Real Live Permaculture

Last week I had my first experience of volunteering in a permaculture garden in Totnes. I’m staying with friends of mine here for a few weeks so it was great to discover a wwoof host in the town just a few minutes walk away. For those of you who don’t know WWOOF it stands for world wide opportunities on organic farms and provides a service that enables people who want to volunteer to connect with individuals, small holdings, farms and communities who are practicing organic growing and sustainable living and are happy to provide food and accommodation to volunteers in return for their labours.

The garden I was working in has been developed by Cathy Ashley over 18 years and has seen many changes. At the moment the main features of the front garden are annual and perennial beds, fruit trees, fruit canes and a salad bed near the house.  The back garden has a sunny seating area, a pond, a duck bath, a potting shed and a lean to greenhouse using recycled aluminium windows is planned next to a larger shed used as a living space. It was also home to ducks ‘Mocha’ and ‘Tahini’ who do a very good job of eating slugs, providing delicious duck eggs and fertiliser in the form of duck poo. Over the years Cathy has tried and tested many different permaculture, biodynamic and organic growing methods and so has a lot of practical knowledge about what does and doesn’t work. It was a reminder that it’s one thing to read about the theory and another thing completely to put it into action. As E. F Schumcher said in ‘Small is beautiful’

“An ounce of practical experience is worth a ton of theory”

After 18 years Cathy has a ton of practical experience she was generous enough to share with me. It was both inspiring but also a little daunting for someone just starting out on their permaculture journey, however as I wrote in an earlier post ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ and it felt great to be getting some hands on experience of ‘real live' permaculture.

 Mocha the duck

Earlier in the week I spent some time sorting and bagging compost and after learning about soil ecology on my permaculture course from soil expert Alex Penn it was interesting to see how long it takes for things like egg shells, avocado skins and stones to break down. Apart from the worms, woodlice and beetles I could see wriggling about in the compost, there are also 1-16 million bacterial species per gram of soil making it an incredibly complex eco-system in it’s own right. Apparently a teaspoon of soil contains more diversity than the entire mammalian kingdom and has more inhabitants than there are human beings on earth- mind-boggling!  The fact that it takes 100-1000 years for 1 inch of top soil to be laid down means it really makes sense to have a compost bin in your garden if you are able as every little helps. Especially when you look at the rate of soil degradation world wide and the evidence that shows if we carry on our present agricultural practices it could all be gone within 200 years – a sobering thought when you consider the projected global population of 9 billion.

Soil health is our health
But rather than spending too much time focusing on the problem, Permaculture provides some practical solutions although the issue of how scaleable they are remains. However no till methods, mulching, composting and re-vegetation (eg: more plants less concrete) provide a way back to knowledge from a time when people didn’t have supermarkets to rely on for their daily sustenance. When you begin to think about supermarkets reliance on non-renewable energy it becomes a little easier to care about things like soil health and helping to create healthy soil by composting your green waste or if that’s not possible finding a community green waste service that can do it for you.


Two out of Three Sisters Guild

As I mentioned earlier the practical application of Permaculture is dependant on many factors and it’s part of the design process to look at whether they are limiting or can be resourcefully turned into a positive. This approach is at the heart of the design process and as someone who has spent much of my life being restricted by self-limiting beliefs is why it appeals to me so much. We decided to have a go at planting a three sisters guild and an apple guild using the resources we had already available in the garden.  Guilds are an excellent example of applying the beneficial connections principle as they mimic the natural co-operation of species in ecosystems based on their mutual interdependence. By grouping plants and animals together we can use their special qualities to benefit humans whilst creating habitat.

We did our own version of the popular Native American ‘Three Sisters’ guild of corns, beans and squash because we were using a pot made of tyres we only had room for two of the sisters namely the corn and the beans as the third sister squash, used to provide a living leaf mulch on the soil to retain moisture and suppress weeds would not fit in the planting space we had available. We also planted some of the apple guild plants around two of the apple tree’s after making raised beds around the trunks using bottles and old tiles. Apart from recycling and looking pretty, the other benefit of the bottles is the air inside them heats up and in turn heats up the soil. We planted peas for nitrogen fixing, comfrey for mulching in place and some daffodils in the outer ring to suppress grass competing with tree roots for nutrients. Cathy will add some plants that attract insects for pollination and act as pest control soon to complete the apple guild. I am really drawn to the idea of guilds as it embodies the idea of individual survival through co-operation that I think is so important for the human species now, rather than purely focusing on the dominant mind-set of competition. Of course in reality there is both co-operation and competition but somehow the competitiveness of species in an ecosystem is contained within the continuing co-operative evolution that has been happening for millions of years. By understanding the relationships within ecosystems there is a lot we can learn about how to improve our own relationships with each other and with nature.

Two of the three sisters, corn and beans are in this guild 

Cathy planting peas in the apple guild

In the Forest Garden
On Thursday Cathy had arranged for us to visit the Agroforestry Research Trust Forest Garden http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/ next to the Schumacher College.  Forest gardens are food production and land management systems based on woodland eco-systems but formed with trees (fruit and nut), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables that provide a high yield of food using ‘low maintenance’ perennial plants.  Unlike monocultures in traditional agriculture, the concept of stacking (ie making use of vertical space) is used to create different layers of plants and increase strength and stability of the system through biodiversity. Although my plant identification skills leave a lot to be desired I was able to recognise current bushes and some herbs in amongst the many plants. One of the herbs I recognised was Lovage, reminiscent of parsley and celery in leaf shape and smell. It was used as herbal remedy for sore throats and upset stomach. The seeds, leaves and stems have a similar flavour to celery with a lemony twist and can be used in soups, salads and rice dishes. I like the look of this chilled pea and lovage soup, could make a nice change from gazpacho for a summer soup maybe?  

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/recipes/chilled-pea-and-lovage-soup-1748109.html

This has set me on a path of researching other perennial herbs no longer in common use so when I find some tasty sounding ones I will share them with you..

Lovely Lovage