Permaculture in Pots

So, why grow your own food? Growing your own food, even only a little of it, is fun in and of itself – plus you get very tasty results! It’s good for your mental wellbeing, and if you do it right, it’s good for the planet as well. It’s hard to underestimate the satisfaction of eating something you’ve grown yourself; and just messing around with earth and seeing seeds sprout and turn into plants is a rewarding and sometimes even magical experience. In urban areas, many of us have very little regular contact with the natural environment; growing a few plants in pots is an easy and fun way of getting back in touch with nature and natural processes, even within the concrete jungle.

But why permaculture? Permaculture is a way of doing things – whether that’s growing food, constructing communities, or anything else – which focuses on creating a sustainable, self-reliant system, and a sustainable human environment. It’s a great way of making sure that when you create your garden, you’re working in environmentally beneficial and sustainable ways – and sustaining yourself at the same time.

As a concept, permaculture can be applied to a huge range of situations and human activity, but it first arose from ideas around plant systems: aiming to create a way of growing food that is sustainable, productive, and which works with the environment (both in the broadest sense and in the very local sense of the space in which you’re growing things) rather than against it. It’s an appealing way to work: as a gardener, working with the plants, yourself, and your space to create a system in which all of the pieces can fit comfortably together.

A permaculture approach can be particularly useful in urban areas, where you have many more constraints. If all you have is a paved area, you can still grow vegetables in pots or other containers, but that does mean that your system will operate slightly differently from if you were growing in the ground. Using a permaculture perspective will allow you to observe and consider your space and situation, and make decisions accordingly. A south-facing balcony with a concrete wall at the back could be an excellent home for warmth loving fruit and tomato plants; a north-facing roof garden will need something different. The pots may in some ways limit your space, but they also make it easy to move plants around to experiment and find out how you can get the most out of the various plants. Permaculture is also about making the most of the available space, using edges, height, and companion growing. Thinking about yourself and your space as a holistic system can even help you save money – for example, by setting up worm composting to make your own compost rather than having to buy it in every year.

Thinking about permaculture when setting up your garden makes it possible to create the best and most sustainable system you can, working in harmony with the environment you’re given and making the most of all your available resources. That makes sense wherever you’re growing, but it makes even more sense in a small urban environment where you want to maximise output from a small space.

This introduction will cover some of the principles of permaculture, as I talk about planning, practicalities, and the structure of the rest of the book.

The rest of the Introduction will cover the basics for getting started: planning your space with reference to permaculture principles; how to maximise your space; and the practicalities (like water, pots, and compost) that you’ll need to think about.

The remainder of the book is arranged month-by-month: wherever you are in the year, open the book at that chapter, and it’ll tell you what you should be doing. (See the end of this Introduction for a quick note on how to use this book in different climate zones and seasons, if you’re not in the UK.)

Each chapter will start off with an overview of what was going on in my own urban container garden that month, and a list of things you should be doing in that month. Here’s what to expect in the rest of the chapters.

Overwintering beans and peas; creating your own compost and leaf mould; a green tomato chutney recipe to preserve any remaining tomatoes; building a cold frame; winter herbs; and tidying up ready for the next season. The herb of the month is sage.

Protecting plants from the cold (and which ones don’t need protection); using chickweed (a prolific and very useful weed!); and what you can harvest for your Christmas dinner (and as post-Christmas medication) from your space. The herb of the month is thyme.

How to get hold of seeds (by saving, swapping, and making cuttings); planning your space and your growing season; and the opportunities for growing fruit in pots. The herb of the month is rosemary.

Succession sowing; early vegetables to get started; frost dates and how to manage frost problems; starting seeds off; and making self-watering containers. The herb of the month is parsley.

Revitalising your old compost; what to do with your successfully overwintered plants now the weather is picking up; more information about planting out and hardening off peas and beans; all the details about lettuce and chillies, peppers, aubergines, carrots, spinach beet and chard; and growing potatoes in containers. The herb of the month is oregano.

How to grow tomatoes, courgettes, and strawberries; making the most of your space as the containers start to stack up; and companion planting to discourage insects. The herb of the month is chives.

Growing microgreens and baby greens; dealing ethically and organically with pests; and guerrilla gardening to use spare seeds and seedlings. The herb of the month is savoury.

Midsummer and the problem of bolting; how water affects different plants at different stages; and thinning and pinching out carrots, greens, and tomatoes. The herb of the month is basil.

Propagating strawberries; and starting to think about crops for autumn. The herb of the month is Fennel.

Harvesting, eating, and preserving the food you’ve been growing, with information on preserving veg and some fabulous recipes; more on saving seed; and planting potatoes for your Christmas dinner! The herb of the month is mint.

Bringing delicate herbs like basil inside for the winter; autumn greens; and foraging and wild jellies. The herb of the month is yarrow.

Tidying up at the end of the season; plants you can keep on sowing through October; setting up the cold frame; and useful weeds that can still be harvested at this time of year (like dandelion roots). The herb of the month isn’t a herb, it’s a spice, ginger!

