Sepp Holzer's edible tower

In Permaculture Magazine, Summer 2011, there is a short article on Sepp Holzer's advice for the landless poor (such as in the slums in Colombia). He recommends an "edible tower," which consists of a few poles put up like a tipi, with textile around them. They fill the tower with anything kind of biodegradeable that they can get, such as manure, textiles, straw, soil, cardboard, paper. They then put a bucket on top, which will water the tower in the summer. Once the compost has settled and is not so hot it will burn the roots of young plants, you can slit holes in the fabric and plant.

vertical growing is a great idea where people have small amounts of land. I use a lot of verticals here even though I have plenty of land as a lot of crops do better vertically. You can also use the sides of your buildings and perimeter fences for things like grapes, kiwi, squashes and other climbing vines

this yr i had a number of volunteer tomato plants come up,  since they were extras or a bonus...........they were given the perimeter fence in my garden lot to grow up. i tie them to the actual fence.  this left room for other more important plants and this yr plant tomatoes  to get the better spots in the garden.  im also allowing a morning glory vine to grow on the pereimeter fence,,just cause i can.

Thanks a lot  !  I have so many other projects going already but I HAVE to try this.

I have been meaning to look up this edible tower thing,  now you've told me how to do it.

Put one together (only a wimpy 8 footer compared to Sepp). Need to add more compost as it's settled a bit and plant it fully (base is planted now).
Can't wait to see it fully leafed out...

Here's the article I think you're referring to. Has some on his raised beds. Built one of those too, but I think I one upped him in that it's a wicking bed too. Score me:0.00000000001 Sepp:100000000000000000000000000000000000

http://www.krameterhof.at/pdf/presse/permaculture-pm68.pdf

ape99

I have been gardening vertically for nearly 40 years.  I started container gardening in the early 70's and have grown vertical gardens out of necessity because of limited space.  They work very well.  I no longer use 5 gallon plastic buckets for planters although I do cut off the bottoms so I have a 3 inch tall "dish" that is at the bottom of the burlap bag line cylinder of 2" x 2" hardware cloth.  The planters are 4 ft. tall and have a 3 legged tee pee over many of the planters.  Lining the wire mesh cylinders with three layers of burlap with allows the utilization of the entire height of the planters because I grow plants on the side just by poking a small hole in the burlap for the plant to growing through.  It turns a 2ft. diameter x 4ft. high cylinder into 24 sq. ft. of growing space. There is only enough space for 4 of these when I use a tee pee above each one but hopefully next year I will have more space.  If things work out I will have enough space for 2 Kinder goats and maybe some Muscovy ducks plus a few chickens.