Condo Permaculture

I live in a rental condo. We have a lot of deck space and a large section of side walk in front of our place. We have a little bit of grass to the south side of us as well. I have sheet mulched a section of that for a tiny food garden next year. Because I have no where to make permanent changes, I have to rely on temporary things to do.

Heres my plan for now. I've started a worm bin in my storage room. Using the excess worms from my bin, rather than starting another or up sizing, I will feed Tilapia fish which I will keep in a tank upstairs in an aquaponics station that I will make myself. I'm going to cycle the water from the tank, and subsequent fish poo, through Hydroton balls in a container up above the fish tank, and back down to the fish tank. The Hydroton will contain a low light, water loving vegetable (yet to be determined) and similar quality herbs. I don't want to have to run more than a small light over the fish and my pump, so high light plants are out.

So, that's what I'm doing at my place to get this going. Are there any other condo dwellers out there with good ideas?

Hi James,
I have designed and built what I call my,"Snacking Garden." I use a clothes hamper from Big-Lots store turned up-side down. I cut the bottom out and enlarge the slots in the sides by cutting every other divider out. The slots are too small to plant plants otherwise.
I put a plastic bag inside the up-side down hamper and add a PVC pipe down the middle with holes drilled about 12" from the top. Fill the hole thing with garden soil and water down the PVC pipe until the soil is completely wet.
Then i cut holes in the plastic bag and insert plants until I have the whole thing covered. I have grown a garden with 12 different veggies, strawberries and flowers.
The whole thing is about 23" tall and about 16" dia at the base.
If you had enough space you could grow 2 or 3 on a deck if you had enough sun.
I will try to get a picture tomorrow and forward it.
Spud

Hi James,
I meant to say 32" tall. I hate it when I transpose letters and numbers.
Spud.

hey spud,
thats a sweet idea. What kind of plants are you growing in there? herbs?

Hi James,
I tried to upload a picture, but I couldn't do it on this forum.
In the top, I had 2 tomatoes.
In the back, North side shade, impatiens and green peas, then just impatiens.
Around front and sides, 6 strawberry plants, 6 purple bush beans, 6 cascading petunias of different color, some coleus.
down at the bottom, I planted 2 cucumber vines.

On another one I had:
Top Broccoli.
Strawberries.
Cantaloupe
1 pumpkin
and 1 watermelon
I was able to build each of these for about $20 including the soil and fertilizer.
I plan on usint the tower for another year. I will see how the plastic holds up in the UV. After all these baskets were designed for indoor use.
They would last longer if I painted them.

wow, sounds like you can really fit a lot in there! Im going to have to set that up next spring. im planning on starting an indoor herb garden that mounts on the railing of the loft in our condo soon too.

Hi James,
I just removed my old snacking tower in the yard for this fall. I lifted it on to a wheelbarrow and then into the back of my pickup. I would guess it weighed about 80 lbs, full of wet soil.
I tell you this because you could mount a shelf outside of the railing in your condo, use lightweight choir and vermiculite and grow your herbs in one of these gardens.
There are other laundry type baskets that are shorter than 32 inches that could be used on top of the railing.
I would suggest in any case you place a pan under the grow system to prevent drips into the rest of your condo.
Do you rent or own your condo?
If you would forward me your email address, I would be glad to forward you a set of pictures explaining the tower construction. They can be assembled using very basic tools.
I don't see any way of including pictures in this forum.

I have been buying my buckets for inside growing at a dollar store.

Hi Rion,
I too use buckets from the Dollar Store. I also use use a cullender for my wicking
wick for my grow boxes from the Dollar Store.
I go by a Happy Panda store and get food buckets to use for wicking grow buckets.
If you look around you can find all kinds of buckets that can be used to grow food.
My passion is to develop places and apparatus that will allow us to grow our food in
a small space. We are coming into a time where the lack of food will be one of the
things that will cause great distress.

you could also make a deeper version of these, to cycle the water thru.

don't buy these tho

http://www.gardeners.com/Grow-Bag-Terrace-Kit/40-318,default,pd.html?start=19&cgid=PatioPlanters_Cat

Hi All,
I just learned how to attach pictures in a post. So here is a picture of my,
"Snacking or Tower," gardens. I hope.

spud,
thats super impressive. looks like it really produces!