Urban Farming: getting the most from small space?

Okay… you asked for it!  I'm going to take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions!!  WOOHOO!!  And I do like to ask questions…

We have been doing some urban farming of our own here in West Seattle.  The past two years, we have produced a HUGE amount of food from the back yard (?) of our townhouse.  We used what plantable space we had then enhanced that with pots, hanging baskets, etc…  The result, as I said, has been a great deal of food.

This year, we have branched out and have expanded our Urban Farming Project to the yards and vacant areas of neighbor's properties who have volunteered them up in exchange for some fresh food.  Sharecropping, if you will.  One of the properties is a quarter acre garden/farm that sat dormant for several years and we worked with a team of community neighbors to clean up and rework the soil.  This year, we are doing a big planting with hopes of crop production.

*whew*  Sorry for all the background info but I feel it is necessary for the questions I will ask in this and subsequent posts.

Starting with the very smallest of spaces, the back patios and window sills in our neighborhood, what are some best practices that can/should be employed even on such a small scale?  Basically, where would one start with a small space that, often, doesn't even include soil to plant in other than a pot or a bunch of pots on a patio or windowsill?

Thanks for taking the time to respond to this forum.  This really is a great opportunity to ask question (almost) directly from one of the permaculture greats.

About 15 years ago I read a really great book on this topic.  The author(s) were in san francisco.  A tiny plot of land.  Sun was very precious.  And they were bitten by the gardening bug ....    So they had not just window planters, but shelves of planters all over their south wall.  And they then made a network of wooden .... "platforms" all over their ROOF!  They had hundreds of containers loaded with all sorts of plants everywhere.

And, at about the same time I was reading that book, I visited a home in Missoula, Montana where a person had gone crazy with containers to cover nearly every spec of their limited property.  And the south wall of their house was covered with a network of pots - with the dribbles from the bottom of one pot dribbling into the next pot!

AND .... at the workshops a few weeks ago with Sepp Holzer, "Team Sepp" set up what Sepp refers to as a "felt sausage", where you roll up some landscape fabric, fill it with soil and poke holes in it for your growies.  This is what he recommends for urban stuff.

The first pic here is of Sepp's son Josef.  There is a lot more set up here to demonstrate more than just the sausage - but I think you get the idea.

The second pic shows holes and plants.

I like this idea of rolling the fabric.  Like a big ol' urban farming burrito!  LOL  I'm thinking a GREAT place for potatoes in limited spaces.  We have built Potato Condos in the past and this might be a fun alternative.

One question about the fabric: quite often, bags of soil get a bit moldy in the inside if they don't have enough aeration in them.  How was this dealt with in this design?

Mold in soil is a good thing.  That's one of the ways organic matter breaks down.

I suspect that there would be near zero on the outside of this thing.

As for aeration:  if you start with a fair amount of organic matter, it will decompose over time and thus leave more air spaces.  Thus - self aerating!

Taking hydroponics to the max is AQUAPONICS.  You have a tub with fish and a grow bed with vegetables.  The fish-poop water is pumped up to the grow bed(s), it feeds the vegetables, the vegetables filter the poopy water, and the clean water is returned to the fish.

For the best explanations, photos of the set-ups, information and forums, go to Joel Malcomb's fantastic site at Backyard Aquaponics at http://www.backyardaquaponics.com. ; He's in Australia, but he's 'roight'!  And he's getting someone set up in the U.S.

Sue

(if you start a new thread on aquaponics, I have some interesting stuff to add that doesn't fit under "urban")

I like this idea a lot, though it occurs to me that it would dry out rather fast in triple digit summers. I assume the blue tote is for water; how does that work? Via a wick system or just dump some water in and it slowly releases into the soil via a slow drip?

However for early starting or fall/winter production or the right micro climate this makes a lot of sense for a backyard neighborhood garden or even an apartment with limited space. I think it would be useful for rooting out cuttings also.

