Permaculture advises: growing a minimalist garden (that requires the least amount of work!)

If you are those kind of people that prefer to start the garden and then do nothing, this is for you.
This is a list of plants to make a permaculture edible garden, made of perennials, that once you start, there is almost no further work required. Some vegetables are perennials, other are self-seeders.


Some plants for a minimalist garden:

Perennials for greens (spacing indicated)

• 9-star broccoli .... 100cm
• Daubenton's kale ... 60 cm
• Good king henry (bitter taste) .... 30 cm
• Sea beet (tolerates sandy soils) .... 30 cm
• Tree collards .... 100 cm
• Skirret .... 25 cm
• Sea kale .... 90 cm

Perennials for salad use

• Ḿitsuba (can grow in part shadow) .... 15 cm
• Musk mallow .... 30 cm
• Pink purslane (acid soil, and shadow) ... 15 cm
• Salad burnet (alkaline soil) .... 20 cm
• Chicory .... 20 cm
• Garlic cress ... 30 cm
• Ramsons or wild garlic (for shadow) ... 10 cm
• Sorrel ... 25 cm
• Turkish rocket ... 50 cm
• Watercress ... 15 cm
• Everlasting onions ... 15 cm
• Tree onions .... 20 cm
• Welsh onions .... 20 cm

Perennial 9-star broccoli, can give many crops if you keep cutting them.

Self-seeders for greens

• Fat hen 
• Swiss chard ... 25 cm 
• Alexanders .... 50 cm

Self-seeders for salad use 

• Chickweed (can grow in part shadow) ... grow without thinning
• Lamb's lettuce ... 10 cm
• Winter purslane (tolerates sandy soils) ... 15 cm
• Bittercress ... 10 cm
• Land cress ... 15 cm
• Nasturtium ... 15-20cm
• Rocket ... 10 cm

The following table can help you calculate how many plants do you need to get full ground cover with perennials. The recommended spacing is described later below.

Spacing, cm ---- Plants

100 ................... 1

60 ..................... 3

30 ..................... 11

25 ..................... 16

20 ..................... 25

15 ..................... 44

10 .................... 100

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Our complete list of vegetables growing: now 38!

Many vegetables:

• Tomatoes (different varieties), 11 plants
  
• Eggplant, 1 plant
• Peppers, 3 plants
• Cucumber, 3 plants

• Pumpkin (muskat provence), 2 plants
• Zucchini, 3 plants (now blooming)
  

• Spinach, several plants
• Lettuce (different varieties), several plants
• Rucula, several plants
  
• Swiss-chard (two varieties), several plants

• Broccoli, several plants (very beautiful, still untouched by pests)
  
• Kohlrabi (purple variety), several plants
• Leek, several plants
• Garlic, several plants
• Carrots (including purple haze variety), several plants
• Radish, several plants
• Beets, several plants
• Hamburg Parsley (roots), two plants
  
• Celery, several plants
• Celeriac, a few still small plants (crop was mainly eaten by slugs)
• Chicory, a few still small plants (crop was mainly eaten by slugs)
  

• Potatoes and black potatoes, several plants
• Beans (different varieties), several plants
• Peas, a few plants (crop has failed)
• Chick peas, a few plants
• Lentils, a few plants (crop is doing badly, maybe due to cool weather)

Alternative and perenial (rare) vegetables:

• Good King Henry, 1 plant
• Yacon, 1 plant
• Tiger Nuts, several plants (delicious tubers!)
  
• Chinese artichokes, several plants
• Jerusalem artichokes (tupinamps), 4 plants
  
• Skirret, 2 plants
  
• Peanuts, 4 plants (they struggle against the cool climate)
  
• Sweet potatoes, 1 plant (now sprouting indoors)
  
• Strawberry spinach, 3 plants
  

Berries:

• Blueberry
• Raspberry
• Strawberry (two varieties)
• Elderberry
  

Herbs:

• Strawberry mint (delicious smell!)
  
• Savory
• Wormwood
• Thyme
• Lavanda
• Parsley
• Chives
• Catnip
• Lemon verbena (delicious tea!)
• Lemon grass
  
• Lemon balm
  
• Bergamot herb (still very small)
• Coriander (still small, slugs have eaten a lot of them)
  

Citrus trees:

• Lemon tree
• Bergamot tree

Flowers:

• (To be updated soon)

Things that we currently try to grow:

• Quinoa (sprouts but then fails, since it requires hot weather)
• Millet (we couldn't sprout it yet)
• Rice (sprous but then fails to grow)
• Mung beans (still very small since it requires hot weather)
• Salsify (sadly, it has rotted, or eaten by slugs, last week)
• Wheat, Oats
  
• Amaranth
  
• Cumin
  
• Flaxseed
• Soy beans (maybe they will fail to grow, due to the cool climate)

Overall, we have about 38 edible vegetables species growing!!
In our small city garden, that had only 3-4 hours of direct sunlight.

We experiment with a lot of biodynamic planting, and companion planting.
This week, we will apply a nettle liquid-composted fertilizer that is an extremely rich one!

Click on more photos to see!

Some vegetable rarities....

Strawberry spinach


Chinese artichokes

Current photos

Lovely flowers...


Lemon grass, lemon verbena, lemon bergamot, and a baby lemon tree!


Zucchini, growing in a container full of compost: how happy it is!!


From garden to dinner room!


Row of summer flowers... Yeah!


Tiger nuts sprouting: one of our major permaculture achivements!


Swiss chard: anyone can grow this, even in a shadow garden!


Beautifullll blue and rose flowers! We want butterflies and bees, remember?


Our baby fast-growing pumpkin plant: she grows 5 cm every day!!


Our Yacon: it is a tropical plant but can be grown in Europe, and it gives a huge ammount of edible tubers, and better, than potatoes, no pests, huge yields, and is perenial!