Finally, Chapter 13 Zones 4 and 5 talks about the wider urban environment and its possibilities. These include guerrilla gardening, urban foraging (in many guises!); how to get yourself about the place in a permaculture-friendly way, and interacting with the other people around you to improve your local food network.

There’s also a brief Appendix with a few useful websites, information resources, and seed providers, as well as plans for any built structure that appears in the book, and sample plans for different sizes and types of paved urban space.

There are a few general things to consider when planning your space; the first being the general advantages and disadvantages of container gardening.

The biggest advantage of gardening on a balcony or patio is closeness to the house.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “the best fertiliser is the gardener’s shadow”. Basically, the more often you visit your plants, the better your crop will be. You’ll be able to fix problems more readily, as well as making the most of your potential crop by harvesting as things become ready. With cut-and-come-again plants in particular, this can significantly boost your crop. In permaculture, this area is referred to as zone 1, and is where you put all the plants which need the most regular attention. So while, as urban container gardeners, our available area may be small, it’s very valuable, and it can be much more productive than you’d expect.

A big advantage of gardening in containers is that pots are portable. Even if you’re renting, you can set up a garden with the security that if you move, your garden can come with you; avoiding the fear that you’ll lose all your hard work if you move at the wrong time of year. Container gardening also enables you to make use of the ‘low maintenance’ paved spaces that are increasingly common in urban homes (especially rented ones) and which may be your only available outside space if you’re living, as many urban dwellers are, in a flat.

The main disadvantage you’ll face is that container gardening doesn’t have the same self-sustainability that gardening in the ground does. The soil needs more attention, since there are few or no microorganisms in there to generate fertility. Even if you were growing plants in the ground you would need to add fertile matter, but it’s even more important to do this when container gardening. One of the aims of this book is to help you to make your container gardening as self-sustaining as possible – but doing that does require more input from you! By choosing plants carefully, setting up composting, and where possible making your own fertiliser, it’s possible to make the most of the resources available within the system, and minimise what you need to import. The good news is that the independence of your containers does reduce the amount of weeding you’ll need to do!

Containers are also more prone to drying out (and depending on your space, won’t always get rained on – mine don’t, due to the overhanging balcony of the next flat up), so you need to water more often than you might with a regular garden. Having said that, one great option for reducing watering which isn’t available to those growing straight in the soil is to use self-watering containers. In general, however, there’s a bit less room for error and for the plants to look after themselves than there is in a more traditional garden; so you the gardener will need to do a little more.

You may also have problems with plants that need insect fertilisation, as beneficial insects may not make it to your plot, especially if you’re growing on a high up balcony or roof garden. There are ways of encouraging them and alternative solutions, but it’s worth being aware of the potential problem when deciding what you want to grow. You may prefer simply to avoid plants (such as courgettes) which require insect fertilisation. I’ll flag up these plants as they occur in the book – luckily there aren’t too many of them so you won’t be too restricted.

You may well find that you have your very own microclimate, which can be both an advantage or a disadvantage. A south-facing balcony on a concrete block (my own setup) will be significantly warmer than a patch of regular ground in the same geographical area. This is great for growing tender plants such as tomatoes and peppers, which will love the heat and light; but pots will dry out faster and some plants may find the heat a bit too much in midsummer. Peas, for example, will stop cropping sooner than those in a slightly cooler spot. Alternatively, a north-facing area will be cooler, shadier, and choosing plants will be a little more difficult.

This isn’t a major problem on a patio, but if you’re putting containers on a balcony or a windowsill, there are a couple of important safety considerations.

Firstly, how much weight can your balcony bear? A solid concrete balcony will be able to cope with a lot more than a flimsier iron one. Err on the side of caution, and remember that pots that have recently been watered can be very heavy. If you’re concerned about weight, look at plastic pots rather than ceramic ones. However, remember that your balcony ought to be rated for a couple of people’s worth of weight, so don’t worry too much! If you’re using a roof, you need to calculate the total weight it can carry – again, if in doubt, err on the side of caution. You can consult a builder or surveyor if you’re unsure.

The other important issue is securing containers properly. Having a container full of plants and wet compost land on someone’s head as they walk past could be disastrous. If everything’s on the inside of the railings, this is fine, as the fall will be short and only onto your toes! The big problem is when you either put a container on top of a railing, or hang it over the edge of one. Make sure that it can’t be knocked off or blown loose; also keep an eye on the fixings and check them regularly for damage or signs of ageing. If you have children, consider their heights and the tendency to pull at things.

You’ll need to think about how you want to lay the containers out before you affix them; so let’s look next at how you go about planning your space.

The basic principles of permaculture are a good starting point when planning your space.

An important permaculture idea is that of zones – different areas at different distances from the house. As already mentioned, an urban space is likely to be very close to the house, in zone 1. (Zone 0 is the house itself, which you will probably use for starting off some seeds and for growing some very delicate plants, especially over winter; and zone 2 is for less intensively grown and hardier vegetables, typically being an allotment or similar space in an urban area.) This as a rule would imply that it is best used for plants that you use regularly and which benefit most from regular attention – herbs and salad vegetables, in particular.