So, specifically regarding best practices in permaculture, what are some pointers that could be given to beginning gardeners with little or no space.  How do they best work their space while employing permaculture best practices?

i can't remember which of my hundreds of gardening books i read things in but the do get stuck in my mind.

one lady, every single day of her urban life..took a flat shovel and a wheelborrow or cart of somekind..bucket would do..and she would go out to the street and gather the "soil" that would wash out of people's driveways and yards after the rain ..and take it home to her property..she built up beautiful gardens..

now you might not go so far..but always  be on the lookout for free soil, free soil additives..pine needles, leaves, compost..etc..

some people also use soiless mixtures in the bottoms of their pots..such as leaves..

haveing never been really urban..i can't be of much help on Seattle urban..i grew up 2 blocks from center of down town, but we had about a 5 acre garden between my family, and 2 grandparents that lived behind us and about 20 plus acres of creek and woods..

gather..always gather..

Lazylocavores,

Good question. Everyone living in an urban area has a different situation regarding available space in which to garden, so there are no hard, fast rules. People also have different situations regarding how much time/attention they can give to a garden. However, when I think about growing in limited space a few different ideas come to mind:

-Container gardening - There are a ton of books out there on container gardening. If people have room for a container (anywhere from a window box to a half barrel) they can grow something. Containers often dry out faster than gardens planted in the ground, so this can be an issue for folks who work long hours. In that case either a small drip irrigation system with a timer or choosing to grow drought tolerant plants are both good ideas. In fact, I like to use containers for a lot of Mediterranean herbs that are fairly drought tolerant (rosemary, sage, oregano, etc.). This keeps them close to the kitchen when I need them and they are a bit more forgiving when you work late and can't water them as often. Container gardening and indoor worm composting can make a great combo in terms of a fertility regime.

-Community gardening - Many places (including West Seattle) have community gardens where enthusiastic gardeners can get a plot. These programs are wonderful and they provide space for people to make a lot of food. It is important to make sure your community garden plot is close enough to your home to receive proper attention (too far and we know we won't be as attentive as we should). A big challenge for basement apartment dwelling folks is doing starts to transplant into their garden plots later. Recently, this problem was tackled by some folks in the Seattle area who started a 'Plant Start CSA'. For the price of a subscription you will get plant starts appropriate to the season delivered throughout the year. Pretty spiffy!

-Guerilla gardening - Lots of folks are getting into the idea of planting food on the sly. If you ever notice a squash plant growing amongst the pieris and arbor vitae at your bank, a guerilla gardener has probably been at work. The principle here is that there is land available all over the place. It is often just filled with ornamentals and not used terribly efficiently. The guerilla gardener will throw seed balls, plant veggie starts, and plug in cuttings in places where they will (hopefully) go unnoticed until they come back for a harvest. There can be a lot of heartbreak when you go this route when all your kales get consumed by a lawn mower instead of you, so if you choose to guerilla garden my advice is to make it look official. The folks that tend landscapes will often assume that a planting that looks like the other plantings is supposed to be there. In other words if you plant your kales in an aesthetically appealing way out of the mow zone, they will be more likely to survive.

-Not-so-guerilla gardening - There is also the idea of just asking. With the idea of edible landscaping on the rise, it seems that one without access to land could simply ask neighbors if they would mind having a garden on the sunny side of their lawn. You could do the work and provide them with some fresh food. Everyone wins. Not everyone will say yes, but it only takes one. Besides, you'll get to meet a bunch of your neighbors and work on building community, which benefits everyone in the end.

Other folks will probably mention rooftop gardening & vertical gardening. However, I believe that there is land available in most places that is easier (and less energy intensive) to garden than rooftops and concrete walls. Often times the challenge isn't available land, but gaining access to available land. Vacant lots, neighbor's lawns, public parks, etc. all provide potential access to land. I imagine that with enough gumption, one could find a patch of dirt just about anywhere. I'd still keep my rosemary in a pot outside my kitchen window, though. After all, that's where I'd use it.

On the urban farming front, there is an organization called Growing Power (http://www.growingpower.org/) based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that I think enthusiastic urban growers should check out. I visited their operation this winter and I was quite impressed. On 2 acres in the inner city, the founder, Will Allen, grows enough food to run a CSA and market. He has chickens, goats, ducks, & turkeys. He has six greenhouses and produces greens for local sale all winter. They are raising tilapia and lake perch in greenhouse aquaculture systems. On top of all that they offer workshops on a variety of topics from commercial urban ag (in other words earning a living farming in the city) to urban food security. Will Allen was a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Award this year. The first photo below is of a greenhouse where they were growing salad greens in January. The space was heated only by the compost piles you see in the corners. The second picture is of one of their aquaculture pools. Check them out if you ever have a chance.

