In permaculture terminology, zone 4 refers to rough grazing and woodland, and zone 5 to wilderness; they’re the zones furthest from the central point (usually your home). In an urban environment, we don’t really have either of those things (indeed, in a country like Britain, there’s hardly any real ‘wilderness’ at all). You can think of your own zone five provision as being things like bug boxes, or plants which are there primarily to attract insects. They do have benefits for you, but those are really a positive side effect of the advantage that they give to the wild insects. Of course, plants with multiple benefits are a very permaculture thing anyway!
Another way of thinking about zones four and five in the urban environment, though, is to look at all the areas outside your direct sphere of influence; the urban jungle. What is there out there for the balcony permaculturist?
Urban Wild Food Foraging
Even in urban areas, there is a surprising amount of free wild food available in parks and other green spaces (such as a shared garden square on an estate, for example, or public municipal flower beds that have been taken over by the odd weed; or disused lots if you can get into them), if you know what to look for.
There are two classes of land where you might find food: public (usually council owned) and private. The legality of harvesting wild food on public land is a little unclear. On the one hand, arguably if the land is publicly funded, it belongs to the public; on the other hand, technically it probably belongs to the landowner (usually the local council) rather than to whoever pays for the council (everyone). In practice, you’re unlikely to get into trouble on public land if you act sensibly and politely.
It’s more clearly illegal to harvest wild food on private land that isn’t yours. Even if all you’re after is the weeds, private landowners may take a dim view of people trespassing on their property. If the possible bounty is worth it, make sure you keep an eye out for security firms who may be sceptical about your motives, and/or get the permission of the landowner first. As with guerrilla gardening. With weeds in particular, you’re really not taking anything of any value, so you may get away with it anyway. If you see a fruit tree in a private garden with no sign that anyone’s harvesting the crop, you could try knocking on the door and offering a deal whereby you’ll pick the fruit in exchange for a share of it. (Or a jar or two of quince jam from the quince tree you spot in someone’s hedge, or...). It may even be the start of a beautiful friendship. If, on the other hand, all you want is a few leaves from the lime tree, or flowers from the elderflower, that’s hanging over the fence onto the pavement, you may as well just help yourself.
It’s important to be aware that any land you don’t have control over, including parks or other public spaces, may have chemical fertilisers or pesticides that you don’t know about used on the plants. The more heavily manicured and managed the land looks, the more likely this is, so use your judgement. Also, low hanging fruit (or anything on the ground) may have been christened by passing dogs/foxes/humans. Again, use your judgement, and always wash anything you’ve foraged before eating it. Plants growing near to roads (especially busy roads) may gather a patina of exhaust fumes. Again, wash before eating, and you may want to avoid foraging around obviously very polluted areas (e.g. roundabouts, which sometimes have little wild or cultivated patches on them, are almost certainly not worth it as they will be heavily polluted).
Fruit
Probably the best known and most often foraged wild fruit in the UK are blackberries, which run rampant wherever they’re given the opportunity. In fact, blackberries are grown all over the world in pretty much every suitable temperate climate.
Brambles are often found near rivers, and rare is the park or green space that hasn’t acquired a blackberry patch somewhere (partly because they’re damn hard to get rid of). Wild blackberries tend to taste better than domesticated ones, so even if you have a garden chances are you’ll be better off going out looking for blackberries elsewhere rather than planting your own. (Also, blackberries can be a bit of a menace to manage in a small garden as they are highly dedicated to spreading themselves everywhere.) I remember blackberrying in our local park as a child growing up in suburban London, and taking ice cream tubs full of fruit home to put in the freezer and turn into blackberry and apple crumble. Blackberrying is pretty much a UK institution – go forth and seek your own! As well as the summer/autumn fruit, you can also eat the young leaves of brambles in the spring, either as a salad, or cooked.
Other fruits are also available if you keep your eyes open. Apple trees aren’t as common in the UK as they are in other European countries (in Prague in September everyone is after the apples from the trees in the park), but they do exist, especially in neglected private gardens (ask rather than scrumping!). In southern England you’ll see huge numbers of cherry trees everywhere, which are grown for their blossom. Many of these are flowering cherries which don’t really produce fruit, but not all of them are limited to looking pretty. There’s a cherry tree on my estate which produces tiny sweet cherries, well worth picking even to nibble on despite the fact that there’s more stone than flesh. Some parks have plum or damson trees in, too.
Sweet chestnuts are common in parks (Hyde Park has a large number along the bike path south of the Serpentine), and you can harvest these at the right time of the year, deshell them (a spiky business, so watch your fingers!) and roast them.
Another fruit tree worth looking out for is the fig. Fig trees grow well in the southern UK and in most reasonably temperate climates. They prefer warm and dry, but they’re also cold-hardy, and they’re sometimes grown decoratively. There’s a fig tree in the grounds of the Palace of Westminster in London which grows over the fence and into the street – so if you’ve ever fancied eating Parliamentary fruit, head down there at the right time of year!
