Could we have an urban/suburban permie picture thread?

Denise Cares wrote:Great post.  Very nice transformations going on here!  Question for George Y: how did you make the arches for mom's berry bushes?  They are so tall.  

Hi Denise, the arches used for the blackberry vines are from Aldi, and are the "Gardenline" brand.  I got mine on sale, and I believe they were ~$20, perhaps?  Mom loved the one so much that we bought a couple more.

Just checking in on this thread, and a couple people were bemoaning pines, and their shade and needles. The needles make fabulous compost. They don’t mat up like so many other (unshredded) leaves, and the fungus just loves it. Poke at a pile of pine needles that’s been sitting for a year, and you’ll see some fabulous hyphae.

Pines generally like acidic soil, and like so many other plants and people, do their best to alter the environment to their liking (I’m pretty sure). I’ve planted blueberries near my pines, and I regularly scoop up a handful or two of needles and tuck them around as mulch. With good water management, I’m hoping that these berries will thrive, or at least survive, in the somewhat shady acidic conditions.

I’ll report back at the end of next year. I planted 6 blueberries in a variety of microclimates, and I’m liking forward to see which are the happiest come harvest time.

Our pine shades our neighbors’ fence line, and they’ve had great luck with highbush blueberries grown in the shadow of that tree. They’ve been gardening successfully more-than-organically in that space for decades, so I don’t see any reason not to follow their lead.

D

I technically live in town, but we have a few acres. My obstacle in gardening would not be space, except for my husband. He likes monocrop grass lawn. He would prefer that our property look like a mowed park (with a few trees- for shade only) or a golf course. I would prefer that our property, all but a small lawn for the kids, look like a permaculture food forest.
As a compromise, because we respect one another, we have a few “food islands” between the grass. The islands out front have to stay neat and tidy looking, no chop and  
drop or anything that looks like a weed. The island out back can look a little messier. The grass here has been a big impediment for me because it grows below the ground and above the ground to cover everything.
Looking at my photos, it may be hard to see some of the stuff. Part of that is because it’s December, and many of the trees have lost their leaves and the other part is because some of them are new plantings and there isn’t much to see yet. We’ve only been here for 1.5 years.
I’m going to try to post to this, and then come back and edit for details about the islands. This is my third attempt. The first two were deleted.
Okay... out front, my larger island has a peach tree, a crab apple tree (upon which I hope to eventually graft on Anna and Golden Dorsett branches), and a black Mulberry tree. My smaller island is mostly pigeon pea shrubs with another small mulberry and a redbud, with a new avocado nearby. In the background, there are some rows with fencing visible. Those will be blackberries, tayberries and loganberry. There are sweet peas and lupine planted between them to cover the fence and make it look and smell nice and also provide some nitrogen fixation. Those berry rows were a tough sell to the husband, but I don’t have a lot of space here that gets a lot of light, so out front they went.
You may not be able to see it well, but the Rose Island picture has all of the front islands visible in the background. The larger island is to the left and the smaller island to the right. In the very back of the photo, near the road there are two large native pecan trees. In a straight line between those, I have two crape myrtles planted and a kumquat tree snuck between them. There are also two passionfruit vines planted at the base of one of the pecans. I’m hoping to string up a trellis between the pecans this summer and put Chayote squash on it. It will provide some food and some privacy from the road.

My back island is messier and has a small compost pile and pulled weeds and other decaying vegetation piled atop the ground. There are lots of smaller plants and herbs planted in there (and more to come), but some of the larger things are Mayhaw trees, elderberry bushes, pomegranate, pineapples, lemon guavas, carambola/starfruit, Malabar spinach, katuk, moringa, et al. Oh, and lots of goumi bushes for nitrogen, which will likely never fruit here because we don’t get enough chill hours. No, I did not know that when I bought them... I was delighted to find that the property came with some lovely mature citrus as well as a loquat tree and a fig tree (which sadly split this year, but I’m propagating some cuttings from it).

Nikki Corey wrote:I technically live in town, but we have a few acres. My obstacle in gardening would not be space, except for my husband. He likes monocrop grass lawn. He would prefer that our property look like a mowed park (with a few trees- for shade only) or a golf course. I would prefer that our property, all but a small lawn for the kids, look like a permaculture food forest.
As a compromise, because we respect one another, we have a few “food islands” between the grass.

Nikki,  My spouse is the one that wants a mowed lawn, golf course style, but since she grew up in a family of farmers tolerates my experiments in pushing the envelope.  Of course I have completely taken over the whole backyard with woodchips. I ask for forgiveness and not permission.