Either way, you can do a lot with a little. Often times it just takes a bit more creativity.

Cheers!

Dave

One other thought I had for those with the desire to grow food in urban & sub-urban areas is the SPIN farming program (http://www.spinfarming.com/). I just heard about it this winter, but it seems to take a lot of the guess work out of growing food and provides recommendations for people with different commitment levels, finances, time, space, and knowledge. It contains a lot of information particularly pertinent to those in urban and suburban areas.  I haven't read the materials myself, but friends who have checked it out say it's kind of like an instruction book for market gardening in the city.

Dave

Thanks for the great answer Dave!  With all the different definitions folks put to permaculture, it is difficult to know exactly when to acknowledge one is following best practices for the discipline or not.  Your examples are uncomplicated and easy to attain.  Thank you for the answer and for giving us a clearer definition (by overview) of urban permaculture practices.

We'll be back for more questions later… you aren't getting rid of us that quickly!  LOL

i've been kinda having this daydream about a planting idea i had for my greenhouse..haven't put it into effect but it is a daydream.

making a structure of some sort ..likely out of wood and fencing..that would have soil on two sides and be tall..with a place to put water in the top with a soaker hose..that would trickle down the thing and water the plant roots..the plants would be on both sides of the thing and stuck in with roots into the soil and plants covering the sides...kiinda like the sausage..only more like a panel? or a thinnish box..

my greenhouse is TINY..6x8..and i figured that would expand the growing space in it..it is not strong enough to hang anything from so it would have to stand on the ground..

[/img]

With any container gardening, you will have a lot of work.  You have effectively removed a bit of soil and at least one plant from an ecosystem.  So what everything else used to provide, you are now taking on that job. 

Since the soil is so tiny, you now have a huge job of providing water. 

In the picture I provided, the "sausage" is far large than you would probably set up. 

The blue bucket is an example of a drip irrigation.  Note that Sepp is normally against all forms of irrigation, but in this case, there is no way around it. 

Personally, one of the most interesting forms of irrigation I have seen is where a clay pot is buried in the soil.  As time passes, the pot exudes water.  But not the sort of pot you might normally think of.  This one is called an "olla".  Here are some pics:



More info here.

You state that container gardening is removing a plant from the ecosystem.  Wouldn't it actually be adding a plant were none was before?

that is an interesting statement..seeing as how it would be true in my greenhouse that if i had stacked plants i could probably grow 3 to 4 or more times as many plants in the same area if i was to make the "plant wall" type of container..?? it woud possibly dry out quicker but as the tube above it could be lined with landscape fabric..only be a rectangle rather than a tube

My new podcast on urban permaculture is up.

I rent a house on a fair sized lot in a city.  Since I am reluctant to tear up the yard and the installed sprinkler system to put in a garden, I do my gardening in containers, specificly earthboxes.  Here are some photos of my garden last year.




Note: The wire mesh in this photo is 6"X6" squares.

i like the part in Gaia's garden where he and his neighbors planted different kinds of fruit trees, one would have plums, one apples, one peaches, one something else..and also nut trees, and they would share..

there would always be more than enough for one household, so they would split the harvests and each one would have fresh produce from someone elses' property as well as their own.

that would work with berry bushes, vines, and in ground plants too..

best way would to be figure which soil would best support which plants, and which microclimates, etc..and then share in the cost, planting and harvest..

here our neighbors are planting similar plants to what we have, which will also help in cross pollination between ours and theirs to get a better harvest for each of us..they put in 3 dwarf apples and 2 dwarf hazelnuts, and I have y6 dwarf hazelnuts and dozens of apples here..

so theirs will help ours, ours help theirs..

Excellent information. The "sausage" idea is completely new to me and I like the idea for my adorable little strawberry seedlings that are sprouting now. The earthbox idea is excellent too and I need to look more into that clay pot in the ground watering system.

