Eat Your Garden

If you have a piece of land or a garden you have the possibility of growing food. You can create your own “edible landscape” as we call it in permaculture. Even in suburbia or towns there are opportunities to grow a lot of food in a small space: in containers, on balconies, decks, even on concreted areas, in community gardens or other vacant land. Cities in the developing world are good examples of this, although it is done mainly out of necessity by poor people. Home grown food is always fresh, has no packaging and no transport is needed; there is no waste or pollution and no food miles that cause global warming and climate change.

The United Nations made a statement at the turn of the millennium, quote: “In the 21st Century the big challenge will be to grow the food where the people are”. More and more people migrate from the land to towns – in New Zealand 86% of our population now live in towns and in suburbia.

Urban permaculture could make a big difference to the health of people and the environment. Let’s turn energy-consuming lawns and ornamentals into edible gardens and fruit trees. “Food stacking” is a permaculture design concept that enables lots of different types of food to be grown in a small area. With careful solar design we can grow food underground, on the ground and above the ground in five horizontal layers of shrubs and trees of different heights. The seventh layer is the vertical one, where edible climbers can be grown on trees and man-made structures like walls and fences. There is a variety of climbing edible plants that suit many climates and places like beans, peas, chokos, grapes, passionfruit etc. They can create shade in summer over pergolas and protect us from skin cancer-causing UV rays.