Permaculture for Renters :: regenerative design for the landless many || SEO.....

I briefly mentioned this technique in another post, but I wanted to throw up a picture for visual-learner types (like me!). This is a great way not to waste money on those silly little plastic plant labels that you buy at nurseries:

Take a 1 quart plastic yogurt container and make vertical cuts about 3/4″ apart all the way to the bottom. [pictured below]

Then make a cut all around the base of the container, snipping off each tab.  You can cut them to whatever size is appropriate for the pot they’re going into, and they’re easy to write on with a permanent marker, or better yet a grease pen or crayon (more UV and rain resistant).

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It feels like I have a new favorite guerilla-planting every week, and this week, it’s this amazing stenciled utility sink planter on the corner of SE 25th and Ivon in Portland. File under f’n awesome.

This one gets major points for the following reasons:

• Displays polycultural planting in a small space, with tomato, beans, lettuce, basil. (That said, it’s probably planted a little too densely, with one tomato and one bean plant too many.)
• Upcycles an old utiliy sink.
• Water that drains out of the sink flows into another planter below the sink planted with lettuces, which thrive in the shady microclimate underneath.
• Great signage (“Respect Our Local Food” & “Niche Repurposing Public Space”)
• Beautiful stenciling.
• Placement directly on the corner demands attention, but it’s still out of the way enough for pedestrians to navigate around.

A reader recently requested a post with more resources for container gardening, specifically, types of containers to use, and where to get them.  I’m going to split it up into two installments: this post will discuss upcycled container ideas when visual aesthetics aren’t so much an issue, and I’ll follow up next week with one looking at containers to use when they’ll be subject to a more discerning eyes. (That follow-up post here.)

Here are some of my favorite things to use for container gardens when a rough, upcycled aesthetic is OK:

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