Grow your own solar panels

Only a few days, and the basil is positively bursting upwards. I am now turning the tray every day to prevent the seedlings from growing wonky, and I am always amazed by how quickly they turn their surprisingly broad leaves towards the fun - nature's solar panels, turning sunlight into energy. It's very exciting, I shall need to find something in which to pot them on.

Permaculture in pots

When I bought my first ever batch of vegetable seeds, I hadn't put any thought into designing my balcony garden. My focus was on reducing my epic wishlist to something a little more manageable.

However, since my seeds have arrived, I have started putting a little more thought into how and where I am going to plant them, and this has led me to think about the design of my little corner slightly differently.

I am not very familiar with the principles of permaculture but I have generally associated them with rather larger-scale enterprises than mine. Moreover, my record with plants is not great - what is the opposite of green-fingered? - and I'd rather start small and build up, so embracing sophisticated new systems seemed just another complication.

However, I've been doing a little reading and a little browsing and I'm intrigued by the permaculture design priciples, and by some of the examples of applying them to even a single planted pot (Exhibit A). It is most definitely possible to encorporate at least some - if not all - of these in a balcony garden. I've done a little musing and a little research, and slowly my end-goal is taking shape, along with a clear set of slow and simple stages to take me from here to there.

One of the things I am particularly excited about including is biodiversity. At first I thought that there could not be any wildlife up here, several stories up in a built-up area. But it seems that insects can cover a wide surface area, there are several parks within a few km of my flat and I know of at least one bee hive within bee-flying range, so my flat could definitely attract bees if it had the right plants. While soil in pots will surely never be as diverse as that in the ground, there's no reason I can't make my little balcony a wayside inn for insects travelling between green spaces.

I already had some bee-friendly plants in my list - lavender being the best example - but I thought I should maybe think about improving my balcony's appeal to wildlife.

One of the principles of permaculture is to create a yield. At first glance, that means a crop such as beetroot or radishes, but the more I think about this, the more different kinds of 'yield' I am identifying. There's the fun of this whole adventure, experimenting with plants I have never tried before. There's the development of skills to care for and manage a range of plants. There's the improved aesthetic of my little outdoor corner, something I will definitely appreciate on warm weekends. And why can't flowers be a yield or a crop just by themselves? Whether enjoyed outdoors, cut for a vase or for a gift, or even eaten, there are clearly many ways to benefit from growing flowers.

That's me convinced. I've put in another seed order for a few bee-friendly flowers, favouring those which are edible in some way (homegrown sunflower seeds, anyone?) and trying to include a range of plants of different heights - some bushier, some tall, some ground-cover.

By planting mixtures of flowers, herbs and vegetables together, I will be able to create tiny little modules of biodiversity. I hope to add some sort of improved birdbath as well (still mulling on the best way to do this).

I think that's definitely taking on enough for the first year, although the temptation to keep adding another plant or concept here and there is very tempting. There are several steps - such as growing heirloom plants and saving seeds, or making my own compost from kitchen scraps - that I definitely want to try and will make the whole endeavour more cyclical (and also cheaper in the long-run) but I expect this year will be enough of a challenge as it is.

In the meantime, though, I've had a go at my design for the 'end-point' (or at least an interim point!) and I thought I'd share it with you.

 
My apologies for the shite drawing - although I hope at least you can tell which are the sunflowers - but I think you get the idea of using height, both the height in the space and the height of plants. There's a minarette apple tree to the right, and climbing plants - perhaps peas and honeysuckle - on the trellis and wire strung either side of the concrete pillar (which is otherwise just a block to sunlight). There's a flat bit on the right of the apple tree pot which is supposed to be a shallow pool of water tucked in between some bee-attracting plants. This is obviously a long way off, and there's more balcony I haven't tried to capture, but on the whole I'm very pleased with what I've mocked up. This is just the beginning of my permaculture design journey, after all!

