How to Grow Food In A Tiny Garden Using These 3 Permaculture Tips

Hi everyone, welcome back to my tiny house in the forest. In this video I want to talk about how you can grow for self-sufficiency, even though you have a relatively small garden like I do, by using the principles of permaculture gardening. So, as the name suggests, permaculture is actually about creating a permanent type of agriculture, where you have perennial crops to a greater extent than annual crops. And that is because in permaculture one of the aims or goals is to create a greater biodiversity. And one way to do that, or the best way to do that, is having established root systems and established plants that can give you a yield that you can eat, but at the same time for all the micro life and the birds and animals to have like a place to nest and to stay like more permanently. But also for the bacteria and the soil, it's much better for the soil to have established root systems, rather than you turn the soil around every spring and kill all the microbes and the nematodes and all the bacteria in the soil. So that is like the main objective of permaculture, is to build up the biodiversity and the quality of nature in your garden by having an established permanent garden. But you can also have annual crops in between, but the main goal is to have a more permanent situation. So in permaculture you actually imitate the way that a forest works, because a forest is a very low maintenance, it's actually zero maintenance ecosystem, that is also very productive. And that is the same goal that you want to have for your permaculture garden, you want to have a low maintenance but very productive garden from which you can get some yields, and that is also good for the ecosystems around you. So one way of doing that is by creating these gilts as the one you see here behind me, even though it's a little bit hard to see. But in a gilt you have different layers of plants planted together. So in the first layer, the canopy or the tall tree layer, I have an oak tree here that provides some shade, because you have that in a forest, but also actually some acorns that I can maybe use for coffee replacement if I wanted to for instance. Then you have the less tall trees like this pawpaw tree, which is kind of like meant to be below the bigger trees above it. And then you have the bush layer, so I have some red currants and some black currants here. They like to be like at the edge of the forest where they can get a lot of light, but also next to the big trees. And then I have the herbal layer and the shrub layer, so I have some strawberries and different herbs. And then you can also talk about the root layer and the mushroom layer and even in some cases the water layer. And then I also have the vine layer where I have actually a vine there and also something called a gooseberry kiwi, which is also a very shade tolerant crawly plant. So these are different layers that you can put and plant together. And because they have different heights, they don't compete with the sunlight because they need the sun from different angles. So that is one way of utilizing the vertical lines in your garden and thereby creating a lot of biodiversity in this area because there are so many different plants and also in a smart way where you utilize a very small amount of space by planting it like this. So another strategy you can use is to utilize something called the edge effect, and that is when you have like two ecosystems adjacent to one another and when they overlap a little bit, then the biodiversity from the one system and the other, they meet one another and then it can be very productive. So like for instance, behind me, I have this edible fence, as I call it. I made a video about that. It is actually two ecosystems meeting because I have a raised bed in the bottom with some shrubs and herbs or the shrub and herbal layer, as I talked about, and they actually meet another ecosystem, which is this vertical line of trees and berry plants that I planted. So they, of course, attract a lot of different micro life because it's different varieties of trees, but also the trees help the other plants in the raised bed because they have permanent roots, which is always good for the plants and the soil. And the herbs in return and the shrubs help the trees because they keep the soil moist by covering it from the sunlight. And in permaculture, you always want to cover the soil and never have bare soil because that's not very good for the soil. It breaks it down. So in that way, I have like two productive ecosystems in a way working with one another. And it's important for me in a very small garden because I don't have too much sunlight in the afternoon because I have some very tall trees to the west. So by making this vertical surface an edge effect, then I can get the most out of the sun from the east in the morning and the sun in the noon before it gets a little bit more shady in the afternoon and in the evening. So that is one example of utilizing the edge effect in a tiny forest like mine. So another permaculture technique to be growing food more vertically in a small garden is one that I absolutely love. It's the one called the three sisters in permaculture. And here you have beans and corn and also zucchinis or maybe pumpkins. And so the idea is that the beans, they get support from the corn if it's a little bit higher and then the beans fixate nitrogen into the soil and thereby boosting the zucchinis or the pumpkins or whatever. That's a good example of how you can utilize the space to grow in height and also how you can use companion planting in permaculture. So a third permaculture technique that you can use to optimize the growing space in your garden is to create something called a hyggelkultur or a hyggel mount. And a hyggel means a little hill in German and that is exactly what this is. So in March I made a video about this hyggelkultur when I made it and in that video you can see how in the core of the hyggelkultur there is a layer of logs and on top of that there is a layer of branches and leaves and on top of that a layer of horse manure and on top of that a layer of soil. And then as all the biomass decomposes it will become more spongy and able to suck up rainwater. But it will also release nitrogen to the plants on top of the hyggel mount and the plants can also access the water of course. So again it is as we like to have it in permaculture, it is a very low maintenance type of raised bed and also super productive. Like in May I planted these tomato plants during a drought and they just exploded. I never watered them since and now they are bigger than me. Super super productive. And also the potatoes, they are growing very big and each plant has a lot of different potatoes. And then in between all of that I have just sown some different herbs just to cover the soil. So it is a super productive type of raised bed and also it is a three dimensional surface so you have actually more growing space than if it was just a flat surface. So that is also a good technique for growing in a very small garden like mine. So there we have it. Three permaculture techniques that you can use to optimize the growing space in your tiny garden. So I really hope you enjoyed the video and maybe got some inspiration. Now it is time for me to get some dinner. So see you again next time.