Less well known, but perhaps more readily available, wild fruits are rosehips and hawthorns, both of which make very nice jelly. Both can also be eaten raw, although be careful not to swallow the seeds of the rosehips, as they’re an irritant and can make you quite unwell. Hawthorn is grown everywhere (often as a hedge) and you are unlikely to have any problems finding some, nor is anyone likely to care if you pick a few berries. Young (spring) hawthorn leaves are also edible raw.
Picking fruit in public spaces does require a certain willingness to perhaps look a bit peculiar, but the results are well worth any momentary embarrassment.
Fungi
There are many mushrooms and other fungi growing wild in all sorts of places in the UK and elsewhere. Some of them are not only edible, but delicious.
If you’re interested in mushroom gathering, your best bet is to find someone who already knows their stuff, and go along on a few expeditions with them. You should also invest in a good reference book with plenty of pictures, but there’s no substitute for experience. None of the old folk wisdom about mushrooms are true: being able to peel them doesn’t guarantee edibility, nor does colour (poisonous mushrooms and edible toadstools both exist!), nor does the smell. The only way to confirm that a particular fungus is edible is to make a definite identification of its species.
If in doubt, don’t eat. Even very competent mushroom hunters have been known to make a mistake and fetch up in hospital (or worse). But there are very tasty fungi out there, so don’t be put off altogether – just do your homework.
WARNING
Some mushrooms and fungi are poisonous, in some cases fatally so. Don’t take risks – make sure you are certain of your identification and, if in doubt, don’t eat.
Greenery
As well as the more obvious fruit and fungi, there are also many edible ‘weeds’. Chickweed, dandelions (for either spring leaves or autumn roots, rocket (not as common as the others, but I’ve seen it growing as a weed in pavement cracks), nettle (wash and cook like spinach), fat hen (eat whole plant as salad or cook like spinach), and yarrow (eat raw, or cook like spinach, but remove the stems first as they’re stringy) are all edible.
As already discussed, the main thing to be careful of is to think about what animals or pollution might have affected the plants; and also to consider whether the ground itself might be industrially polluted. My local park has been there for over 150 years, so I’m happy that the ground there is clear enough, but some abandoned areas may have had pollutants spilled or even buried there.
Other Urban Foraging
Foraging isn’t just limited to food. There’s a wide and exciting array of things that you can find around you for free or close to free.
Skips can be a great source of timber (especially pallets), empty plastic tubs (check what they used to contain and wash thoroughly before using to grow anything in), and other interesting bits and pieces. Technically in the UK the contents of a skip still legally belong to whoever owns or hired it, but in practice, again, you’re unlikely to get into trouble. If the skip is in someone’s front garden, or you see the builders or whoever around, it’s best to check with them that they don’t mind (but they’re unlikely to – you’re doing them a favour by saving them having to pay for dumping it somewhere!). Skips at the back of supermarkets may contain nearly out of date or out of date but still edible produce, as well, but that’s slightly outside the scope of this book. Google for ‘freeganism’ to find out more.
Freecycle or Freegle are online ventures (usually run via email list, sometimes via a website or forum) where you can give stuff you don’t want to nearby people who need it, and get hold of stuff other people don’t want, all for free. You’ll usually have to collect things yourself, although the offerer may be prepared to post lighter things. Be warned that desirable stuff goes very fast, so if you’re after anything specific, you’ll have to keep a close eye on the list. As well as watching for people getting rid of useful stuff, you can ask for specific things. This will go better if you’ve contributed yourself before (clear out all those belongings that are still good but you don’t want or use any more), and if you don’t take the piss. “Anyone got any spare plant pots?” and “Anyone got a games console they’re not using?” are two very different queries.
Charity shops are another good way of getting rid of things (better than Freecycle because you can often get rid of the lot all at once; worse because you have to carry it down there) and picking up bargains. Look out for cheap saucers to go under your plant pots! Note that some charity shops won’t take second-hand electrical goods, call first to find out.
Free shops are a bit like a cross between Freecycle and a charity shop. People take their unwanted stuff along, and other people who want it take it away (for free). They usually operate out of social centres (often squatted spaces), and may not last very long. At the time of writing I knew of one in Camberwell and one in Hackney but by the time this is in print they’ll be operating elsewhere if at all. Check out websites like www.indymedia.co.uk to find this sort of thing.
Other People and Other Spaces
You can do a lot for yourself by yourself, but the impact you can have on your local food web is likely to be fairly limited. If you’re interested in making wider changes, you can reach out to bigger spaces and to your neighbours.
Guerrilla gardening
Guerrilla gardening is about challenging the idea that a ‘garden’ has to be something owned by a particular person or organisation. Richard Reynolds, author of On Guerrilla Gardening, who lives and gardens in Elephant and Castle, London (a few minutes’ bike ride from me), defines it as “the illicit cultivation of someone else’s land”. Guerrilla gardeners don’t wait for permission to plant; they go ahead and garden in any place where it looks like there’s a neglected space which could benefit from someone tending it. It’s about creating gardens – whether those are tiny patches of flowers, or huge multi-person endeavours on large areas – where there was previously just neglect. The first self-defined guerrilla gardeners were New Yorkers on the Lower East Side in the 1970s, creating community gardens on abandoned lots. These have in a lot of cases since been legitimised, and are now beautiful well-established oases of green in a very urban area.