(By the way, it's only just occurred to me that learning about permaculture principles and practicing them by applying them to my balcony is also another 'yield' from this exercise - as is my growing enthusiasm!)

The Woodsman's Cottage

Following on from my post last week on the cob bungalow, I'm sharing another house that evokes a feeling I can only describe as yearning. It genuinely looks like a fairy tale cottage.

Those of you who live/have lived in the UK may be familiar with the tv programme Grand Designs. It's been on the air for a good ten years or so, and it's brilliant. It's about people who are building or renovating their own houses, and the houses are always odd or unusual. Anyone interested in an eco-friendly self-build, I recommend taking some time to watch some of the episodes because there are quite a lot of these - a self-heating home dropped into disused quarries, a house built from local materials around an old tree which forms the centre of the circular stairway, a house built from polystyrene blogs... However weird and wonderful, trust me, there's been one on Grand Designs.

One of the best programmes of this series - and the presenter Kevin McCloud's favourite, apparently - is the house built by a chap called Ben Law. Ben is a woodsman who makes his living by sustainably managing an area of forest. At the beginning of the build, he had been living under canvas in the woods for the best part of a decade. Part of his income comes from charcoal burning so he had to stay onsite to manage the fire risk. It had taken him ages to get planning permission, and in the end it was only granted with a very very unusal condition - Ben is the only person who can legally own the house. He cannot sell it - if he leaves, the house will be torn down.

 Photo: www.ben-law.co.uk

Ben builds the house by hand with the help of volunteers, using traditional building techniques used centuries ago but rarely today. The materials are local - wood from the forest, mud from the pond, strawbales from a local farm. It is entirely off-grid, with electricity generated from a wind turbine, heating from a wood-powered range, and a composting toilet. By the time Kevin goes back to visit some years later, Ben is also growing most of his food.

The magic about this house is that it is a celebration of natural materials, particularly wood, from start to finish. Every piece of wood is individually selected and prepared, and there is a huge range - wood left with the bark on, wood peeled, wood aged and weathered. Different trees, different sizes and ages, different formats. It's beautiful. So go ahead, take a peek, and also check out Ben's website.

A permaculture life?

Hello and welcome to everyone visiting from Purple Pear Farm, where Kate has been kind enough to link to this blog. I've been reading through her blog and musing on the meaning of permaculture.

In my local collective garden here in Brussels, there are a small number of potager gardens (the closest thing to an allotment here, but a fraction of the size - less than a metre square). One of the conditions of being allocated on of these potagers is that you have to observe the rules of permaculture as it is understood here. This means that you can sow seeds, but are not allowed to remove weeds, hoe, turn the soil, or add compost or fertiliser. Permaculture here is defined as planting stuff and then leaving it entirely alone.

This is not quite the same concept as I've seen expressed elsewhere. As far as I know, permaculture in the English-speaking world is based around practices which are sustainable and could be maintained permanently. This definition allows a more active human role, something akin to stewardship perhaps, where you can manage the soil by ensuring that manure or compost replaces the nutrients taken up by plants etc. (Please forgive any inaccuracies here - I'm no gardener!)

The kind of simple life that I - and I'm guessing you my readers - are trying to built is very much based along the same principles, but in different ways (financial, emotional, physical). Make sure your spending is at a sustainable level, that you can match what goes out with what comes in. Built relationships and communities which nourish rather than numb or drain one another. While we all work hard, either at home or in the workplace, we need to make sure that we get the food, sleep, exercise, and down time to keep ourselves physically and mentally healthy to continue working the next day.

What I like about this concept of permaculture (at least as I've understood it) is that it is about balance. It doesn't mean not spending on the things that matter, but making sure that spending can be sustained not just in the short term while you have an income but in the far less predictable long term. Living without possessions may work for some, but the important thing is that your life is not drowning in clutter. This seems a good way to evaluate what I'm trying to do here - not am I living simply, or even am I living simply enough, but am I living in a way that I can continue to enjoy and thrive indefinitely? And I think the answer to that is definitely yes!