However, if this is your only growing space, you will of course think about it differently from if you also have an allotment down the road. You may well want to include a few plants that you’d normally expect to grow further away.

From a practical point of view, it makes most sense to grow things that you like, and that are either expensive to buy, or simply taste better fresh. (This last is not hard; nearly everything does.) Rocket, for example, is great to grow in pots, and the difference between fresh rocket and the bleach washed stuff out of a supermarket packet is incredible.

Permaculture Principles

Various permaculture designers and writers have come up with different lists of principles, but these are a reasonable summary of the basics:

Observe before you act, and make decisions for your specific site and situation.
Plan with consideration for how the space will be used; think about zones and networks.
Connect the parts of the design – better connected ecosystems are healthier and more diverse.
Catch and store energy and materials; create cycles rather than losing energy.
Each part of the design should have multiple functions, and each function be supported by multiple methods.
Embrace diversity to create a better supported system. The most diverse part of a system is the edge, so consider that and optimise it.
Design in multiple dimensions to maximise diversity and connection.
Start small and expand out as you succeed; change as little as you need in order to get an effect.
Use problems (and mistakes!) as solutions, to inspire your decisions.

Given the limited nature of urban container spaces, one way to make the most of what space you do have is to grow plants that produce more than a single crop. Fruiting plants – peas and beans, as well as tomatoes, blueberries, strawberries, or raspberries – will carry on producing fruit over a period of weeks, continuing to produce more as you harvest them. These can be really valuable for a small area. Similarly, cut-and-come-again vegetables like rocket, some types of lettuce, and chard, will continue to crop over weeks or even months. (I’ve had chard plants that kept growing straight through winter and were cropping for over a year all told before they went to seed.) Carrots or other root vegetables, on the other hand, grow only one root per plant. Once you’ve harvested that, that’s your lot. As such, they’re quite space intensive for the output you get. Of course, you may want to grow some root veg – young carrots are very suitable for pot growing and taste great, and potatoes can be grown very successfully in containers. But the smaller your space, the more it makes sense to maximise yield by choosing multi-cropping plants. Happily, these also tend to be the plants which are easiest to grow well, because you, as the gardener, are working with the inclination of the plant to produce fruit or leaves.

An important concept in permaculture is that of flow; looking at the different sorts of things that move through a given space. These include sun, wind, water, and frost/temperature, which are all forms of energy, but also the movement of people through and within the space. You need, therefore, to think about the natural environment and natural cycles that move through your space.

One of the most important flows within your space is that of the sun and shade, and the patterns they fall in.

Watch your space for at least a day (ideally, you’d make observations over the course of a year, as the angle of the sun changes with the seasons) and see where the sun is at various times. How many hours of sunlight do you get? Do you notice this changing at different times of year?

You can get away with only doing this for six months if you pick the right six months – the sun from 21(ish) June (the summer solstice) to 21(ish) December (the winter solstice) is the same as the sun from 21(ish) December to 21(ish) June, just in reverse. A week after the summer solstice, the sun’s height and path will be about the same as it was a week before the summer solstice, so one observation will do the job for both.

If you don’t want to wait and observe for a full year, or even for six months, you can work the basics out by looking at the direction your space faces in, and noting the shade patterns for at least one day.

Broadly speaking, south-facing means plenty of sunlight; but south-facing walls can get very hot, so although the sun is good for vegetables, you’ll need to be vigilant with the watering. A west-facing space will get the afternoon and evening sun, and west-facing walls tend to be slightly sheltered. ‘West is Best’ is an old gardeners’ maxim – west-facing is kinder to plants than south-facing, which can be a bit extreme. South-facing is great, however, if you want to grow tender plants like peppers and citrus, which will love the heat. East-facing walls will get the morning sun, but tend to experience temperature extremes and potentially cold winds.

North-facing walls will get no sun in the winter, and only an hour or two in midsummer, so you’ll need to choose shade loving plants, and you may struggle to grow many traditional vegetables at all. You may be better looking for alternative, often perennial, plants that will do well in pots and which tolerate shade. Check out pp.60-61 for suggestions for a north-facing space, or look through the book Plants For A Future to find suggestions for less usual shade tolerant edibles.

It’s also important to look at how the shadows fall. If your space is south-facing but directly to the south is a much taller building, you’ll get a lot less sun than you might otherwise expect. Buildings, trees and walls can all cast significant shadows.

It’s understandable and perfectly reasonable to want to go straight ahead with your first crops without extensive observation beforehand. One of the advantages of container gardening is that you’re not committing yourself to anything: you can always move the pots later! You should however keep a careful eye on the space over your first year of growing, and if possible keep records of where the sun and shade fall in your plot, and how many hours of sunshine you get, to inform decisions and planning in future years. In fact, records are always worth keeping, even after the first year, so you can look back to see what worked well and what didn’t.

Once you’ve got an idea of which parts of your space are in sun and in shadow, and for how long in a day, you can think about wind and water flows. Balconies, patios, and windowsills are often at least a little sheltered from the wind, which may well mean that you can plant slightly more delicate plants than you might in a more exposed space, and have them survive. However, if your space regularly has a howling gale whistling through it, you’ll need to stick to tougher plants.