I hate to be so ignorant, but what is the "herb spiral" several of you have mentioned?

Emilie McVey wrote:I hate to be so ignorant, but what is the "herb spiral" several of you have mentioned?

When I first heard about permaculture, it was about a 'herb spiral'. Someone told me about building a spiraled shape out of (re-used) stones, bricks or tiles, filled with soil and planting herbs in there. The different sides of the spiral get more sunshine at the south side and less at the north side, so it's a way of growing both sun-loving and shadow-loving herbs in a small space.
The 'herb spiral' I made is not as high as most of them are.
Here's a photo of the way it started in 2015

spiral to plant herbs in

Why don't I make photos from the same angle each year to show the progress? Sorry.
But in this photo I made last year you can still see the hexagonal tiles to show this is the same spot (but not exactly from the same angle). The herbs did grow well.

Herb spiral in 2018

The neighbors' side of the front yard - my Christmas present to them:

Here are some views:
John S
PDX OR

Front of house:

How about another?

another?

Nikki, you are better at compromise than I am, lol.   My version of "compromise" in that situation would be to divide the yard in half, put up a fence, and say "you do what you want over there and stay out of my half..."   LOL.  

Here are a few photos of what I have been working on at my home. Trying to take a HIGHLY strict HOA home and turn it into a garden / production that will allow my family to eat healthier and live with the earth instead of fighting it.

I like what you're doing, Jonathan.  It just keeps getting interesting in new and different ways over the years.  And you can keep doing it well when you're old, like me, which isn't true for many hobbies/activities.
John S
PDX OR

Looks great!!

A quick tour of my tiny urban yard. We live in a post-war house, so our goal was to respect the spirit of the era: victory gardens, resourcefulness and a very "cottage garden" approach.

As you can see, we use edges a lot. Actually, with the yard being so small, we have to use every bit, and make it both ornamental and practical.

For fruits, we have:
- grapes
- strawberries (wild and standard varieties)
- aronia
- amelanchier (serviceberry)
- elder
- blueberries
- black currant (not producing yet)
- wild raspberry (not producing yet)
- haskap (not producing... Ever? )

For vegetables, we have two main raised beds (both 3 feet deep - 18 feet in length total). I am also starting to add the brick half-circles along the neighbour's fence. They will hold a combination of perrenials and annual veggie plots.

Along the side of the house are strawberries and a few medicinal/ornamental flowers.

That’s really excellent! I love those half-moon beds along the privacy fence. How is your sun? In our urban(ish) lot, there’s a lot that has been going into less than perfect light situations.

D

The back area (with the composter) is mostly shade (hence the mulch in lieu of grass). We might have some shade-loving fruits some day, but probably not much of a yield. We do eat the violet leaves though, and I'm hoping to add shade-loving medicinal/tea plants.

But the rest of the yard is decent, sun-wise. Enough to get a good yield on tomatoes. And our deck gets a lot of sun, so we can have containers that move depending on the needs and seasons.

We also have a balcony upstairs that gets full sun all day, so that could be an option for growth some day (but water access is a challenge, so we haven't exploited it yet. I might have to run a hose up the wall some day.)

I have more space than most urban gardeners, but I still find space saving growing methods to be useful and satisfying.
Here are two examples, one had tomatoes,a  blueberry bush and a mimosa tree.
The other had tomatoes, onions grown from scraps, and a grape vine.
The tomatoes are gone from each,  cut off at the root.

I love the bike wheel.  I'm surprised to see you are intentionally growing mimosa.  I thought they are an invasive non-native species.  Not criticism just curious about your take.

Hi Rob,

Great question .....though I am not sure if it is intentional.  I have been fighting Mimosa on my property for years.

Here's the same two barrels earlier in the year, over run with tomatoes.

I'm pretty certain mimosa are nitrogen fixers.
Their flowers a beautiful,  edible(not delectable,  just won't kill you)  and a real draw for bees and humming birds.
The leaves show up late in the spring and create a dappled shade.
They stay on the trees late into the cold as well,  and the litter just melts into the soil,  it's so small.
The seeds are everywhere in my soil,  but they transplant poorly.
We had a huge "mother tree" in the backyard,  but soil compaction and disease took her out.
Her daughters and grand daughters persist,  but I think this area is nearly the northern edge of their range , so they don't really get out of hand.

I do wish I had prairie mimosa instead,  but for volunteers,  they are nice company.

