Tips for balcony farmers

With a mixture of hard work, ingenuity and permaculture techniques, this passionate urban farmer has created an oasis of plenty on her rooftop terrace, writes SALLY FELDMAN

Taking a stroll through the orchard, market garden and meadow at Wendy Chew Lee’s property doesn’t take long at all. What sounds like a grand rural estate is, in fact, the 100m2 penthouse terrace of a low-rise apartment block on Sydney’s North Shore. “The balcony runs along the northern, western and southern sides of the block, so each ‘garden’ has different growing conditions,” says Wendy. “And the balcony is a heat sink, so conditions up here feel more subtropical than temperate.”

Wendy’s bountiful ‘farm’ is a triumph of ingenuity, hard work and the enthusiastic adoption of permaculture principles and techniques. “We try to live as sustainable and regenerative a life as possible,” she says. Wendy completed a permaculture design certificate about five years ago, after a few false starts. “I’d made every mistake in the book,” she admits, “planting whatever I saw in stores, without thought as to whether they were suited to the container situation or my skill level. With minimal success – and a lot of spent soil

– I realised I had to adapt to the unique conditions prevailing on the balcony.”

She has since gained huge followings on Instagram and her blog, Up on the Rooftop, which chart her transformation of a small urban space into a produce powerhouse.

The south-facing Park houses The Shed – a work area with composting systems – and wall-hung boxes of floral displays that can be seen from the kitchen window. On the western side is The Orchard, with citrus trees, including lemon, orange, grapefruit, lime and pomelo, cosying up to peach

CLOCKWISE FROM OPPOSITE

Wendy tending crops in her raised vegie beds; the Market Garden; every available spot on the balcony is used, including the vertical space; there are hanging ower boxes and various composting systems in

e Shed area; a baby pumpkin grows on a vine wrapped around a milk-crate tower.

and nectarine, plus a raised garden bed bordered by boxed vertical plantings.

Tucked into this space is a dining area, edged by vertical gardens, where Wendy and her husband, Owen, enjoy the fruits of her labour. The north-facing Market Garden is a mix of permanent vegetable beds and mobile containers, where fruits including mulberry, blueberry, mango and babaco (champagne fruit) flourish, aided by the busy residents of two hives of native bees. Here, also, is The Meadow – a frangipani underplanted with spring flowers.

growth factors

It was her parents, immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1950s, who lit the gardening spark in Wendy. Many of their favourite fruits and vegies weren’t available, so they grew their own. “My earliest memories are of digging around in the garden with Dad, and the smell of chicken manure. I love cows and anything poo-ey!” she laughs.

“If you’re not a gardener, you don’t get it. That’s why I go to the Sydney Royal Easter Show – to get among the farm animals.”

When their two adult children flew the nest, it was time for Wendy, Owen and Hachi the dog to downsize. And time to get serious about lifestyle changes as well. “Gardening is my meditation and therapy for chronic anxiety,” says Wendy. “Being in touch with nature in a very intimate way – understanding the cycles of life and the symbiosis that happens in the garden – is so humbling.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP

Netting covers fruit trees in e Orchard, protecting ripening fruit from wildlife; a grapevine that Wendy planted in a sawn-o drainpipe trails along a handbuilt wire support above head height; two hives of native bees are positioned in the Market Garden, where they help pollinate the vegie and fruit owers; Wendy likes to eat all the colours of the rainbow; there’s a range of containers here, from a terracotta pot to fabric growbags, as well as planter boxes on brackets suspended from the ledge.

A self-described “regenerative organic urban farmer”, Wendy has distilled what she’s learnt from permaculture philosophy and techniques into something that can be applied to any container garden. “The practices I employ are very much focused on soil fertility, crop rotation, cover cropping (growing certain crops for the benefit of the soil), curtailing the use of fertilisers and pesticides, and promoting biodiversity,” she says. “Composting is a major focus. I have a mini share-waste scheme with one of my neighbours, where I’m able to compost her kitchen waste and supply her with food.”

Wendy’s philosophy is simple: “Nature behoves us to listen and observe as we work on our gardens. Too often I see gardeners trying for quick fixes, overusing fertilisers and pesticides, instead of working with their garden’s micro-environment and determining the cause and effect of everything they do. The long-term solution to problems lies in an understanding of soil and plant health and nutrition. Even in a container garden, healthy soil is the answer to many a gardener’s woes. I look to that as the number one focal point and, with harsher weather conditions becoming more prevalent, focusing on appropriate plantings for my microclimate.”

maximising space

Producing more than 70kg of edible crops in a year, Wendy maximises the health and productivity of the soil while making the most of the space. Every plane is utilised, from wall-hung pots and planters, to grow bags and containers set on castors, which are moved for optimal sunlight according to the season – even grapevines sprouting from sawn-off drainpipes are squeezed into a tight, inhospitable space. “I cut the pipes down to 50cm then dug them 2cm down into the soil of a raised bed, stuck in stakes to keep them stable, and backfilled with compost and soil,” Wendy says. “They took off. You can grow corn this way, too.”

Trained along a homemade trellis, the grapevines now offer summer shade for a west-facing bank of windows. “I just put up soft-gauge wire – much of what is on my balcony is cobbled together,” Wendy laughs. “It’s all about maximising your space – using horizontal planes for benches, where possible, and raising beds off the balcony floor to access the light and for airflow. Having the different levels adds visual interest, too.”

It also helps to keep the floor clean, but what about water leakage, or other concerns from the neighbours below?

The balcony is enclosed and has efficient drainage, and Wendy rarely uses a hose, so there’s little surface run-off, apart from rain. She has self-watering pots and other wicking systems, such as ollas (from the Spanish for ‘pot’), which are porous terracotta pots that are buried up to their necks in the soil and filled with water. These are efficient, slow-release ways of keeping plants happily hydrated and a compact urban roof space clean and dry.

As for all that lovely produce, well, Wendy leaves the cooking to Owen. “I’m a really bad cook,” she says. “We wouldn’t have been able to be so self-sustaining with the kids at home, but with just a couple of people, the quality of the eating is different – everything is fresh, everything is organic. And the food is nutrient-dense, because there are no transport miles involved.”

Her balcony farm has not only changed the way Wendy eats, but also the way she lives. She sees her gardening in terms of stewardship, about nurturing biodiversity, which leads onto the effect on the broader community and the planet. “It starts from the microbiome in the soil,” she says. “When you understand how fragile, how complex and how well-designed the whole ecosystem is, suddenly you have a respect for something bigger than yourself, and that you’re just part of it.”