actually you know what im gonna infodump about permaculture and sustainable farming for a minute bc it’s been my main hyperfixation for a while and y’all really Ought to Know This because it can, in fact, give you a green thumb as well as extra food to eat, is very cheap, and it’s extremely time management friendly. i only need to work on my garden twice a month, maybe more during drier seasons/if i get more plants.
(also correct grammar and spelling below bc i don’t know about you but i can’t read otherwise.)
The first thing you’re gonna want to do is figure out how much space you have available, your climate, and the condition of the soil (if available.)
If you live in a place where there is limited gardening space and can’t garden because it’s too expensive, don’t worry! You can still grow lots of plants cheaply. If you have access to the outside (like an outdoor balcony, or a small yard, but no soil) then do yourself a favor and grab some cheap plastic storage bins. Drills some holes in the bottom and you should be good to go. If you don’t have space outside, but you do have windowsills, you can grow plants in empty plastic containers. I have a ton of plants growing in old Costco sour cream containers.
Now, if you do have a yard, let’s say you’re starting from complete scratch here. You haven’t touched it in a while. You had grass once, you think, but it’s yellowed and dying. Or maybe you’re like me, and you just have dirt. Hard-packed dirt.
Does this look familiar?
Dry-ass, nasty dirt. You’re more likely to break your leg than to dig a decent hole in this, and the only thing that’ll grow is weeds.
Yeah. That’s because there’s no cover. Nothing’s gonna grow because there’s no nutrients in there, and all water evaporates almost instantly. Your yard is well on it’s way to becoming a desert.
First, make sure there’s no lead in the ground. You can get tests pretty cheaply on amazon. Lead poisoning is no joke, and if we’re gonna be growing edible food you don’t want to take any chances. If you live in a city you especially want to get your soil checked out.
If you don’t have lead in your dirt; What you’re gonna want to do is get your hands on some sort of cover, and some fertilizer. You don’t need anything fancy. Look for fertilizer with worm castings in it, and a minimum amount of pesticides/chemicals. For cover, anything decomposable will work. I’ve personally used newspaper, coffee liners, leaves, and sawdust/wood shavings.
Cover the area you’re planting with the fertilizer, then the covering, then a lil more fertilizer (or mulch if you can get some.) Spray it down every once in a while. You can plant stuff at the same time you set up the soil, or wait a bit. Doesn’t matter too much. As the cover starts to rot, add a little more fresh material.
Trust me, this stuff works. I had never seen an earthworm in my garden until a couple weeks after I started doing this. It’s become a lot easier to dig now too.
If you don’t have access to soil and have to use containers, it’s pretty much the same. Add fertilizer + store-bought soil to containers, plant stuff, and add cover. The cover keeps the soil nice and moist, and as it rots it adds more nutrients to the soil.
As for plants to get;
I really recommend starting off with onions, garlic, and potatoes. They require almost no work, and you can just plant the ones you buy at the grocery store/left over from cooking. Just let them sit in the sun for a couple of days/a week, and as they sprout, separate individual stalks (leaving some of the onion/garlic/potato) and plant them. When the stalks start to wither and die, they’re ready to pull up. (It should take about a year.)
Some other great plants include; marigolds, lavender, and basil (good for keeping away mosquitoes, and are edible), strawberries, spider plants (not edible but pretty and easy to grow), tomatoes, and peas. You can collect seeds, plant from clippings, or buy them.
But if you want to do this long term...
Permaculture works by mimicking how nature works. Instead of using the methods factory farming uses- which requires massive amounts of fertilizer, chemicals, and work- you start by laying the groundwork, then sit back and do the minimal amount of work to keep your garden producing. This video explains them very well. Actually, that youtube channel in particular is a great one for explaining the process. He does a lot of Q&As and visits other people’s permaculture experiments all over the world.
Unfortunately, I personally cannot explain these very well quite yet, as I’m still experimenting with permaculture techniques myself.
