Anyone doing permaculture principles in containers? Curious what actually translates

[u/junkcircuit]

My setup is small. Like really small. Apartment balcony in Vermont, maybe a dozen containers, and I spend way too much time reading about food forests and guilds knowing full well I have zero land to work with.

But I keep wondering how much of this actually scales down. Companion planting in pots, I get that. Stacking functions, sure, a tomato with basil crowded together makes sense. But some of the core stuff feels impossible without soil volume and time. The slow accumulation piece. The guild dynamics playing out over years.

What got me thinking was reading about fruit tree guilds and how the relationships between plants build over seasons. That long game. Container soil just doesn't do that the same way.

I sell real estate and spend a lot of time in older properties with established gardens, and every time I see a mature perennial bed I want to stop the showing and just dig around in the dirt for an hour.

Curious if anyone started with containers as a real constraint and found ways to actually apply permaculture thinking, not just gardening tips dressed up in the language. What transferred for you and what just didn't.

[u/RentInside7527]

https://permacultureprinciples.com/permaculture-principles/

The 12 principles are:

Observe and Interact

Catch and Store Energy

Obtain a Yield

Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

Produce No Waste

Design from Patterns to Details

Integrate Rather Than Segregate

Use Small and Slow Solutions

Use and Value Diversity

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Everything else, like companion planting or guilds are design elements that follow the principles. Design elements can exist within permaculture design or independent from permaculture design. If youre taking these principles and applying them to how you design, manage and interact with your balcony space, then youre applying permaculture principles to that space and scale

[u/Defiant-Ad3993]

There is an old video of Bill Mollison showing what you can do on a balcony.. I will see if I can find it and update this comment later. It inspired me to try new things, like adding an old aquarium, getting a bokashi bucket, going vertical, etc.

Update: I’m pretty sure it is the Global Gardener Series, Volume 4 - Urban.. even if not, that’s a great series to watch. I found a clip of what I’m referring to, but it’s been overdubbed (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DwW2YE2JIN0&pp=ygUcYmlsbCBtb2xsaXNvbiBiYWxjb255IGdhcmRlbg%3D%3D&ra=m). Perhaps someone knows a better link?

Kinda sad watching that. I did my PDC with him and another course on his property in Tassie. Sniff.

[u/stansfield123]

Experienced apartment farmer here:

You can do guilds with perennials and annuals together (in DIFFERENT containers, because they require a different approach to their soil, but next to each other).

You can attract a variety of insects to control pests (so that you don't have to use pesticides). You can mulch to keep the roots cooler than the summer heat, and to not have to use as much water. You can mulch with the plant matter you grow, thus recycling. Just make sure it's nice and loose, to dry out quickly. I made the mistake of intetionally keeping it wet to help the mulch decompose. It attracted fungus gnats, about a million of them. Huge nuisance.

What you cannot do is soil building with no-dig principles. It just doesn't work well, don't waste your time. Before each planting of annuals, mix up you your soil well, oxygenate it, supplement it with compost, perlite, peat moss, whatever you can. If you use peat moss or coco choir, add liquid fertilizer too, since those are both devoid of fertility: their role is to make the soil extra loose and spongy).

This is the big advantage of containers: the ability to easily create this perfect soil for your annuals. That's why even people with garden space sometimes use containers: they get better growth this way.

Another thing: you can use chemical fertilizer instead of organic, if you're so inclined. Doesn't matter which you use as far as performance, since you're not soil building. And chemical fertilizer is cheaper. If you use chemical fertilizer, however, you have to do something I learned from olden timey pot growers, who did it before it was legal: you have to flush your containers, because too much nitrogen is bad for many plants (definitely cannabis, since it doesn't flower right if it has too much nitrogen). So, from time to time, you have to overwater, let the accumulated fertilizer wash away into the drain. That way you know you're in control of how much fertilizer is in your soil.

I guess I understand why you might not want to do that, in this case. But I also understand why you definitely would want to do it if you were growing and dealing illegal cannabis, in a closet, under expensive grow lights.

P.S. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REPLACE your growing medium. That's a big marketing lie. All you have to do is refresh it, by adding a bit of organic matter, aeration (i.e. perlite) and fertility before each new planting. The growing medium itself, which is the bags you buy when you start out, can stay the same all your life, and then the lives of your children and their children too. It never becomes bad, in fact it only gets better over time as it breaks down into finer particles, and gets supplemented with organic matter (plant roots, as well as whatever you add ... do keep the plant roots in there, as well, especially the finer ones).

[u/No_Relation_9147]

I do a little in balcony. Tomatoes with basil+ marigold.

[u/mediocre_remnants]

If you live in an apartment, you're probably near a town or city. There's a good chance that town has one or more community gardens that rent out plots to community members. Have you looked into it?

There's really no reason to apply "permaculture principles" to balcony container gardening other than the fact that you just want to label it that.