(2/13) Small-scaled polycultures for the backyard

Have you ever paid attention to those labels on the fresh produce indicating their country of origin? I was amused and dismayed. It seems much of the produce I eat in the winter has traveled farther than I have. That is one reason I garden and try to put up summer produce for winter dinners. I have a goal to eat at least one food item produced on our land every day. I’m getting close.

I started small. My first plot may have been 120 square-feet. It was a start. Even on a small plot, tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and green beans can yield quite a bit, enabling a small degree of independence from the corporate food system.

Do you even have a little space for personal food production? It doesn’t have to be a plot of repurposed lawn. It can be edible plants mixed among the perennial foundation plantings or in the mix of plants in the annual border lining the sidewalk. It can even be containers on the deck.

Well-designed containers that include an assemblage of herbs can be placed right outside the back door for quick access at dinnertime. Many vegetables can be grown in containers, limited only by the room needed for the plant’s roots. Tomatoes, and even potatoes, can be grown in bags of garden soil!

Several vegetables are good candidates for mixing into the flower beds. These are usually leafy green vegetables, like spinach, lettuce, chard, kale, and many easily managed herbs. Be careful of rambunctious mint family members! They can quickly overtake your other plantings and are best kept in containers.

Size-appropriate vegetables, possibly peppers and tomatoes, work well too. As a backdrop, think of a hummingbird’s favorite – scarlet runner beans grown on a trellis. Tomatoes and peppers do well interplanted with flowers since they are insect pollinated, making this vegetable-flower combination an example of a polyculture.

Polyculture is a form of gardening that involves the production of food along with plants which have other functions in the same growing environment. When I grow dill along with calendula and green beans, I create a small ecosystem. This combination has mutual benefits. Bush green beans are quite productive in a small space, and with the help of Rhizobium bacteria, they turn nitrogen from the air into plant food. Calendula flower petals are added to salads and can be used to color rice. It also provides nectar and pollen for bees and butterflies. Dill is an enjoyable herb for us, and food for swallowtail butterfly caterpillars. If left to flower, it is food for the tiny bees.

The general idea of a polyculture is that every element – tree, shrub, vine, perennial, vegetable, annual, flower and herb, even edible mushrooms, has more than one job. They can be:

• Food for wildlife as well as people,

• Herbs for teas and seasonings,

• Biomass for soil health (Plant material that composts in place, forming organic matter),

• Nitrogen fixers (Legumes),

• Nutrient accumulators (Comfrey),

• Nectar and pollen production,

• Ground cover (Wild Ginger, Creeping Thyme).

You don’t have to strictly use native species, but it is good to include as many as practical to meet your goals.

A plant grouping designed to meet these goals is referred to as a guild. If the space we have is large, we can build a guild with many interacting components, developing an ecosystem that can support a lot of wildlife – insects, birds, and maybe turtles, frogs and toads, too. In a garden this size, including some sort of water feature, even a bird bath, is helpful to the creatures living in this space.

With good planning, a small backyard can support a guild, too. Two small or dwarf trees and two shrubs with accompanying herbs can fit into a 20-foot by 12-foot plot. The plants in a guild should have similar requirements for nutrients, pH, water and light. Acid-loving blueberries are not a good fit because their acidic pH needs are not compatible with most other plants you probably want. Be aware of plants with a tendency to spread.

Practical trees for a small guild are dwarf fruit trees or pawpaw’s. Dwarf fruit trees are easy to maintain, produce fruit within a few years of planting and allow space for other species. There are several shrubs that work, and many I would not have considered before researching this topic, including red and black currants. The brambles – raspberries and blackberries – ramble, so be careful. A fig needs protection from cold, and especially wind. I wrap mine for the winter, but since the growing tips usually die back, the tree has become shrub-like with new shoots sprouting from the roots. Be careful to pick plants suited for USDA Growing Zone 6.

Another consideration is being sure the plants you choose are deer and rabbit resistant unless you intend to fence the area. And expect birds to take a share of small fruits and berries. That has limited the plants I use.

The rest of your guild should consist of the plants needed to meet the rest of the ecosystem functions. Perennials and annuals are the best choices for this. There are several legumes – nitrogen fixers (e.g., False Indigo) – and nutrient accumulators (e.g., Comfrey) which work for increasing soil health. False Indigos and Comfrey are two plants that are pollinator friendly besides filling their already mentioned functions. Herbs are also wonderful companions, though the many mint family species are too aggressive. Daffodils deter voles from chewing on fruit tree bark during the winter and the flowers are an early source of food for pollinators. Even nutrient accumulating dandelions bring early season pollinators to the apple blossoms.

What we can achieve with polyculture is a source of homegrown food and a way of bringing more nature to a backyard. It gives one’s life a little bit more balance, too.

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