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I plan to, in the forthcoming days to create a small guerrilla permaculture plot at the small creek next to my house. The property is public and owned by the city and as such is “illegal” for me to plant there. The first step I will have to accomplish is to find a spot where the city maintenance crew will not just mow over it as well as a spot where I won’t be harassed by the law. I will also have to choose a spot that will minimize the threat of vandalism being used against the garden.

Then I will have to assemble the materials I will require to create my very small, experimental plot. First I will take some old paper grocery bags I have lying about the house and cut off the tops of them leaving about 4 to 6 inches left in the bottom of the bag. I will then fill the bottom of my grocery bag with soil from the garden I planted in my backyard.

Next I will take some mulching materials which I will locate from some source either at or near my house, the cut off part of the bag, a bucket, the clipped bag with the soil in it, a wooden stake about 3 to 4 feet long, possibly some newspaper (if I can find some), the left over morning glory seeds I collected last season, a spade and either a hammer, rock or brick to the plot site I have selected.

I will then clear a spot there, soak the cut off part of the bag and newspaper thoroughly with water from the creek using my bucket. Then I will lay down some of the mulch approximately 3 to 5 inches deep on top of the site, followed by the soaked paper bag trimmings. The bags and mulch will keep the weeds from coming up by depriving them of an easy growth path, sunlight, and oxygen but by soaking them it will make it possible for my plant’s roots to establish themselves below the bag and into the mulch when they mature.

Next I will place the grocery bag planter on top of the prepared site and hammer it into place with the stake which will not only keep the bag in place but will also provide a growing structure for the morning glories when they mature.

I will then soak the soil and planter thoroughly to allow for germination and surround the planter with organic mulch to somewhat disguise it and to prevent “weeds” from over growing the surrounding site which could easily deprive my seedlings of light or even infiltrate the planter from above. I will also very lightly cover the soil with organic material to keep airborne seeds from contaminating it and to help keep the soil moist. The covering mulch will also get a soaking.

From time to time, I will venture over to water this planter and as the seedlings begin to mature, I will add more and more mulch to protect the soil from invasion and keep it moist. Hopefully all will go according to plan and I will keep this page updated with the outcome of my experiment. If all goes well, I will create a much larger plot next season using the same or slightly modified techniques which should be replicable by almost anyone. The cost of this concept is pretty minimal, and should consist of only soil (If you don’t have any that is usable) and seeds as pretty much anything else I will use here can be obtained from home or can be acquired or recycled for free.

The two reasons that I chose this method are that I did not want to have to use to much physical labor and also that I have virtually no money, so this technique can be applied virtually anywhere and modified to fit whatever your needs are. Some variations of this could include contour planting in between rows in a conventional backyard garden with the incorporation of a drip hose system. Just lay the hose under the bags and/or under the conventional rows in your garden and all you have to do then is to connect the hose with your faucet, turn it on and not really have to do much else but harvest or plant.