Urban Permaculture experiment

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by j.bruce, Mar 9, 2005.

  1. j.bruce

    j.bruce Junior Member

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    THE PROJECT

    This summer, i'm hoping to implement some permaculture into an urban backyard that measures 17' x 50'. Problem is, i've not a good idea of where to start. Here, i'll break my haulting points down.

    LAY OF THE LAND

    The soil seems to be low drainage. Grass is sparce and it seems that this may be caused by the amount of shade that the yard recieves, the fact that the rain gutters dump into this area, and that it's winter and the groundsoil may be too frozen still to allow for permiation.

    Here's the setup (i'll post pictures soon to illustrate these points): On the south side 17' section there is a cinderblock wall which forms a garage, i believe. On the east side there is a 7' wood fence which blocks out a bit of light at sunrise. On the west 50' section there is a metal fence with bamboo polking through, some form of juniper, and an abundance of ivy (it has a blue berry) just waiting to take over! On the north side there is the apartment building. There's a fire escape on this side which may be fun to use as a trellis for climbing plants! There's also an old stump which fruits Oyster mushrooms (yum!) which i intend to preserve for the purpose of that fruiting.

    On the apartment side are both the 2nd and 3rd floor gutter downspouts... i'm considering the construction of a water catchment system since there's no hose in the back yard... i'm interested in a method for doing this that would be usefull for garden watering, but not messy or health hazardous if left unattended.... this is only a bud of an idea to me, but i may just put an elevated 20 gallon sports cooler with a spout on the bottom for bucket or sprayer filling. Just an idea that is more feasable for me than a tall stand pipe and large tanks!

    THE CIRCUMSTANCES

    This is my girlfriend's apartment back yard. She has been nice enough, a bit interested herself, and always encourgaging of my interests, to get me to install this project. We both feel the necessity of public food and are avidly interested in gardening, so this installation is certainly going to be permanant. However, her residence at that location may not extend past her yearlong lease, and unless we make special harvest and maintenance trips into the backyard via the ally after she moves out, this installation will have to maintain itself indefinitly (unless the other tennants get into it, but that is unlikely at this point). So, whatever we plant, it needs to be relatively maintenance free and ecologically sustainable for the long haul.

    Again, this is an apartment building, so in doing this, i have to take into consideration the desires of the current tennants (who are pretty complacent) and the desires of future tennants and the leasing company (who may or may not be strict about this stuff on paper). That said, the retention of recreational yardspace is a must and so is easy transit through the yard for emergency purposes via the fire escape.

    Price is also a consideration. While i'm interested in public creation of edible landscapes, i'm not so well funded myself, so that is a consideration that is certainly vital to this project.

    WHAT I HAVE IN MIND

    I envision several fruit trees, numerous berry bushes, tubers, perennial vegetables, and some perennial groundcovering food (strawberries, comfrey, etc...). I am skilled at landscaping, but relatively new to permaculture. Sheet mulching should take care of the ivy expantion. Planting some form of filler plant in the yard should take care of its poor water drainage, but i have plans to make all beds raised by at least 3 inches for that purpose, and potentially some burming may be involved, but its not in the books right now. I'm looking at the following fruit trees:

    Apple
    Persimmon
    Dogwood (fruiting dogwood)

    Also the following berrys have me interested:

    Elderberry
    Gooseberry
    Currants
    Mullberry
    Others

    I am at a loss for perennial vegetables aside from asparagus and some cabages. I was wondering if there are some annuals which are more prone to coming up the next year by their own seeding without any human intervention (i believe the “phenominon” is called volunteers).

    I'll be sharing some pictures of this location, and hopefully some pictures of the progress, but for now, what i want is some input. Thank you very much for taking the time to read and comment on this, its going to be a good summer.
     
  2. j.bruce

    j.bruce Junior Member

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    [​IMG]

    There's the basics of it. tell me how feasible you think it is. Again, i'm really looking for some good perennial edibles or anuals that self propigate well.
     
  3. j.bruce

    j.bruce Junior Member

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    Any suggestions?
     

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