BOOK REVIEW - Permaculture in Pots

Permaculture in Pots – How to grow food in small urban spaces

Juliet Kemp (London, UK – Zone 9)

Beyond some permaculture basics the format is a calendar of container garden activities, each featuring an herb of the month. Is it unconventional to start the calendar in November, though the supplemental information on soil and worm composting makes it as good a place as any to begin. Herbs are thoughtfully chosen to the corresponding month – in respect to the seasonality of both plant & use.

She gets the small right! There’s good advice specific to apartment dwellers and renters in very urban spaces. One good point in this regard is attracting pollinators for plants like tomatoes, squash and blueberries that require bees or other insects to make their fruit. I use containers in a yard in the city with lots of different plants flowering at different times with different sized blooms within and surrounding my yard, along with a good hedgerow along the fence. Thus I have not come across this problem, however her London examples lead me to believe this is likely in such urban jungles. The bees have been successful in keeping me from bumbling around in their stead, spreading fairy dust to make Cinderella’s pumpkins myself...but she outline how you might make this compensation if needed.

How this book makes use of, or speaks to, permaculture specifically…

Bringing the concept of permaculture to the small realm of containers is necessarily difficult. Kemp does manage to do this mostly through multiples references to big picture thinking, concept of "whole in the part", zones away from the house - as containers are fantastic is being in the nearest zone 1, compost/soil fertility as emphasized mainly through worms, importance of site selection and observation, zonal considerations (and how that related to the permie focus on perennials).

Her initial audience may be limited, but a broader application of the core/fundamentals she presents is greatly usable for everyone growing in containers or small spaces. Containers are on the reused/found/cheap/practical side throughout the book (right down to a garbage bag in a good-sized box to address the special peculiarities of growing potatoes). Though this does make for a reliance on plastics (and I question some of the health effects of hot plastic) the antioxidant superiority of fresh veg could cancel out or even greatly exceed the risk. It is for each gardener to decide. At times, Haitian refugees-in-their-own-country due to devastating earthquakes were growing food in tires because it was the reality imposed upon them to make ground to feed themselves.

A great thing she added to a container book, let alone a gardening book was Heat Zones. The mention of it intrigued me, and when I investigated further I found that it is the counterbalance to the USDA Zones you are used to hearing about. Portland and Houston are both in Zone 8 where the excessive minimum temperature is expected to be from 15 to 20 degrees F, however the heat zones are radically different as they represent the average number of days above 86 degrees F (30 degrees C). Portland is in Zone 1, where less than one day above 86 degrees is the norm, whereas Houston is in Zone 9, where on average  a whopping 121 to 150 scorching days can be expected. Check an upcoming post for what that means. A good book should always pique your curiosity to learn further though, and this one definitely did that.

Overall: 4/5

Points for: Seasonal Recipes, Herb of the Month, Foraging Tips, Succinct plans for laying out growing areas on a balcony, numerous how-to’s including self-watering containers and a cold frame.