9 Tips for Creating an Urban Edible Garden with Morag Gamble

Here are my top 9 tips for creating an urban edible garden in your home or property.
1. Start with Herbs
2. Fresh Salad Greens
3. Diversity
4. Rewilding
5. Shade tolerance
6. Grow robust foods
7. Eat the whole plant
8. Make use of vertical spaces
9. Colour
Enjoy!
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Morag Gamble
moraggamble.com

[@veemcg3682]

Thank you for another enjoyable video Morag. Here in Northern Ireland I find perennial blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes, strawberries, canefruits such as raspberries and blackberries and rhubarb very easy and dependable. My other staples include all types of brassicas , onions and leeks, carrots, parsnips and swedes. As you suggest my easiest and most money saving crops are my herbs and salads as these are best used fresh and can be expensive to buy and wasteful too if you have to buy plastic bags of stuff that you can't use up before it spoils. I love making teas with my herbs and using them in homemade skincare products so I get great benefit from my garden. Apple, pear, plum and cherry trees need a bit of care, but once established here in Ireland they produce for donkeys years. I use flowers from my variegated elder tree to make my own elderflower cordial and I know others who make wine from the elderberries. Being able to garden is one of the best gifts my parents gave me and I am forever thankful to them for giving me the knowledge and skills to enjoy this hobby.

[@nickysmith164]

Fantastic, Vera. I have these fruits in my garden too, but my elderberry is on the perimeter and I've never been able to properly harvest it for champagne or cordials because I guess it needs a good pruning to bring it down to where I can reach the best fruits. At least the wild birds and my chickens enjoy them. Yes, our parents have shown us one way to Paradise. You obviously love your garden and are industrious within it 💕

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

That's lovely to hear, thank you. Your garden sounds wonderfully abundant

[@veemcg3682]

Yes I do love my garden and count my blessings that even at 60 years of age I still feel enthusiastic about growing and harvesting. Nicky your elder bush would not be harmed in the slightest by being cut back hard but it sounds like your birds and chickens are gaining nutrition from it. In this dreadful year our gardens are even more important for our health and wellbeing. There are many things I can't grow because of our wet temperate climate but we can all grow something even if it's a mint in a pot for some herbal tea.

[@spoolsandbobbins]

Rhubarb, black raspberry, Jerusalem artichoke, garlic, elderberries, currants, herbs, nasturtiums, beans nettles, potatoes and beans are super easy, pest resilient here in Nova Scotia Canada. It gets pretty cold here but potatoes, carrots, garlic and kale make it through -40’C with no problem if you insulate.

[@rickjanicki3705]

The Nigella Lawson of gardening. love the videos. Thank you.

[@tennesseenana4838]

I grew zucchini this year and had it going vertical in a tomato cage. That helped keep the bottom leaves off of the ground, more air flow and the flowers were easier for the pollinators to get to since they weren't hidden. This was my second year for growing herbs and the more I'm learning about them, the more I find I need to learn. Thank you for helping me with your very informative videos. I'm in planting zone 6b in the USA.

[@greenhillsparadise]

What a great informative video!! I love learning about all the 'other' parts of plants that you can eat. Thank you for sharing with us your knowledge and passion for permaculture and the garden :)

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

You're welcome. I just find this all so fascinating!

[@jb-zr4ez]

I've just learned so much in the last ten minutes listening to this. Thankyou.

[@sylviahufer7019]

I live in a unit and I grow my pumpkin on a trellis and they do very well

[@nickysmith164]

Hello and thank you, Morag. Here in the UK my most hardy plants that I don't need to touch once planted are Jerusalem Artichokes, Spinach, Nasturtiums, Wild Rocket and Red Veined Sorrel. I never have to replant because they seed themselves endlessly 😍😍

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thanks for sharing! It definitely helps to have self-seeding plants

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thanks for sharing that 🌿

[@thisearththeonlyheaven]

