Edible Ideas For Urban Gardens
dogwooddays
Posts: 258
Hi - I've always been a fan of kitchen gardens and interested in growing a wide range of fruit, veg and herbs. Yesterday I saw a wonderful example of this method of growing in the RHS Kitchen Garden at Hampton Court (which I'm going to write about tomorrow) but I was also inspired by the London Glades garden with its use of sustainable forest garden and hugelkultur techniques, but for the first time I've seen, in a modest sized back garden. (Link to article below)
How do you organise your edible crops? Do you interplant, grow them separately or use different layers of planting more like a forest garden? We've been developing an edible forest area in our local community garden, but I've never seen such a convincing (and beautiful) example of small space permaculture.
I've written about the garden on my blog this evening and would be interested in any feedback on how transferable people think these ideas would be to an average urban or suburban backyard.
Thanks very much and happy gardening! 
Posts
I found Martin Crawford's book fascinating. I had a 4 bed traditional veg garden that I was finding hard to keep on top of, so decided to try to adapt two of the 4 to a perennial permaculture style planting, dividing the remaining two in half so I still have 4 rotation beds for annuals. It's early days, I only began this project last year, and have had a few setbacks and successes as with all gardens (at least with my low level of skill that has been my experience). So I'm trying to follow the principle in 2 beds each 2m x 5m. I have no problem with the middle storey in the first bed - perennial kale, raspberries, walking onions, herbs - but both the upper canopy and the ground cover are still very small, so it's not yet functioning as a system. The soil quality is less than ideal, I'm growing comfrey and rhubarb as mineral accumulators to try to boost fertility, but I think if you can't afford to make it all at once - and I can't - then it is inevitably quite a slow establishment process.
I'm hoping to make some headway with the second bed this autumn, but it depends if finances allow.
I will say that the first bed looked much better over the winter and in early spring than the traditional monoculture beds
. It is a beautiful and, I believe, far more sustainable method of growing food than the traditional farmed monocultures that our veg gardens and allotments often mimic. I'm really pleased to hear this idea has found it's way into an RHS show at last 
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Mine is more of a cottage garden than an organised veg growing space. I interplant and have chard and herbs planted among flowers in raised beds and borders and beans growing up a rose arch.
Hi Raisingirl - that sounds like an amazing project! Yes I've found Martin Crawford's books invaluable too, both in my own garden and allotment, and in our new forest garden in the local community garden. I really agree with your point about such mixed areas looking better than monoculture beds - and better for wildlife too
And I agree that finance is an issue - we are struggling to get funds (and have enough person power) to clear perennial weeds and then plant the understorey. I think the Hampton Court garden would need a big budget even for a reasonably small garden - but it does include the whole space, so may of the ideas are transferable to areas of an ordinary garden at much lower cost.
I also think the hugelkultur idea is fascinating and I liked the way they showed its construction alongside the garden which is why I put the images of the heart of the mounds on the article.
Best of luck with improving the soil - would nitrogen fixing green manures help here over winter?
Hi Firefly0
I love cottage gardens for their relaxed attitude to interplanting and their general exuberance. Do you find fewer problems with pests because, say cabbages, are disguised amongst the flowers? Do you have any combinations which work particularly well?
In the RHS Kitchen Garden (which I'm writing an article about today) they had some magnificent pink single dahlias with deep purple foliage alongside the purple kale, which looked particularly splendid! ?