Since this thread is a couple of years old, what is some more information that people have learned along the way in regards to Urban Farming? We are renters and some of the information I personally am looking for is:

a) which trees have you planted in pots (permanently) that have thrived?
1. have you tried the bonsai method with larger trees to keep them contained to a small space (not tiny bonsai...just small enough to live in a wine barrel size pot)
2. have you tried to add a plant guild within the pot and how has that worked for you?
b) would rabbits make good composters (in addition to a worm farm) as they tend to be much quieter than chickens?
c) since ducks and chickens are not allowed where we live, would having bird feeders and bat houses in several places be enough to help keep the bugs down?
d) does anyone have photos of completed projects from the last couple of years to share with the group?

Thought I'd bump this thread with the recent re-release of Paul's Urban Permaculture podcast. It is back online to lsiten to for free. And also I just love talking about urban gardening.

I think you must take care with urban gardening that your footprint is not bigger than the vegetables you harvest. I mean bought soil here or custom made plastic containers or bags to grow stuff.
The other thing is that cities offer things the country are does not have: incredible amounts of cardboard, coffee grounds greengrocer leftovers....
I think one strategy to save space is to plant seeds in containers and transplant seedlings. I don't usually do that with most of the things I grow but it does safe space.
cities are usually warmer and you can grow stuff you cannot grow outside. YOu have a lot of protection from winds but most city gardens have more shade, which then can be used for mushrooms. For the animals: bees, quail, rabbits, chicken.

I see this thread has gotten a bit aged.  I would like to interject some new information, if I might?  I have invented a new system that can turn small spaces into a food making machine.  It's inexpensive to make and sell too.  (I allow folks to make their own devices too, under a simple license agreement.)  It's still under development, but if anyone would like to take a look, here is the web site:   https://www.verticalfarmmechanics.com

Here are some pictures of the systems in action-

1 = The Grower model.  Grow 115 plants with 5 gallons of water, some dirt and sunlight.


2 = The Gardener model.  Perfect for people that want lots of fruit, but don't have lots of room.  Equates to a small garden.  Holds 35 plants.


3 = Corn spouted after three days.  Constant, controlled moisture wakes up seeds in a hurry.


If you have any questions, I can be reached at:  JR@VerticalFarmMechanics.com

Thanks!  

JR

The thread is a bit old but I still want to ask the cruical question: what is your aim? Feeding the neighbourhood? Showing what can be done? Selling crops at the market?
I agree with containers. And that is the real problem about urban gardening. You have no space so you want to garden vertically in containers.... all that it tied to huge costs (and often rubbish produced) and a lot of maintenance and technical input. Of course you can get some containers from the tip and plant what is concreted right now, but specialized systems don't seem to be very sustainable.

Very sorry I have taken so very long to get back to this.  I had to write a patent for the device and it just about killed me... Well it was not that bad.  But the research in a super crowded field like this is brutal.

The system has evolved a lot since these pictures and I can certainly answer your questions.

You are correct, the urban gardening system are, for the most part, junk.  Or they require a huge investment in pumps and tanks and chemicals, etc.

My aim?  Quite broad!  

The system is designed to be incredibly inexpensive to buy and to build.  It's made from common plumbing materials available at any hardware store.  It uses common glues to bond the plumbing fittings.  The reason for that is to produce a device that can be repaired or replaced anywhere on the earth.

The system is designed to use PET soda and water bottles and to finally give them a reason for recycling.  How much more green can it get then to have you water or soda bottles make your food?  And those plastic bottles are available anywhere in the world too.

As to urban gardening, I have designed the system to be as easy to use indoors as it is outdoors.  Water is fully maintained in the system, never leaves it and is never spilled onto the floor.  As I write this, my experimental indoor system is sitting across from me, with beans and peas and corn growing in it.  Its further got florescent lights surrounding it too, but it is working.  No water on the floor and its been growing things since before Christmas.  

I further designed it to grow anything from cucumbers and squashes to peas and corn- and everything in between.  So growers can experiment with vertical growing in small ways- without putting $100,000 or more into a system.  I designed it to be used to replace a standard, two dimensional garden.  No tilling, no weeding, no fencing and tending.  And especially, no planting seeds in one system, transferring them to a another and then finally to the vertical system to finish.