Hi Morag, I am a bit further up the coast, and the ongoing drought isn’t making it easy to have a thriving garden. Oh for some soaking rain, then my loofahs might go crazy for me! Cassava and pigeon peas are two of my easy grow favourites, but there are others. I find Jicama yam bean ( Pachyrhizus erosus), another tasty crunchy tuber, grows better than the yacon for me in my clay soil with our dry/wet periods. Aibika (Abelmoschus manihot) is a perennial leafy green that seems easy to grow, and fairly hardy. Cheers

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thank you for sharing. Things like creating a food forest and using my no-dig garden method might help you to manage a lack of water in your garden. All the best

[@thisearththeonlyheaven]

@@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife I am no-digging it, and doing the food forest thing for around three years. Unfortunately this area has been in drought with record rainfall deficits for that period as well, so little moisture in the root zone. My yard is a jungle compared to my neighbours, but it won’t boom until there is some good rain. Thanks for your work.

[@svanhildnyberg7171]

I live in Norway, Europe. Perenials who survive in this climate is jerusalem artichoke, caucasian spinach, nettles and other weeds, plums, apples, alpine strawberries and other berries etc. an norwegian oregano, thyme and some other herbs, daylilies. I recently startet my garden and tries to grow as much edibles as possible. Other stuf need a frost free basement to survive. I just got my first tuber of yacon and are looking forward to harvesting in the fall.

[@rinanoya1981]

Thank you Morag

[@sharonloomis5264]

What grows in my area real good? Lambs Quarters, Dandelion, Mallow(I think), and oh dear I forget its name. What people call weeds. They taste quite good. But, I share my yard with my neighbor and her 3 Male dogs. So I smell and wash real good.

[@ehloe.]

I love that attitude 😍

[@kombumerribee7522]

Hello Morag bless you. Thankyou for sharing. Max

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thank you

[@mbetsy2011]

Thanks so much Morgan ....

[@NashvilleMonkey1000]

Morag, watch canadian permaculture legacy's newest video on spreading leaves in patches in the lawn. So many of us have giant areas of grassy lawn that are impenetrable fortresses to new seedlings, so to start planting food we have to override the lawn first. Also, to someone new, we don't know what a lot of the herb seedlings look like, and the seeds for many are so extremely tiny and they take such a long time that we end up pulling them out waiting for something more familiar to come up out of the ground.

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thank you for the suggestion. You can also have a look at my 'No Dig Garden' video. It's a very similar idea, and may help you with starting a wonderfully abundant new garden. Find it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d2q6omZofrelhrM

[@FoodForestPermaculture]

Fantastic info . Much love and respect fellow earthlings

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thanks!

[@raticallife1320]

we eat lots of italian food, so i've planted basil, chilies, oregano, onions, garlic, tomatoes . . . whatever we eat the most i plant the most :) thanks for sharing your knowledge. i have to relearn how to garden now that i'm restricted to container gardening. TOTALLY different ball game smh i feel like a failure now in the garden. guess that just means I have to learn more about container gardening :)

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

There is a lot you can do in containers. 🌿 all the best

[@raticallife1320]

@@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife thank you. trying my best. never give up :) PS if u are able to do more videos relating to container gardening that would be awesome. much love xo

[@survivormary1126]

Enjoying your video, but wondering where you live?

[@timkott1266]

Would you or have you ever needed to add basalt rock dust to your gardens to Remineralize your soil?

[@Nu_genele_dicteaza_soarta3]

I'm in a cold climate...what perennial veg for this climate? Thanks! I know the herbs, shrubs and trees.

[@lunadepana]

...I found a perennial spinach like plant here in Germany: guter Heinrich/ good king henry

[@robbieevans6536]

Gamble..That's a Scottish boarder region name.

[@AbeniPROfitness]

Cassava, dasheen, sweet potatoes, yam, edoes….super robust

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

Thank you for sharing information with us! :D

[@AbeniPROfitness]

@@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife you're most welcome. My sister and I stumbled upon one of your videos yesterday and that was it... we're hook. If possible can you do a video on how to transplant "chocolate mint" please

[@MoragGambleOurPermacultureLife]

@@AbeniPROfitness sure - great idea