Water flow is less of an issue for container gardens than it is for gardening in the ground, as you’ll expect to have to water your pots yourself anyway, and the water won’t flow as well through the pots as it would in the ground. However, you do still need to consider water flow within the pots – make sure that they drain well in the winter so the roots of your plants won’t rot, and consider using saucers under pots in the summer to make the most of the water you do put in there.

Finally, there’s people-flow to consider. As it is a small space, it may be that people don’t often move through the area, but you do want to think about how you will be able to move within it (can you access all the pots you’re planning to put in, in order to water, tie back, harvest, etc?), and also other ways in which people might want to use the space.

Diversity is important, even in a small space. If you grow only one thing, you’re much more vulnerable to loss of an entire group (e.g. if caterpillars descend on your lettuce). Gardening on a small scale is really good for diversity, as you’ll probably want to grow lots of different sorts of plants (although in my south-facing space I do have a bit of a mania for tomatoes!). Companion planting (where you grow different plants together which are beneficial to one another – often this is intended to deter pests) is also great for small spaces as another way of maximising your potential crop.

Perennial plants are plants which continue cropping from year to year, as opposed to annuals, which only last for a single year. Most familiar vegetables in the Western diet are annuals, although most fruit plants are perennial, as is asparagus and globe artichoke. Perennials have significant advantages over annuals. They’re less work, as once established they will just keep on cropping with little need for the gardener to do anything (and certainly no need to keep replanting year on year). They often start cropping earlier in the spring than annuals do, because they don’t have to grow themselves up from seed. And they’re often more pest- and disease-resistant, due to having more stored strength and so being able to bounce back from an attack where an annual would turn up its roots and expire. Here are a few suggestions for perennial vegetables that can do well in containers:

Alongside perennial fruit, herbs, and vegetables, you can also look into self-seeding veg (such as rocket) which will also tend to need less intensive care than less vigorous annuals. I’ve mentioned in the rest of the book when a plant is a good self-seeder.

Another important aspect of permaculture is the idea of multi-dimensional design. Permaculture is heavily informed by the concept of the forest garden, and forests are strongly layered (especially at the edges) so that different plants can co-exist and take advantage of the different heights. An urban paved space is ideal for this – you can grow differently tall plants, but you can also stack your containers at different heights, either by creating shelves or holders, or by attaching them to walls or balconies. Think about whether you can grow some lettuce at the bottom of your peas; or whether you can fit an extra pot in underneath an existing one. Think of your space in three dimensions, not just in two, and work out how you can use it to the best advantage. Time can also be seen as a dimension. The next section covers this more in-depth.

You may also need to think about other things that live in your space – some kind of storage for pots, tools, and seeds; a wormery for compost; or a couple of chairs for when you want to sit out in the summer sunshine. This is part of considering your relationship with the space: permaculture is about creating sustainable systems in all senses. Creating a space that you enjoy spending time in and that is capable of sustaining you mentally as well as physically is just as important as creating a space that will sustain your plants. Not only that, but creating a space you enjoy spending time in will in fact sustain your plants as well, as the more time you spend around the plants, the more likely you are to notice what they need and provide it.

As well as thinking about your own interaction with the plants, think about their interaction with each other – consider the three dimensional nature of your space (discussed below), and whether you might be able to make use of companion planting.

With a small space, you really need to ensure that you make the most of what space you do have. This fits in well with the multi-dimensional design principle.

We normally think first about the horizontal; how many plants or containers we can fit into the available floor space. But just as important is to consider the vertical space available.

There are a couple of ways of looking at this. One is to consider the edges of your space – do you have walls or fences? Can you use these to grow plants up? Climbing plants like peas and beans or berry canes will particularly benefit from this. You will also need to consider which direction the wall or fence faces. South, west, or east-facing walls can all be useful. North-facing walls are likely to be very shady.

Walls can help to protect plants from the effects of the wind (peas will do well against a wall), and a wall may also help create its own microclimate. Victorian kitchen gardeners would train peaches up brick walls to benefit from the heat storage capacity of the brick. Modern house walls can work just as well for this, so if you’re trying out something like a citrus tree, siting it by a south- or west-facing wall is ideal, and will give it more warmth (reflected from the wall) as well as protecting it from the wind.

Another possibility for maximising space is to find a way of stacking pots, for example on shelves of various sorts. A shelving unit with plenty of space for growing plants between the shelves can make a massive increase in your available space. You may be able to get hold of a reusable one from websites like Freecycle, or from a local office which is redecorating. Small stepladders can provide stacked shelving, or you can construct something similar from wood (skipped or otherwise). Alternatively you can make your own more minimal version of this, using planks (often available from nearby skips) and bricks or even up-ended tin cans. I used a couple of polystyrene containers as the supports for one of my shelves. You may not want to build these high enough to put a pot entirely underneath, but the height increase will still make a little more space for a pot that goes next to the shelf, as the widest parts of the pots will be at different heights. You’ll also find it easier to get at all of the pots than you would if they were all on the floor.

