Beginning Something New!

Let me begin by saying that I am a renter living my life in an apartment deep in the urban sprawl of Orange County, California in a place we call The Burrow. While I’m not new to gardening and planting, it does seem rather daunting task to change our small patio and balcony into the food forest of my dreams. Daunting but not impossible. 
So far the balcony garden and patio garden we want to create really consists of 4 little empty planter pots, 3 empty hanging baskets and a dove that has chosen to nest in the little alcove above out heads. (I call her Neddie.)  We haven’t gotten very far due to the new move and a current lack of funds but we know what we want to do and we have plans.Some of those plans have changed since we found out that there is a potential for a total of 5 hours of sunlight per day, but we plan on planting shade plants and a ton of lettuce to feed my salad habit. We also have a plot in a community garden that gets full sun all day long, so we will plant some of our more demanding plants there in order to make sure we’ve got a varied number of fruits and veggies.
We have accomplished one step in the apartment permaculture set up that I’m really excited about. We’ve brought home two baby bunnies last week that will become apartment rabbits and will eventually supply our worm bin and compost heaps with lots of nutrient rich fertilizer . In an effort to prove that permaculture has a place in even small apartment settings my husband and I thought that adding two bunnies would make a wonderful addition to our space.While they aren’t for everyone, our previous animal experience made us think that they would be a wonderful little addition to our home.  The best part is that our apartment complex doesn’t ask for a deposit for them, nor do they count towards our pet limit which is great since we are owned by two lovable, cranky kitties. The next step in this process would be to get a worm bin ready. It’s going to need to happen soon since we have the bunnies and as far as I know there isn’t any way to turn off the little poop machines. Eventually the humus the worms create would be ideal for our plants and the whole process will create a partially closed loop system, inputs of bunny food and hay aren’t readily available to us and will have to be purchased, but we have started them off with organics. Also they will be given vegetables grown on the patio just for them.
The excitement of all of this is pretty palpable but also it seems like a lot. We also have other things we would like to accomplish and it all becomes really clear to me that the one thing the whole process of moving and starting over is in the process of teaching me is patience…which I don’t have enough. I’ve always been a very results driven kind of person, but it’s a new skill I get to learn and I’m excited. Here’s to a brand new adventure! Cheers!