12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden

Morag Gamble

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 1 © Morag Gamble 12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden by Morag Gamble

1. Diversify 2. Nurture Soil Life 3. Create Habitat 4. Grow Multifunctional Plants 5. Encourage Self-Seeding 6. Perennialse 7. Grow Mulch 8. Grow Hardy Plants 9. Have Flowers Everywhere 10. Eat From it Daily 11. Eat More of Each Plant 12. Involve Others

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden © Morag Gamble Our Permaculture Life [email protected] Permaculture Education Institute https://permacultureeducationinstitute.org

Permaculture Blog Subscribe to Morag Gamble’s Blog and browse hundreds of permaculture articles https://ourpermaculturelife.com/subscribe

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 2 © Morag Gamble Introduction

Whether you have a tiny city plot or a large open space, growing a thriving edible landscape can be joyful and simple if you apply these twelve tips.

Gardening with nature and using nature's strategies creates ﬂow and abundance.

All twelve tips are based on the principles of nature, how nature gardens, and the tried and tested permaculture design approach.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 3 © Morag Gamble Morag Gamble

Hi, my name is Morag Gamble and I love edible gardening - growing food at home, in the city, in community gardens, at schools, on balconies, verges - everywhere. Good food for all!

I believe that growing good food naturally is not only great for you and your family, but is needed for planetary health too.

These twelve tips I share with you here I have distilled from decades of growing food, from gardening side by side with passionate growers, from immersing myself in cultures of abundant food growing, from teaching permaculture for 25 years and from my insatiable curiosity about the wonders of plants.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 4 © Morag Gamble

1. Diversify

Grow herbs, ﬂowers, vegetables and fruits all together. The more diverse, the more variety there is to harvest for your meals. Diverse gardens are also less prone to pests and provide habitat for garden helpers. Try different varieties too. There are over 20,000 species of edible plants in the world but 90% of our food comes from just 20.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 5 © Morag Gamble 2. Nurture Soil Life

There is more life below the surface of the soil than above. This thriving ecological system, largely invisible to us, makes life possible, makes growing food possible, makes plants healthy and strong, nutritious and pest-resistant. Healthy soil is a habitat, thriving with life. Feed it, protect it, value it and recognise the central role it plays in our lives.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 6 © Morag Gamble 3. Create Habitat

Invite all the best garden helpers by creating homes for them. The best way to do this is diversity, water, food and protection. Have a protected pond or birdbath. Plant little shrubs for hiding places for insectiverous birds. Plant lots of ﬂowers for pollinators. Leave logs, mulch on the ground for lizards too. Perennial basil ﬂowers all year attracting bees. and little birds can hide in it too while they look for bugs.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 7 © Morag Gamble 4 Make Multifunctional Plants

Grow plants that have many uses in your garden - food, ﬂowers, habitat, medicine, mulch, erosion control, fodder, sun shade, windbreak. Look beyond the initial use as a food to see how it can contribute to the whole system - this helps your design better. For example, I use this plant, Edible Canna for food (tubers and young shoots), as a source of chop and drop mulch, to add to compost piles, to create in- garden windbreaks and summer shade, to feed the chickens, and provide habitat for frogs.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 8 © Morag Gamble 5. Encourage Self-Seeding

A huge gift to any gardener is the self-seeding vegetable or herb. They give so much food for free. Easy ones to encourage are tomatoes, pumpkins, mustards, radish, parsley, coriander, basil, amaranth, rocket, marigold, calendula, fennel, chives & nasturtium. Let at least 5% of your plants go to seed. Let them grow where they fall, but relocate them too if you need to. I watch what things are self-seeding and use them as a guide to what to plant when.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 9 © Morag Gamble 6. Perennialise

Perennial edibles make edible gardening a breeze. Plant them once and harvest for years. They are low maintenance, hardy, easy to grow, and provide a huge abundance of food. Make perennials a key part of your edible landscape. Some suggestions: Asparagus, Sorrel, Scarlet Runner Beans, Rhubarb, Sweet Potato, Kales, Garlic Chives, Cranberry Hibiscus, Jerusalem Artichokes, Brazilian Spinach…

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 10 © Morag Gamble 7. Grow Mulch

Mulch is essential to protect soil life, prevent nutrients and water from evaporating, adding organic matter into the soil and improving its structure. Try to always have something growing to chop and drop. it saves you money, and saves transporting materials. Many plants can be used for chop and drop. Use plants such as Comfrey, Canna, Lemongrass, Pigeon Pea, Nasturtium, Acacia, Alfalfa, Oats, Buckwheat, Banana, Azolla, Fava Greens, Moringa ….