If you have a balcony with a railing, you may be able to attach pots or troughs to it. (As discussed above, do be careful to make sure they are securely attached.) You could even, if the railing is sufficiently solid, put a trough on top and suspend another one to the inside (the outside will be difficult to get at). If hanging pots from the inside of a railing, bear in mind that they may overshadow plants underneath them; but also that any water runoff will go into the plants beneath, which can be helpful.

Similarly, hanging baskets can be very useful when trying to increase your space. They can be hung from a railing, from a wall, or even from a ceiling, if you are in a block of flats and have another balcony directly above you. Strawberries can grow very well in hanging baskets; of course, you can also grow pretty much anything else that you would grow in a small regular pot. I’ve used mine for marigolds, polyanthus and micro-greens; creeping thyme might also do well.

Finally, you can use height differences within a single pot. Plant rocket around the base of your rosemary bush, or lettuce at the base of your peas. Microgreens under tomatoes is another easy option. Bear in mind that the more plants you fit in one container, the more food and water it will need; but multiple plants can thrive quite happily in the same container, and you’ll maximise the use of the compost and the pot footprint.

It’s important, when stacking in various ways, to bear in mind the way in which the light will be affected. Pots on the lowest level of a shelf may be part shaded. Shelves may cast a shadow on other areas of the space, unless they’re stacked against a wall or fence. Walls also cast their own shadow. The shadows will move through the day with the sun, so may not be disastrous, but it’s something to bear in mind when considering the needs of your plants. Think again about the forest garden structure, where the most productive area is at the edge, where plants at different heights can all catch the sun. You can use your walls and railings to mimic a forest edge, and stack plants at different heights against those boundaries.

Time is the final dimension that you can consider. The most straightforward way to use this is what’s known as succession sowing: make several sowings of a particular type of seed at intervals of a couple of weeks, to maximise output. This works particularly well with plants like carrots, and with lettuces (it’s good even for cut-and-come-again ones, which may bolt (go to seed) after a few weeks, but it’s even more helpful if you’re growing headed varieties). You can also use the same space for different crops at different times of the season. Plant a quick crop (microgreens, for example) in the spring in a pot that you later intend to use for a summer vegetable; or use your tomato plant pots for a quick crop of lettuce while the tomato seedlings are still getting themselves established indoors. Plant peas in the early spring, then when they die back, use the pot to transplant your courgette seedlings into. Experiment and see what works well for you! Again, if you’re working your pots hard with multiple crops, be sure to feed regularly.

You’ll need some kind of container to grow your plants in, but there are plenty of alternatives to the easy but expensive option of visiting a garden centre and buying some. Not only is that expensive, it’s also wasteful – there are plenty of things, especially those that would otherwise end up in the waste stream, that with a little imagination can be turned into containers for your plants. Here are some ideas for potentially useful containers:

Do be careful that you clean containers out thoroughly, especially if you don’t know what has been in them previously. In most cases, you’ll need to drill drainage holes in the bottom, to avoid your plants sitting in water and rotting their roots. If you have a container that’s hard to drill holes in, you can provide drainage via about 5cm of pebbles or gravel in the bottom of each container. This does of course mean sourcing some gravel.

You also need to think about the size of your container. In general, go for bigger rather than smaller containers as smaller containers dry out faster. Lettuces, rocket, and green leafy annual herbs can get by in 15cm deep containers (or even shallower for microgreens; carrots, peppers, spinach and chard, and perennial herbs like rosemary need 23cm; and most other plants will want a 30cm deep container. In the sections on specific plants, I’ve suggested appropriate container sizes.

I’ve seen it suggested that many annuals can cope with 15cm deep containers, but in my experience they tend to struggle (especially if, as is often the case, your shallower containers are also smaller in width, meaning less soil, fewer nutrients, and less water retention). If in doubt, use a deeper container, as the soil will hold more water and more nutrients. In fact, in general you should use the biggest containers that you can get hold of, fill, and fit in your space. At the same time, experimenting with different sizes of container is fine, and if all you can get are 15cm pots, then by all means plant in those and be prepared to water more frequently and to stick to plants with smaller roots.

Far and away the best way to get compost is to make your own. Even on a balcony or patio you can produce your own compost via a wormery or a standalone composter. Sadly, compost doesn’t happen overnight, so unless you’re happy to start quite slowly, you may need to find other solutions to begin with.

There’s evidence that green plant matter is actually more useful than topsoil when growing plants, so mixing that in with any compost you do have, or planting into green plant matter, is also worth experimenting with. However, to make this work well, you’ll need to import some worms and other soil life to do the work of gradually turning it into soil, so it’s not a good solution for small containers. If you have a bit more space and are able to make larger raised beds this is more feasible.

If you’re starting from scratch, the easy but expensive way is to go to a garden centre and buy general purpose or potting compost by the bag. (Avoid peat compost, which is environmentally unsound, as extracting peat destroys a diverse and endangered ecosystem.)

