Fall leaves

You would think fall and winter would be a slow time for a gardener.  If you are trying to garden imitating nature though, she is very busy in the fall.  Seeds are being broadcast, frosts are knocking over dead plants for mulch, fallen leaves are forming a dense mat of composting material, hungry birds are scratching for missed seed, extra rain is compacting mulch and seed down to touch ground and humans and animals alike extend their walking border to look for roots and missed nuts -  further pushing seed to ground.  All this happens before hard frosts come and breaks open the soil through heave, wraps seeds in frozen moisture and takes a long inhale before spring.  It is amazing what frost heave will do to the soil when dying grass loosens its grip.  The soil is so light and crumbly in the spring.  Trying to recreate nature and create insectaries that require no care during the summer, happens in the fall.  To recreate all of this that nature does without strain requires extra work initially.  Permaculture and no-till gardening doesn’t mean no work, there is much mulching to be done and in the beginning creating beds is a primary job.  Creating insectaries is vitally important not only to the garden, but to the health of the environment around you.  So many people create death zones by mowing acres and acres of grass.

Kittens after a hard day helping in the garden

Disturbing the Edge

Intentional wild space along edge of path in new orchard

For a time I lived on the edge and walked the line between hell and disease, an out of balance waking nightmare that ended in collapse. But the darkness in that edge proved fruitful, though I wouldn't know it for  years.  The old way of being and thinking were broken down, the seeds planted by books, friends and through meditation; and that wouldn't have happened without a total physical collapse and change of the old paradigm.  A new edge had to be created.  Now 13 years later I am closer to finding balance and am certainly more fruitful.  The edge can be a most productive place.

A wild space nature created along edge of burnt place

The creation of edge means the death or absence of one thing and life for another.  The edge for all life changes and is the transition point.  As the shrubs and then the trees eventually move into a field, the edge changes, new shadows are cast, soil changes and it means the death of some plants for the life of others. 

Our experience with Permaculture

      Here is my presentation from the Sustainability Festival on the 20th ..... Something I forgot to say and would like to add. When you first start out not mowing and you aren't used to it, it's going to look a bit like the beginning phase of a beard.  Rough and scraggly,  just hold on.  It's going to be a colorful ride.   (P.S.  I have no idea why blogger is making the font big in some places and small in others?)

From: http://www.permacultureglobal.com/posts/394

Picture in your mind the Garden of Eden - a paradise.  I imagine an ancient place dripping with fruit and nuts, food at my finger tips and I don’t imagine a place where people are slaving away.  It’s what we dream of, but gardening the common way is so labor intensive and expensive.   Much of the time and effort is spent adjusting for our poor Earth stewardship.  When I think of paradise, I never think about acres and acres of mowed monochromatic grass.  Imagine a garden that each generation in a family can build on for the next and the quality of life and land value for each generation is improved.  

      When I started gardening, I did it the way we were all taught.  I tilled, planted annuals in a row using crop rotation, hoed, watered a lot, fertilized, sprayed for bugs, weeded and started over the next year.  When we started out as organic gardeners none of that changed.   Then I started learning about permaculture and was hooked.   Permaculture isn’t a new way of gardening, it’s the oldest way. 

Rectangle panes of broken grass

Self Heal

Self heal filling the "Herb Circle" garden - which is a space where the trees form a circle.  This area is where we currently live till the house is built

Butterfly weed & Black eyed Susan

We've been learning to grow using perma-culture and are reading "Gaia's Garden" by Toby Hemenway.  We are growing organically, but want to eliminate organic bug sprays  and fertilizers.  The plants in the first bed haven't needed any organic bug spray, but we did have to pick off some horn worms  - not an overwhelming amount and none for a while.  But the potatoes, beans and brassicas just were not in the right place at the right time.  When you go into healthy woods, you rarely see plants destroyed by bugs, it's in balance.  Nature knows how to grow plants without our help and people that study those systems have learned to come close to mimicking nature in many ways in the garden.  A balanced garden in a balanced place shouldn't need to worry about pest control - organic or otherwise.