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 11 © Morag Gamble 8. Grow Hardy Plants

Grow abundant food easily by growing plants that really thrive your climate and current season. Trying to grow marginal plants takes a lot more effort, more water, input of resources, is more likely to be hit hard by pests and produce less food. Embrace the ones that thrive in your difﬁcult times.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 12 © Morag Gamble 9. Have Flowers Everywhere

Let your edible garden be full of ﬂowers and allow some of your vegetables and herbs go to seed. Not only does it look fabulous, but they help your garden grow , provide food, tea and medicine. Most herb and vegetable ﬂowers are edible - delicious in salad, are healing and refreshing teas, and are key ingredients in healing salves. Flowers also attract pollinators, confuse pests, and these plants are a source of chop and drop mulch.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 13 © Morag Gamble 10. Eat From It Daily

Simple really - if you eat from your garden everyday, you spend more time being in your incredible edible garden - observing, noticing, tending, trimming, planting . It keeps you in touch with how things are growing, what's thriving in this season, what needs planting anew, what needs feeding and watering. Wandering in your garden is a great way to ground yourself and relax, and connect with nature too.

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 14 © Morag Gamble 11. Eat More of Each Plant

You can increase the amount of food in your garden simply by looking differently at each plant. Typically most food grown is overlooked. So many have edible roots, shoots, leaves, flowers, seeds. For example: Pumpkin leaves, shoots, flowers, seeds and skin are all edible. You don't need to wait for the pumpkin to start eating from this prolific plant. Beetroot and Sweet Potato leaves are more nutritious than their tubers. Pea and broad bean leaves make great spinach.

Gardening with others is a great way to connect, build relationships and learn from each other. It also helps get some bigger gardening jobs done in a fun and social way. Gardening with children is a gentle way to share with them a hugely beneﬁcial lifeskill, and to learn so much about the world — nature, weather, seasons, soils, biology …. and cooking. Share tips and cuttings freely with others.

Join Morag to learn about her 12 key tips for growing a thriving edible garden - creating abundance with ease. https:// youtu.be/-hbgtNWPDtw

SUBSCRIBE to Morag Gamble’s Permaculture Youtube Channel

Find almost 100 other ﬁlms and classes at Morag Gamble’s Youtube Channel - Our Permaculture Life. Subscribe to keep up to date with each new ﬁlm. https://www.youtube.com/moraggambleourpermaculturelife

Morag Gamble’s online permaculture garden course

Module 1: Create Superb Soils Module 2: Set Up Your Garden Module 3: Grow Abundant Food Module 4: Food Forest Bounty Module 5: The Superfood Garden Module 6: The Medicinal Garden

COMPREHENSIVE SELF-PACED COURSE AUD297 Includes: - 6 self-paced in-depth modules - 3 bonus modules: The Beauty Garden. The Tea Garden. Cooking Up a Feast - lifetime access - practical how-to videos - private Facebook group for students and alumni - abundant resource links

REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION https://ourpermaculturelife.com/the-incredible-edible-garden/

12 Tips for a Thriving Edible Garden Page 18 © Morag Gamble Become a Permaculture Teacher Permaculture offers a simple, joyful & ethical way of life and making a living.

Permaculture Education Institute Comprehensive Self-Paced Online Permaculture Educators’ Program

• Would you like to be a qualiﬁed permaculture teacher? • Have you dreamed of making a living from your permaculture skills and creating your own home-based ethical business? • Do you want to have a positive impact and make a difference? • Would you prefer to study at your own pace, in your own place? • If you are looking for a life-path, even a career in permaculture, this program could be for you.

Morag Gamble offers the ONLY online program where you can complete both a: Permaculture Design Certiﬁcate & Permaculture Teacher Certiﬁcate

REGISTRATION AND INFORMATION Cost: AUD 1997 for 2 programs. Lifetime Access. Direct access to Morag Gamble https://permacultureeducationinstitute.org

“Life-changing” “ It’s a real privilege to learn from such a caring permaculture teacher.”