If the idea of guerrilla gardening inspires you to spread a little horticultural joy in your own area, you can start small: perhaps at the foot of a tree, or in a neglected-looking public flowerbed. If you already have seeds for your own space, you can undoubtedly spare a few to throw in elsewhere; or you can pick up a tiny packet of wildflower seeds or a handful of bulbs. (Wildflowers are particularly good for guerrilla garden-ing as they tend to thrive on poor soil.) Flowers that self-seed are good for minimal maintenance, but make sure you don’t plant anything too invasive (mint, for example) if it might spread elsewhere or further than you want. Be especially careful with anything non-native. Bulbs are another good low maintenance choice, and will keep coming back year on year.
One neat trick for poor soil, or if you want to be able to just drop the seeds and go, is to create ‘seed bombs’. These are little balls of seeds and earth/compost, which you can drop or even throw onto the area you’re aiming for. The earth will give the seeds a start, after which they can dig themselves into wherever they land.
If you want to take things further – maybe there’s a long-term derelict lot round the corner from you that you would love to see become a community resource rather than an eyesore – you’ll probably need to get other people involved at some point. Check out Richard Reynolds’ book for more suggestions and inspiration.
You could also consider doing a little guerrilla land regeneration and detoxification, if you have some spare compost tea. Most urban soil is heavily polluted by years of traffic fumes if nothing else. The single best way to detoxify soil is long-term organic gardening, adding plenty of organic matter over time and allowing that to clean the land, but a short-term way to help this out is to apply compost tea. Especially if you want to grow food plants in your reclaimed/guerrilla gardened area, this is probably worth doing to improve the soil quality quickly.
Community gardens and orchards
Community gardens are one way of reclaiming unused space. If there’s a green area near your block of flats or estate, see if the council are up for a group of you taking it over and making it more beautiful and/or more productive. If you’re setting up a group to do this, or trying to get other residents involved, look for some quick wins early on to encourage everyone. Anything that grows fast and is tasty is good! Lettuce, peas, and tomatoes may all be a good choice, depending on the time of year. Over time you can observe the space and plan it better (and, hopefully, with guidance from permaculture principles). You may even be able to get some form of council funding.
Look out for other sorts of open private space, too. The Castle indoor climbing centre in north London has started a food garden a couple of years ago which, at the time of writing, is doing very well.
Community orchards work on the same principle but with fruit trees. As a rule, their main purpose is not the production of fruit (although that is a major benefit!), but the provision of a space for the community to enjoy. This means that they can be managed with an eye to all the benefits of an orchard (including education, beauty, and a place for local people to spend time) rather than focussing solely on how much fruit is generated. Tasty fruit for local people to harvest is a great bonus to having an orchard rather than just a park, though! Have a look online to see if there’s an orchard in your area.
If you can’t set up a garden or orchard with the landowner’s permission, the other alternatives include guerrilla gardening (as discussed above) or squatting a space (as the Transition Towns Heathrow group did in Sipton in 2010). The downside to squatting is of course the risk of getting kicked off the land just when you’re getting things going, but if you put the energy into getting local residents involved, you may be able to keep it. The Grow Heathrow project was able to stay much longer than they expected, with a strong and supportive local campaign. The longer the landowner has left the land derelict, the more organised you are, and the more local support you have, the better your chances.
Nature Reserves
Nature reserves both large and small exist in many cities, and are another possible outreach option. If you have a nature reserve nearby, you could get involved with the group maintaining it, and see if there’s interest in integrating a permaculture/wild food section into it. Permaculture is all about promoting beneficial webs and local wildlife, so this is definitely possible (although not everyone may go for it). I’m currently involved with doing this at my local nature reserve in Bermondsey. Be aware that nature reserves are wildlife habitats not allotments, and should not be seen as primarily a food source.
City Farms
City farms are another project you can get involved with, and which may be interested in having either a permaculture corner, or adopting a more traditional allotmenting approach, or a mix of the two. Again, go along, talk to people, and find out what’s going on and what you can get involved in.
Other Options
Transition Towns and other similar local movements are a possibility for getting in touch with other people with similar interests, and seeing what you might be able to start up together. You could also consider working with schools, old people’s homes, hospitals... anywhere that has open space and might be interested in doing something different with even a small corner of it. Does your workplace have a balcony or a roof? You could ask permission to stick a few pots up there and start a tomato plantation.
On a more local level, your neighbours may have a garden and not have the time to look after it or know where to start. You could offer to look after their garden in return for planting up a section of it; or help them to get started themselves.
Finally, if you really want more space all of your own, put yourself down for an allotment. Inner city allotments often have long waiting lists; a bit further out of town you may be a bit luckier. Occupy yourself during the wait by planning what you’ll do with it once you get it…