Building Your Own Soil with Sheet Mulch

In his book, Gaia’s Garden, Tony Hemenway recommends sheet mulching to create soil in the garden, and also mentions that he’s seen the same technique used on pavements and rooftops. I haven’t yet had a chance to try it, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t work in pots too! Note that you’ll probably need a large container for this (though you could shift it out afterwards and start another lot), and you will need to import some worms and perhaps other insect life. You could do this straight onto the floor of your balcony or patio, but you won’t then be able to take it with you if you move, and if you’re renting, you may not be popular with the landlord. Here’s the basic method, or see Hemenway’s book for more info:

Lay down cardboard or newspapers (laid 3-13mm thick) and wet them thoroughly.
Add a thin layer of manure or fresh green clippings.
Add 20-30cm of loose straw, hay, leaves, seaweed, wood shavings, or any mixture of this sort of stuff. Add grass clippings or other green stuff if you’re using wood shavings, to get the carbon/nitrogen balance right. Spray on water as you pile the material in; it should be damp but not wet.
Add 2.5-5cm of compost, soil, or easily compostable material like finely chopped kitchen waste. This is where you need to make sure, if using a pot, that you get some worms and other soil life in there. If you can get hold of a trowelful of decent soil, or compost, that will help with the soil life; worms can be acquired from a friend’s garden, or bought online.
Top off with straw or fine bark as a mulch to suppress any weeds.

If you use actual compost in step 4, you can plant through the mulch directly into the compost. If you use kitchen waste, you’ll need to give the worms a few weeks to turn it into something suitable for seeds to grow in.

Dedicated potting compost is available to buy by the bag, and if you’re prepared to spend the money, it’s the quickest way to get a decent soil mix. For most plants, general purpose compost is a bit too heavy, and if buying general purpose compost you’ll need to mix it with some other things to get a soil that’s best for your container plants. A good general purpose mix is as follows:

For the ‘compost’ part of the mix, you can use your own worm compost, or general purpose garden centre compost. As a rule, a higher quantity of compost than this in the mix will tend to make it too dense and heavy, which will impact on the ability of the plants to get nutrition from it. It’s also important that the mix should be able to retain plenty of water, as plants in pots are quicker to dry out than plants in the ground. You should be able to tell by the feel of it how well your compost holds water. You also need to make sure that it’s fairly fine, as plants find it harder to get nutrients from large lumps of compost (it will also affect the drainage).

Vermiculite is a natural mineral which helps to give the soil good structure and to retain moisture. Perlite (a form of volcanic glass) is another alternative which does roughly the same job. You can get organic versions of either of these. However, you may prefer to use a lower cost and less processed option. Try a little more sand, or old compost. I’ve never used vermiculite or perlite in my containers and have grown perfectly healthy plants.

If you have access to garden soil, or old compost, you can mix 1/3 new compost with 2/3 soil; or 1/3 new compost, and the rest a mix of old compost, sand, and coconut coir.

It’s fine to experiment with different substances and different mixes, and see how your plants do. And if you’re aiming for lower cost options, a bit of experimentation may be your only option. Chopped straw is sometimes suggested as a low cost way of making compost a little lighter, so that may be worth trying. I’ve also sometimes mixed dry organic matter (that would otherwise go in the composter) directly in with new compost in a pot, with varying levels of success.

Finally, when making up your mix, remember that different plants do have slightly different requirements. Plants (such as most herbs) that prefer a lighter soil could use a little more sand in the mix; tomatoes may do quite well just in regular compost. If in doubt, however, stick with an all purpose mix as described above.

Some councils generate compost from the food and green waste that they collect; this may be a cheaper option if it’s available in your area. My local council, Southwark, sells this sort of compost at £4.50 for one 50l bag, or three bags for £12, which is good value. This compost is also about as ethical as it gets, being created from green waste that would otherwise go to landfill. Check your local council website, or contact your local waste recovery centre, to find out if they offer this. If they don’t, write to your local councillor to find out why not!

Council compost tends to be much more solid and to have much larger chunks than general purpose compost. It doesn’t hold water terribly well and tends to become very solid very quickly. It can be used as part of a mix, as above, but ideally you’d want to use it with another compost as well as mixed with the sand and other ingredients.

Another cheap option you can look for is horse manure, which is an excellent soil improver. Manure is harder to come by than it once was, but if you live anywhere near a stables (and even in a city this isn’t impossible – there’s a stables near me in Bermondsey) you can often get the stuff for free. However, unless it’s very well composted (black with small particles) it’s no good as a potting mix by itself. If you get hold of it after it’s been rotting down for a while, use it as compost in a potting mix. Fairly new horse manure can instead be mixed with a little regular compost at the bottom of a large container and then covered with a more standard potting mix. Alternatively, you could fill a plastic bag with it and leave it in an unobtrusive corner somewhere, if you have the space, to rot down a bit further (ideally for a year) before you use it; or just add it to your regular composter. The other problem with fresh manure is that you are very likely to introduce some weeds along with the manure; by composting it down you reduce this likelihood. Adding it at the bottom of the container should also reduce the probability of weed spread. There is a small risk of E. coli from applying it directly, so if applying uncomposted manure, leave at least four months before harvesting vegetables that come into direct contact with the soil, and three months before harvesting fruit or vegetables that don’t come into direct contact with the soil.

