about permaculture when setting up your garden makes it possible to create the best and most sustainable system you can, working in harmony with the environment youre given and making the most of all your available resources. That makes sense wherever youre growing, but it makes even more sense in a small urban environment where you want to maximise output from a small space.

This introduction will cover some of the principles of permaculture, as I talk about planning, practicalities, and the structure of the rest of the book.

The Structure of this Book

The rest of the Introduction will cover the basics for getting started: planning your space with reference to permaculture principles; how to maximise your space; and the practicalities (like water, pots, and compost) that youll need to think about.

The remainder of the book is arranged month-by-month: wherever you are in the year, open the book at that chapter, and itll tell you what you should be doing. (See the end of this Introduction for a quick note on how to use this book in different climate zones and seasons, if youre not in the UK.)

Each chapter will start off with an overview of what was going on in my own urban container garden that month, and a list of things you should be doing in that month. Heres what to expect in the rest of the chapters.

My southfacing balcony at the height of summer.

Overwintering beans and peas; creating your own compost and leaf mould; a green tomato chutney recipe to preserve any remaining tomatoes; building a cold frame; winter herbs; and tidying up ready for the next season. The herb of the month is sage.

Protecting plants from the cold (and which ones dont need protection); using chickweed (a prolific and very useful weed!); and what you can harvest for your Christmas dinner (and as post-Christmas medication) from your space. The herb of the month is thyme.

How to get hold of seeds (by saving, swapping, and making cuttings); planning your space and your growing season; and the opportunities for growing fruit in pots. The herb of the month is rosemary.

Succession sowing; early vegetables to get started; frost dates and how to manage frost problems; starting seeds off; and making self-watering containers. The herb of the month is parsley.

Revitalising your old compost; what to do with your successfully overwintered plants now the weather is picking up; more information about planting out and hardening off peas and beans; all the details about lettuce and chillies, peppers, aubergines, carrots, spinach beet and chard; and growing potatoes in containers. The herb of the month is oregano.

How to grow tomatoes, courgettes, and strawberries; making the most of your space as the containers start to stack up; and companion planting to discourage insects. The herb of the month is chives.

Growing microgreens and baby greens; dealing ethically and organically with pests; and guerrilla gardening to use spare seeds and seedlings. The herb of the month is savoury.

Midsummer and the problem of bolting; how water affects different plants at different stages; and thinning and pinching out carrots, greens, and tomatoes. The herb of the month is basil.

Propagating strawberries; and starting to think about crops for autumn. The herb of the month is Fennel.

Harvesting, eating, and preserving the food youve been growing, with information on preserving veg and some fabulous recipes; more on saving seed; and planting potatoes for your Christmas dinner! The herb of the month is mint.

Bringing delicate herbs like basil inside for the winter; autumn greens; and foraging and wild jellies. The herb of the month is yarrow.

Tidying up at the end of the season; plants you can keep on sowing through October; setting up the cold frame; and useful weeds that can still be harvested at this time of year (like dandelion roots). The herb of the month isnt a herb, its a spice, ginger!

Finally, talks about the wider urban environment and its possibilities. These include guerrilla gardening, urban foraging (in many guises!); how to get yourself about the place in a permaculture-friendly way, and interacting with the other people around you to improve your local food network.

Theres also a brief with a few useful websites, information resources, and seed providers, as well as plans for any built structure that appears in the book, and sample plans for different sizes and types of paved urban space.

Planning your Space

There are a few general things to consider when planning your space; the first being the general advantages and disadvantages of container gardening.

Urban Container Gardening

Advantages and problems

The biggest advantage of gardening on a balcony or patio is closeness to the house.

Theres an old Chinese proverb that says, the best fertiliser is the gardeners shadow. Basically, the more often you visit your plants, the better your crop will be. Youll be able to fix problems more readily, as well as making the most of your potential crop by harvesting as things become ready. With cut-and-come-again plants in particular, this can significantly boost your crop. In permaculture, this area is referred to as zone 1, and is where you put all the plants which need the most regular attention. So while, as urban container gardeners, our available area may be small, its very valuable, and it can be much more productive than youd expect.