Elderly, handicapped and children can garden now.  Just fill with soil and water and then put your seeds in.  Not much else to do until harvest.

I further designed the system with space travel in mind.  The only way an Astronaut will make it to Mars is if they bring a farming system with them.  Better yet, these can be shot ahead to Mars.  They are incredibly light compared to all the "high tech" systems I have seen.  Activate the system on Mars with water compressed from the atmosphere and you will know if we can farm there.  Make changes, launch more experiments and make more changes until we have a system that can feed Astronauts on Mars.  Launch these ahead in a stasis mode, then activate them one at a time so the Astronauts KNOW there will be farms waiting on Mars.  Crazy?  NASA is getting ready to do just that.

And the final, and in my opinion, most important group I envision using these, are the truly poor of our plant.  Think of the tent cities around Johannesburg.  The abject poverty and dependency of such people.  Imagine now they have several of these growing food.  The excess can be sold, economy can begin to develop and the best parts of capitalism, as opposed to its worst, can be learned by these people.  Imagine the diet changes once they have fresh food.  Imagine health improvements.  And imagine that when someone tries to use food as a weapon, they can hold out until hope arrives.  The same applies for crop failures.  Imagine these in every back yard in North Korea, in the poorest parts of China, India, Asia.

Intensely rugged and easy to repair, these will be passed down to children and grandchildren.

The system is far better than it was a year ago, when these pictures were taken.  I am using a mix of large, medium and small bottles, depending on what is grown.  

I honestly feel I was "gifted" with the knowledge, background and desire to build this.  I am certainly not a worthy person, nor am I special, but I have been absolutely driven to develop this system to the point where anyone can garden, even busy working adults.  If you have even a tiny patio, you can garden with this system.  If you have a basement, an unused room or even just a corner where the Christmas tree goes, you have enough space to have fresh food.

Automation is being built.  Imagine selecting your salad ingredients for dinner from your smartphone at work.  Imagine the system turning on when plants are dry, turning off when they are wet.  Imagine knowing the status of everything you planted, outside, inside or in a greenhouse.

Large operations don't need pumps and tanks and sprayers and emitters and tubing galore.  Each system is self contained.  No disease spread by a common water supply.  And each grow bay can be lifted from the socket it sits in to harvest.  Then just fill with dirt, attach it to the fitting and plant the seeds.  You can keep going like that forever.  

That's a pretty big vision!  For those that can't do the Sepp System, this is a truly viable alternative to spending $10,000 on what amounts to a micro greens and maybe lettuce system.  I hope to retail for $200 or less initially and a lot less once better manufacturing processes are in place.  I plan on taking 10% of sales and setting up a microloan system for the poor of afflicted nations.  We can't simply keep giving them food.  That's a band aid approach, treating symptoms and not the disease.  The disease is poverty.  The problem is tyranny.  The blight of greed and the desire of power, even unto death, over these people.  Their poverty is so crushing, they must sit and watch die child die because you can't feed him.  Or imagine being so poor that your daughter goes blind because she did not get fresh carrots.  

Charity is great and we need to feed starving people.  But people who can feed themselves is better, far better than what we see now.  And we can't just keep using water as we do.  4 gallons and a 2 foot circle- and you can grow 50 different plants with just one system.  That's a big garden to most people!

JR

In Edible Paradise, some of the ways that Vera Greutink suggests for getting the most out of small spaces include:

Vera Greutink wrote:
-Continuous Sowing
-Successional Planting
-Intercropping
-Harvest Thinning (and replanting)
-Cut-and-Come Again Varieties
-Eating more of a plant (root-to-leaf dining)
-Leaf-by-leaf harvesting (so that the plant can continue to put out leaves)
-

A problem urban gardeners face is having quality potting soil. Most buy it from the store and it’s either poor quality if it’s affordable, or expensive if it’s good quality. I don’t have access to enough resources to make enough of my own. You can’t grow things in just dirt, I tried for years and it doesn’t work well, especially clay.

MAlso in South Australia the government taxes every bottle by 10 cents, which you only get back by giving it to a recycling centre, so the cost adds up her with each bottle added.