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Urban Permaculture

Balcony Permaculture: Morag Gamble visits Natalie Topa’s apartment in Nairobi

Posted by Morag Gamble on September 28, 2019 in Permaculture Home | 3372 Views

This ‘fifth floor farm’ in Nairobi, Kenya will amaze you.  It is permaculture in action, in experimentation – a great example of what is possible in small spaces everywhere, particularly in apartments.

My (then 12 yo) daughter filmed this conversation I had with the inspirational and innovative permaculture designer, Natalie Topa, in her apartment in Nairobi. My kids and I visited her at the end of our month journey in Uganda and Kenya working with local permaculture projects that you helped us raise fund for through Ethos Foundation and we sponsored through Permaculture Education Institute.

Balcony Permaculture

There are chickens on the balcony, mealworms in the main room,  perennials in pots, hardy herbs, greens and self-seeding vegetables, vertical trellises, edible vines for shade, habitat for wildlife, homes for pollinators, ceramic plates full of seeds being saved, mushrooms, ferments, dried foods and a tank for a future spirulina project.

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Mixed pots of herbs, vegetables, fruit, roots, medicines everywhere growing in balcony-made compost.

Permaculture for displaced people

Natalie Topa experiments relentlessly to find simple positive solutions that can make a real difference in the lives of many. She is the Regional Resilience and Livelihood Coordinator, Danish Refugee Council – which she says is essentially about sharing, exploring and adapting permaculture ideas.  She oversees teams building resilience for displaced peoples, including refugees and internally displaced peoples, in the countries of Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Yemen.

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Natalie collecting seeds from local farmers, experiments with growing them in small spaces. Access to good seed for resilient foods is essential for displaced communities.

Insights for a changing climate

For the past 16 years, she has been based in Africa and SE Asia working in community development, post-disaster recovery, post-conflict community and town planning, and community resilience and adaptation to climate extremes and disasters.  Natalie’s insights are incredibly valuable in a climate changing world, where people are already feeling the impact.

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One of Natalie’s many indoor insect experiments to produce healthy food for chickens from urban waste.

Permaculture laboratory

As we wander through her permaculture apartment in her home base of Nairobi, Natalie talks about how this balcony garden is her experimental lab for the work with displaced people who have little space, little resources and mostly waste to work with. During this conversation she shares simple permaculture design ideas that can make a huge difference and she shares some stories of how this is happening. 

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Star bean – a resilient food and tea source – as well as microclimate moderation and organic matter for soil building.

We talk about ways to use wastes, make soil on a balcony, create small ecological systems, grow a diversity of foods, produce protein and share surpluses, and explore & learn from traditional cultures.

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Eggs from balcony chickens. Natalie gets 6 eggs a day.

Balcony Garden Film with Natalie Topa (40 mins)

I hope you find this 40 minute walkabout with Natalie full of wonderful inspiration. As we walk and talk, Natalie shares so many great lessons for food resilience, learning how to live with a small footprint, getting rid of waste – and also about climate resilience, working for the common good, being a permaculture educator, being a permaculture designer…

For more information about small space permaculture design, watch my masterclass: Small Space Kitchen Garden: The Permaculture Way

Balcony Permaculture
I was so delighted to meet Natalie in her home in Nairobi and was so inspired by her work. You can follow her facebook here: Nat and Friends: Permaculture and Resilience Design 

Posted in Permaculture Home | Tagged chickens, gardening, grow food, growing food, healthy food, herbs, medicinal, permaculture, permaculture design, permaculture education, Regeneration, urban agriculture

About the Author

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Morag Gamble

MORAG GAMBLE Blog is an award-winning Australian permaculture designer, speaker, author, blogger, film-maker and teacher. She creates the popular Our Permaculture Life Blog and YouTube channel, offers online permaculture education – The Incredible Edible Garden and the Permaculture Educators Program, a combined Permaculture Design Certificate and Permaculture Teacher Certificate.

Morag is the founder and Executive Director of the Permaculture Education Institute and runs a small permaculture charity, Ethos Foundation. Each month she also offers free online monthly masterclasses.

Morag is an urban permaculture pioneer and cofounder of the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network and Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane.

Morag offers a wealth of knowledge of all things permaculture and has taught in 22 countries – she is always teaching and sharing. Morag’s natural habitat is her award-winning edible landscape at Crystal Waters Ecovillage.

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the-incredible-edible-garden
permaculture educators program
free e-book

Morag Gamble


Morag Gamble

My name is Morag Gamble and I am living and working a permaculture life. I live an ‘Off-the-Grid’ lifestyle in a permaculture village near Maleny in the subtropical part of southeast Queensland, Australia with my husband and 3 young children.

We designed and built our modular eco-home – with much appreciated help from my family. We are mortgage-free and live simply. Our income is derived from permaculture-related activities. We grow a lot of vegetables, herbs and fruit in the polycultural garden-playground surrounding our home. We collect our water, deal with our wastewater on-site and produce most of our own power.

I love this way of living and I love bringing my children up in this environment. They are Nature Kids and they are learning vital skills for resilience, compassion and future problem solving through our ecological unschooling approach.

I am also passionate about how this way of life can make a positive contribution to society and support ecological regeneration.

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Our Permaculture Life respectfully acknowledges the Gubbi Gubbi People people as the traditional custodians of the land on which our community exists and pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging. We also acknowledge them as the original designers and managers of the perennial edible landscapes and having knowledge of how to create resilience and abundance, and how communities can thrive in harmony with their environment.
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