In permaculture, it’s really important to spend an extended period of time (people suggest around a year) observing the land you’re working with before you put anything in the ground. I’ve found though that as a city dweller building out a rooftop garden, it’s tough to make those observations without any plants in place. Last year while the construction was still going on I was able to roughly gauge where the shadiest spots were, but it’s been totally different now that I can actually see sunlight hitting certain leaves and not others.
For that and other reasons (like the basic uncertainty of all New York rental apartments, especially those in a flood zone), I think it’s really important to have plants in pots that you can move around yourself, without any help, and without it being too stressful a proposition. Over the course of this summer, I’ve changed the layout at least three times, based on observations I made quietly and Donut made noisily as we sat on the deck looking at different angles. I’ve noticed huge changes in plant growth and pest situations based on these little tweaks, some of which I’ll highlight here:
Bananas. At first, I was most concerned with the bananas’ leaves being protected from shredding in the wind on various wires and railings, so I clustered them somewhat tightly together like I’d read about, against the eastern wall. But my pink velvet banana excitingly flowered, fruited, and then very disappointingly came down with a mold situation that ultimately killed the whole stalk, and it made me realize that they needed more sun. (Luckily, another pink banana pup was already growing in the planter so I still might have a shot at pink bananas this year.) Now, I’ve arranged them so that they’re all facing south, staggered so that none of their leaves are touching. I’m still waiting to see if wind damage will become an issue with this layout, but the bananas are putting on better growth, and additionally, the beans I companion planted seem to be doing better as well.
Overall sun. “Phototropism” is the term for when plants lean towards the sun, and I carefully watched for where plants where doing this. Because of the shade patterns I’d observed last year, I initially put my sun-loving plants against the eastern wall, which I thought got the most sun. This was also the location that made the most sense visually based on where I’d put chairs and a hammock (the furniture went in the shadiest spots). But it turns out that the best sunny spots are in patches a couple feet in from the eastern and southern walls, where they can get as much southern exposure as possible until a street tree and my building shade them from the west. Also, it turned out that playing with height got me extra bits of sun as well. By raising some of the planters up using some plastic shelving I found on the street, I was able to get certain plants high enough that the apartment building to the east didn’t shade them for as long. And I also found that I could get around the southern wall shading plants by putting taller plants/planters up against the wall.
When I changed the layout to a less orderly but more sun-maximizing setup, within days I got explosions in growth on my beans, tromboncino squash, Malabar spinach, and tomatoes.
Tiny Calamondin orange. In my last entry I noted that dog vomit slime mold had accosted my tinier Calamondin orange. Then one day I noticed that the tree, and the bean plant growing with it, were absolutely crawling with tiny bugs. I considered spraying it with neem oil or some other organic insect treatment, but I decided to move it about a foot and a half to the west into brighter sunlight and wait a day or two to see if that helped. And it did! Pests have a way of finding plants that are struggling with conditions that aren’t quite right for them. Sunshine really is the best disinfectant.
A couple of other non-layout based observations:
It’s been a somewhat dry summer and there are definitely times that the plants have gotten a little struggly looking from a lack of water, but I’m still only watering them, by five gallon bucket, every two weeks or so (some even less).
I’ve planted beans from seed in with a lot of my subtropical perennials and tucked them into other planters, and I basically just let them climb around wherever they wanted to go, which has worked out great! They don’t seem to be competing with their companion plants, and they tend to find unoccupied spaces to fill.
I feel like my tomatoes, except the cherry tomatoes, are a little bland tasting. Next year I want to see if companion planting in beneficial herb seedlings (like basil and chives), instead of directly sowing seeds, will help.