Probably the biggest problem for container gardening is making sure that plants get enough water. If your plants ever run out of water (whatever that means for that plant; some plants need less water than others), even if they recover afterwards, it will mean that they do less well than if they had always had enough. Container dwelling plants can’t just grow longer roots down into the ground to search for water, and containers tend to warm up faster than the ground, thus losing water more quickly. This is particularly true of ceramic or terracotta pots, which dry out very quickly in hot weather. You can ameliorate this a bit by making self-watering containers, but you also need simply to make sure that you get enough water into your containers, of whatever sort, on a regular basis.

In urban areas, and especially if you live in a flat, options for collecting rainwater are likely to be limited, compared to house dwellers who can simply add a water butt to their property under the gutter drainpipe. However, if it’s at all possible to harvest rainwater where you live, it’s well worth it. Rainwater is better for your plants, as tap water is full of chlorine. It’s also environmentally better to use rainwater as much as possible, rather than letting it run away down the drain and then using more tap water (harvested from rain elsewhere and piped over a not insignificant distance back to you!) for watering.

If you have a patio or roof garden, and you do have access to a drainpipe, sparing a corner to a water butt is well worth it. Get the biggest one that will fit into your space without taking too much growing room. Narrow space-saving waterbutts with a surprisingly high capacity are available. Put it up high enough (e.g. on bricks) to get a watering can under the tap at the bottom, direct the downpipe into it, and keep it covered to avoid losing water to evaporation. You can even grow plants on the top if it’s short enough for you to reach up there, although a taller water butt will of course have a higher capacity. You’ll also need to buy a kit that you fit into the drainpipe that will enable you to siphon some of the water off as it flows downwards, then redirect back to the downpipe when your water butt is full). This is important, as when your water butt fills up, you want it to overflow back into the drains, rather than all over your floor (potentially causing serious damage). In the UK, the amount of rain that falls on the roof of a 2-storey house over the course of a year is about enough to fill that entire 2-storey house, so the water butt, however large, will fill up at some point! Remember to check that interfering with the drainpipe won’t get you into trouble with the landlord or building management, if you don’t hold the freehold on the property.

Water butts can also be used, in some circumstances, to keep fish in, but this is beyond the scope of this book.

You can also simply leave a container open to the sky, which will collect any rain that falls on it. This is not as efficient as using a drainpipe, due to the reasonably small area involved, but it’s better than nothing.

Unfortunately, in some cases you may not have access to the downpipe, and/or may be sufficiently overshadowed by other balconies that collecting rainwater simply isn’t possible. This is the case for me; I’ve long considered some kind of Heath Robinson contraption leaning out from the balcony, but sadly this would breach my lease, not to mention being perhaps a little dangerous for those on the pavement below.

Another water saving option is to reuse bathwater or dish washing water, as long as you use biodegradable or natural washing up liquid and soap. If you plan to do this, use it quickly (as it can get a bit smelly). You can also look at getting a greywater diverter valve, which fits into your existing drainpipes and can divert your drain water off to a hose or container.

However, at least some of the time, even if you can use some rainwater or greywater, you’re still likely to use tap water and a watering can; and that’s fine. Certainly you shouldn’t be put off growing plants if you need to use tap water! It is a bit more time consuming, as you have to go in and out more often, but functional (and you won’t waste water when you have to lug it around yourself). If you have the space or opportunity, you can get into the habit of leaving tap water out for 24 hours before using it so that some of the chemicals off-gas. (This will also make drinking water taste better, in fact.) It’s more important to get thirsty plants watered, though, so if you don’t have any that’s been standing out, that’s fine.

Note that if your containers themselves are open to the rain, you’ll need to make sure that they don’t get waterlogged when it rains heavily, which will rot the roots of your plants. If you use a saucer to retain water (a good idea to avoid wasting water) in the summer, you’ll need to take it away in the winter.

One of the best options for water saving, wherever you get your water from, is to use self-watering containers.

Happily, you don’t need very many tools for container gardening. A trowel is useful, but if you don’t have one, you can use your hands to scoop compost out, or repurpose an old yoghurt pot as a scoop. Secateurs can also be handy when you’re tidying up at the end of the season (when you may need to snip off or cut up dried stalks), but during the season,most things you want to cut or break can be done by pinching or at most using kitchen scissors for harvesting.

If you’re growing vine tomatoes or peas, garden canes are the usual choice for providing support for the plants. You can also get standalone trellises, or wire cages, if you prefer. Another option for bush-type tomatoes is to grow them close together, and loop around them all a few times with string, so that they support each other. Garden canes are pretty cheap from a garden centre or perhaps your local pound shop, but you can also ask any friends with a garden if they can spare thin trimmed tree branches, or look for wind-blown branches in the park. (And, as above, keep an eye on local skips!)