Also, they smell lovely. 😉

Resurrecting this thread because I love tiny gardens that make the most of their size. We have a small garden in Dublin, Ireland since 10months ago where we're slowly building soil and interplanting different edible species. In the space we have herbs (multiple hardy types), lettuce (3 types), calabrese (accidental),flax, blackberries, aronia, raspberry, hawthorn, strawberry trees (not tasty but edible) and climbers like fill the bucket pea and runner beans. It'll never be big enough to go anywhere near self sufficiency but we keep ourselves in supply of tasty bits and bobs and it's become a real haven for wildlife, most of our neighbours have paved over gardens and space here is far more limited than a lot of cities in the US. We save our seeds and only use Irish seed savers to promote resilience. Excited for the next season!

Pics attached of it now in November as things fade

Good you brought this thread back up again!
Soon I'll show here how my urban garden (front and back) looks right now.

So here's my urban garden again. As I might have told here once it was all tiles and pavement. During the years I live here (must be about 18 years already) step by step I am making space for 'growies'. Reusing the 'stones' in dry stack walls.
Earlier this years I made this photo of the 'miniature food forest' in the front yard:


And today (early morning early November) around there too:






And this is the other part of the front yard, with my tiny plastic 'greenhouse':


To complete it here's the (very shaded) back yard:

Lovely pics, the mini food forest is great, keen to do same here

I need to get some more recent pics. If you look closely in the first pic, you can see the beehive to the left of the shed. Then later, we added a chicken coop to the right of the shed.

The entire area wouldn't grow anything at first. I filled the whole thing with wood chips and planted in containers the first year. Then the second year built raised beds on top of the decomposing wood chips, using the remaining ones to mulch the paths. The third year we added a little compost to the beds and kept rolling. The fourth year I started having problems with things growing in the wood chips because the soil has repaired itself underneath... It's funny when you are excited that have to 'weed'.

We are smack dab in the middle of town... but the privacy fence helps keep things under wrap enough that we haven't had complaints about the chickens or the bees.

The 2 gardens I actually grew and ate food from (that I have pictures of) First 3 are the most recent... 2018. Backyard of a house on a VERY sandy "bluff" in So. TX. Got tomatoes and butternut squash from it, as well as enjoyment from allowing all the "weeds" grow where they popped up (Look at all those coastal "cucumber" sunflowers!)

The last 2 pics are of the garden at the house I lived in with my last GF, ~2011/2012. That place was RIPE for a full on food forest. Across the street was an ACTUAL one, with chickens, geese and rabbits, as well as several different fruit trees. It was during this time I worked and learned under a handful of permie doers and educators, and was able to meet and be inspired by MANY other people involved in urban ag, slow food, and farmers markets....

*sigh*

now I'm stuck in a small house in suburbia, with a view over the back fence of an EMPTY ranch house, on what I believe to be 2 acres () It's a VERY BIG property, and I always fantasize about hopping the fence and squatting on it. Maybe someone can buy it and allow me to take care of it *HINT HINT HINT* lol

(also, would anyone want to read my life story if I start back on writing it again? I feel so damn compelled to do so lately...)

thanks

(edit: when the server returns an error for you to fix, it also strips off all your attachments... grrr)

Bird's eye view -

Looking a little drab here in mid-March, but I have high hopes for this coming season!

There's another thread for which I made some photos (it's about creating wildlife habitat in your garden). I can share some of the same photos here ...
This is my back yard, today March 16 (a little rainy):


And my front yard:

Before:

Mini meadow last year

Another

Our new front yard. Out with the grass, in with an herb and medicinal plants garden inspired by medieval monastery gardens with a modern twist.

Really looking forward to see it grow.

Here's my contribution. I replaced the grass in the front strip with perennials for pollinators. Currently heavily mulched while things get established - I hope to have more living mulch next year. I am starting some mountain mint and bee balm from seed to replace the weird ground cover closest to the maple tree, and I plan to put bunches of daffodils in this fall to come up between the creeping phlox (it was treated roughly during a few weeding sessions and is struggling to recover).

Once it's established it will pass muster with the neighborhood, and our -cide free lawn is so pretty I think I'll actually put up the "pollinator-friendly" sign my landscaper hands out to his clients. The first year as we transitioned the lawn from the previous owners looked a little ragged.

Would love advice on vines - I envision vines climbing everywhere, but am held back by concerns over insects and rodents using them to enter the house, and damage to the siding.

I have Boston Ivy on our house. Mice *could* use it as cover to enter the roof, so I'll cut it as high as I can (typically about 8-10 feet from the ground) in the fall, just before it gets cold and the risk of unwanted roommates increases. It's really easy: you just snip it as high as you can, then grab and pull (ours is a brick house, so I don't worry about damage. Your mileage might vary.)

It just grows back stronger the next year, in time to keep our house cool over the summer.