ecobites.com

Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Australian Permaculture is more than just organic gardening. Read how a sustainable permaculture garden was created on a rocky inner-city hill slope in Tropical Australia.

Our story - 'In Townsville we lived in a house on a city block of 540m2. Even though it was right in the very centre of a city with 150,000 inhabitants, the wildlife in our garden was amazing: possums, fruit bats, large goannas, snakes, lizards, tropical birds and much more. 

In this old part of Townsville many houses are perched on hill sides.

When we moved to Townsville our garden was just a wilderness consisting of large noxious weeds. We had to start from scratch. We removed all plants, only two large native trees were left.

Our new Permaculture design included:

• several tropical fruit trees, partly in large pots
• herb garden
• bamboo
• water-chestnuts in a small pond
• vegetable patches
• chickens 

Layout of the City Permaculture Garden

Like many of our fruit trees these four citrus trees in pots are grafted onto dwarf rootstocks. Mandarines and lemons could be picked on the way home.

Herbs and lilies grew well in the microclimate around the pond. We often harvested water-chestnuts. Passionfruit thrives on the fence in the back.

The Japanese garden was created mainly for esthetical reasons and as a memory of our time spent in Japan. However, we harvested quite a lot of bamboo cane which we will use to build screens.

The backyard has a northern orientation, but has a lot of shade through a large gum tree. Most of the right section was used in the same way as a herb spiral. Plants requiring a dry environment were planted at the top, those with higher moisture requirements further down the slope.

A variety of large pots were used where the ground was too rocky for direct planting. In winter vegies were planted at the bottom of the rock garden in addition to the herbs.

The Mandala Garden was ideal for growing vegies during the hot summer months. It was shaded by a large eucalypt tree during the hottest hours of the day, but got the afternoon sun.

In wintertime we grew mostly strawberries here which didn't seem to mind the part shade.

Listed below are some of the tropical fruit trees we were successful in growing:

For more details on how to grow your food sustainably, visit:  www.growyourownfood.com.au