Get a cheap notebook to record what you plant when, when you harvest and how much, and any other details you feel like noting. This will be incredibly helpful when it comes to planning the next season. However much you believe you’ll remember what you did, you’ll find that the details do fade.

Finally, you will definitely need some way of labelling your plants, or you’ll have no idea what it is that’s coming up there, and later on, which variety of tomato it was that has been doing so incredibly well. (I speak, unfortunately, from experience. I still don’t know for certain which variety of cherry tomatoes I’ve been seed saving from for the last three years, but they’re very tasty and seem to like it here!) Plastic or ceramic pot markers are available to buy; cheaper and reused alternatives include ice lolly sticks. I tried permanent marker on cut up bits of Tetrapak juice cartons one year; they’re good for seed pots on the windowsill, but the marker faded too quickly in full sun and when being watered regularly, hence the tomato problem. Never put off labelling your plants, or you’ll have forgotten by tomorrow morning which of the six seedling pots in front of you were beans and which were courgettes.

One of the problems you may encounter if living in a city is how to transport things. Compost, for example, is heavy, and even if you make some of your own, you may well need to buy some in initially (see above). Pots can also be heavy, although there are other sorts of containers that you can use (see above). If you do need to transport heavy items, there are a number of choices:

Bear in mind that if you go by taxi or smartcar, you’ll still have to get the stuff from the kerb into your house or flat. Recruit a friend if necessary/possible; or again borrow some kind of trolley or wheely thing. For short journeys, if it’s something too large or oddly shaped to be strapped to a bike that’s going to be ridden on the road, you may instead be able to balance it on the rack or top tube, keep it steady with one hand, and push the bike along the pavement. Prams and buggies (your own or borrowed) can also be used for transport (they carry more without a child in them), or wheelbarrows if you know someone with a garden or allotment. If you need to borrow something from a friend, try offering them recompense in the form of a share of your crop once you’ve grown it!

This book is oriented to cool temperate climates like the UK and in particular, if I’m discussing my own space, I’m talking about London (which is not only in the south, but also has its own microclimate a couple of degrees warmer than everywhere around it). I’ve indicated in the text where timings may vary with your local climate.

One of the important dates to be aware of is your local last frost date: you should be wary of planting out anything that isn’t cold hardy before this. There are various sites online which will give you this information for your local area.

One measure often used to describing the gardening climate of an area is its Hardiness Zone (a measure invented by the US Department of Agriculture). This categorises areas based on their average winter minimum temperature, and thus categorises plants based on whether they are hardy to that area (will survive that minimum temperature). The table of temperatures is below. London is zone 9 (i.e. minimum temperatures are on average between -1 and -7ºC), with most of the rest of the UK being zone 8. A few higher altitude areas (the Highlands and Scottish Uplands, the Pennines, and the top of Snowdonia) are zone 7, and most of coastal Ireland, the whole west coast of England, Scotland, and Wales, and a tiny bit of the east coast of Scotland and north-east England is zone 9 (the North Sea raises the temperature for 5km inland).

If you live outside the UK, your local climate may be in a slightly different zone – again, you can check this out online and make adjustments accordingly. In zones 9-10 (and with some adjustments for frost dates, zone 8) the advice here should still be approximately correct. Unfortunately, if you’re living in a tropical area or much further north, you’ll probably need to find other sources of information about suitable plants for your climate.

The problem with the hardiness measure is that it only takes into account winter minimum temperatures, not summer maximum temperatures. The latter obviously have a massive impact on what plants you can successfully grow during your summer. There is also a heat zones map available, based on how many days of the year are above 30ºC.

The Wikipedia page referenced above also gives heat zones for some European cities. London is in heat zone 2, as is most of the rest of southern England. The rest of the UK is in heat zone 1. Note that these figures may be changing as the climate changes – make your own observations of your space over time. In particular, as discussed earlier in this chapter, you may have your own microclimate in your space which will affect what you can successfully grow.

The further away your area is from hardiness zone 8-9 and heat zone 1-3, the more you are likely to have to adapt the instructions in this book. It should be adaptable for most temperate climates, but if you’re gardening in a tropical or subtropical climate (or a subarctic one!) you’ll probably want different information and will be growing different plants.

I should also note that while this book is organised month-by-month, that is based on a northern hemisphere set of seasons. If you’re in the southern hemisphere, read January as July, February as August, and so on (so your spring, in October-November, corresponds to April-May in the northern hemisphere). However, you’ll still need to take frost dates, hardiness zone, and heat zone into account to adapt the information provided for your own area (in Melbourne, for example, raspberries are a winter crop as it gets too hot in the summer).

Hardiness Zones	Heat Zones
Zone Minimum temp (^oC)	Zone Days above 30^oC
-51 – -45 -45 – -40 -40 – -35 -35 – -29 -29 – -23 -23 – -17 -17 – -12 -12 – -7 -7 – -1 -1 – 4 4 – 10	<1 1–7 1–7 15–30 31–45 46–90 61–90 91–120 121–150 151–180 181–210 >210

Introduction Why Try Permaculture in Pots?

Introduction
Why Try Permaculture in Pots?