Jason Gerhardt 's Profile
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- Joined: 10 Feb 2011
- Last Updated: 12 Feb 2011
- Location: Boulder, Colorado, United States
- Climate Zone: Cold Temperate
- Gender: Male
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My Permaculture Qualifications
- Advanced Permaculture Design
- Type: Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course
- Verifying teacher: Andrew Millison
- Other Teachers: Scott Pittman, Arina Pittman, rico zook
- Location: Arizona and New Mexico
- Date: Aug 2005
- Permaculture Design Course
- Type: Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course
- Verifying teacher: Andrew Millison
- Other Teachers: Brad Lancaster, Barbara Rose
- Location: Arizona
- Date: Jan 2005
- Permaculture Teacher Training
- Type: Teacher Training
- Verifying teacher: Scott Pittman
- Other Teachers: Larry Santoyo
- Location: Pojoaque, NM
- Date: Aug 2011
1
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Climate Zones
Jason Gerhardt has permaculture experience in:- Alpine
- Cold Temperate
- Cool Temperate
- Mediterranean
- Arid
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Urban Apartment Design
After never living in an apartment before, I find myself designing on different terms in the urban core. It is turning out that I rather like it!
Being a permaculture designer as a home renter has always been a challenge. My partner and I have lived together for 7 years, but never before in an apartment. We always had a large yard to design in for garden, compost, wastewater recycling, sanity, etc. After moving out of a small town in the foothills to the city of Boulder, Colorado, USA, we ended up in an apartment due to being unable to afford a single family home, in addition to Boulder having only a 4% vacancy rate, meaning the rental market is nearly as tight as it gets. In the mountains, we got tired of the short warm season and more tired of using our car to commute to our work places. We decided to move into the city where most of our friends live and most of our work takes place. It has been strange getting used to the industrial urban environment in our part of town, but we are giving it a go to try and live as near to our values as possible. It turns out, we rather like it!
10 months ago, after searching far and wide for a suitable place to live, work from, and enjoy, we landed in a 465 sq ft. standalone apartment in a newer mixed use development in the heart of the city. I was attracted to this newer development because I knew the building standards would be better than older complexes, featuring greater insulation, newer windows, and a smattering of green building concepts. The apartment that was for rent turned out to have phenomenal cross draft ventilation for summer cooling and a modest passive solar design for winter heating. It also featured excellent natural daylighting reducing our need for electric lights. We have yet to use the air conditioner, and winter heating is minimal, especially on nights that we cook squash, bread, or the like in the oven! In such a small space our oven serves multiple functions of cooking, heating, and taste bud tingling aromatherapy! Better still, our bedroom is in a loft-like upstairs where heat collects to keep us warm in the winter with no nightlong heating required. Our energy bills are miniscule compared to our single family home dwelling friends, and we like it that way.
Most homes are far too large anyway. If we really design well we can make significantly smaller spaces highly functional. There is a large movement of 'small housers' around the world, who take pride in living in small dwellings as they save significant amounts of money and energy, in construction costs, utility bills, maintenance, and repair. We like to think of ourselves as having joined this movement through our tiny apartment selection.
In addition to our energy savings and smaller footprint in housing, our location is key as well. We can walk and bike most anywhere in town due to a convenient creekside path a block away that connects us to multiple other pedestrian paths around town. The farmer's market is only a 10 minute bike ride, a natural food store only a 5 minute walk, friends, clients, etc, similarly convenient to access via foot or pedal. Not only does our living in this urban environment save us from driving our car, but it makes us feel a lot better and more connected to the world in the open air of pedestrianism.
The biggest downfall to living here as I first saw it was that we had no soil space to cultivate food from, but once I understood the direct sun angles as they hit our patio and other areas I began dreaming up a luxuriant container garden. Since we moved in in the Fall we didn't get to experiment much until this Spring. The time lag allowed me to understand the site a lot better making for better results.
The challenge was how I was going to come up with 50+ large containers to grow food in. We had 4-5 large containers that we used to grow tomatoes in the mountains, but nothing more. The design for the containers was rather specific in that they needed to be large enough to support the growth of crops like peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, cabbages, etc. We also need the containers to be light in color so as not to over heat from the strong direct sun that our climate affords us. Lastly, I needed the containers to be attractive so my neighbors and the homeowners association wouldn't cause a stir. I began to search online trading posts such as craigslist, but only acquired three big containers that way. These were nice ceramic and wooden containers, but too expensive to furnish the whole patio with. I then happened upon a huge supply of full sized 5 gallon buckets from a mead maker in an industrial strip down the road. I realized they weren't the most attractive option, but they were free, salvaged from the wastestream, light in color, and large enough. I decided to use the buckets on my private patio area and put the more attractive containers down by the street and in view of the public.
Attractive containers at street level
Planted bucket garden hidden from public view on our patio in late Spring
We made a soil blend for the buckets of local compost that only cost us $1 per self-serve bucket, free woodchips from a scrap yard, and a little purchased potting soil and perlite. After drilling drainage holes, we put two inches of woodchips in the bottom of each container for drainage, and filled the rest with a mixed blend of compost and a quart each of potting soil and perlite for every container. Then we sowed seeds, or planted seedlings that we raised on our south-facing windowsill. For containers with transplants we mulched on top with woodchips to conserve moisture as well. All totaled, the garden only cost us under $90 in materials.
Exuberant growth in the container garden
Things have grown pretty well in these containers. The compost was a little hot with Nitrogen in the beginning so some of the direct sown seeds didn't do so well, but the transplants loved it. We started out harvesting spinach, kale, arugula, and komatsuna for salads, then came on the swiss chard and lettuce. We are now eating tomatoes, some greens that we moved to the shade, green beans, figs, and soon sweet peppers, zucchini, and cucumbers. In addition, we have all kinds of culinary herbs, flowers, and oyster mushroom logs. This garden is not extraordinarily productive, but enough to keep us excited, vitamined and mineraled, and ever curious to preserve the beginner's mind.
Squash, cukes, figs, tomatoes, galore!
I now see the need for a large compost pile once my plants are done for the year to turn the vines and leaves back into soil. Our kitchen worm bin will not suffice, so I am writing a proposal to the HOA to put up a community compost bin in the neighborhood.
Kitchen worm bin working wonderfully, ready for harvest of casting
I have learned a lot about which species and varieties do best in containers. We stuck to non-hybrids, mostly heirlooms, and trialed numerous varieties of each species. Next year I expect our yield to double based on our experiments. Right now I am looking forward to my morning forays between the vines to find fruits to eat out of hand, as well as the huge amount of Fall greens I expect to produce.
Marconi pepper, with over 20 peppers on each plant, quite productive in containers!
Swiss chard has been a strong producer in containers
All in all, our less than year long experiment in the urban wilderness is going well and we look forward to continuing to live up to the permaculture ethics in our current situation. Through utilizing the design principles we are realizing that permaculture is most honestly and effectively applied wherever we find ourselves, not in some distant vision of the world as we want it to be.
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