Recently I planted bulbs in clumps so that come Spring there will be intense bursts of colour in my garden. Not only this I have been staggering the planting over a few weekends so that they will flower at different times therefore I will have a curated programme of flowering bulbs. I’m a gardener - I turn soil, fertilize from my worm farm, weed and turn the sprinkler on in the summer to provide water when rain does not. After visiting a permaculture garden this week I’m starting to wonder if I’m making life a bit hard for myself and if there’s a simpler more sustainable way…
This week G3 were challenged to rethink how we work with nature in the garden. We visited Christine’s garden in Whakamaramara which had been designed applying permaculture principles. And we were joined by Catherine Dunton-McLeod, a local permaculture guru. To start Christine explained that permaculture was ‘permanent agriculture, it entailed developing agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient’. So what did this mean in relation to her garden design?
Christine purchased her north facing elevated property with views out to the sea, 4 years earlier. It had looked like your usual property with a camellia border, some fruit trees, a stand of native trees at the rear and lots of lawn. Christine has twin boys and like most of us spent a lot of time and money at the supermarket for her food.
She decided that she wanted to live more sustainably, affordably and eliminate her waste. She undertook a permaculture design course and started participating in Permabiltz’s (more on this later). Through these much research, she developed a design for her garden that set about achieving her goal of sustainability. Here’s what we saw:
As you approached the property from the driveway the first garden showcased some lovely sculptures surrounded by a number of flowering plants including marigolds, barley, herbs and weeds. Yes weeds – Christine is a fan of Julia Edible Weeds philosophy and is actively growing weeds for nutrient dense smoothies. An overgrown mess? No very pretty, when left to its own devices nature doesn’t garden in rows nor straight lines.
Directly off the deck near to the front of the house was her pick-n-eat garden (herbs, leeks, lettuce, spring onions etc). Previously lawn, she had developed it by layering cardboard with straw, followed by compost into which she plated her veggies and added pea-straw on top as mulch (lasagne gardening). She discussed how she doesn’t fertilize nor spray her garden, instead she lets nature provide the sources through companion planting such as comfrey to provide nitrogen the chopped leaves providing fertilizer and French marigolds grow to detract white fly. Next we walked around to the side of house where the property sloped down towards the boundary. There we saw:
A vege garden that applied the 3-sisters idea of planting 3 crops closely together. Christine had planted corn, waited a while and then added beans which had grown up the stem of the corn, along with pumpkins growing out horizontally. Again comfrey grew in abundance providing nitrogen to the soil.
Off the side of the house Christine discussed her plans for a glasshouse which would include pipes where water would be heated by the sun and then flow into her house providing no-cost warm water.
Near to the house was the chicken coop which had been moved there for the winter so the 3 chooks could get more sun. Here they happily lived on scraps from the kitchen, whilst scratching up the ground in preparation for when Christine wished to plant it. The chooks provided enough eggs to feed Christine/s family along with extras to trade with friends.
Sloping down the property away from the house were a series of raised beds. Christine explained that these were swales – a design feature that allowed the water from her roof to be piped to the swales were it ran along the beds keeping the plants watered, even during summer - yes not sprinkler required! Here amongst the swales Christine had her food forest. A food forest works on the idea of replicating a forest in nature which has 7 layers starting with your soil at the bottom, lower trees, shrubs, climbers etc and finishing with the tree canopy at the top. Here she grew a variety of plants including lemonade, lime, pomegranate, plum, nectarine, pear, apple, fig, fejoa and so on. Each were part of her permaculture plan (see later). It was here that we came across tagasaste - an important nitrogen fixing tree. At the base of the raised beds clover (more nitrogen) and other weeds grew. Christine said she only now weeded grass, milkweed and nightshade. Some weeds she would chop and drop to return the nutrients to the soil.
So how did Christine achieve all of this? As I mentioned she attended a permablitz programme. This is a programme where you learn about permaculture gardening through working on 3 gardens that are blitzed. In return you then become eligible to have your garden blitzed. You work with a designer to come up with a plan for your site and then the crew come along over a weekend and work on your property, for Christine this was to install the swales. For more information visit http://permablitzbopnz.net.
She also did the 1year cert in permaculture offered by Catherine and her husband. http://www.plentypermaculture.co.nz.
Other sources for information, sharing and exchange that Christine and Catherine discussed were:
Fukuoka http://www.permaculture.com/node/140
Tree Croppers - http://www.treecrops.org.nz
Rick Austin The Survivalist Garden - http://www.secretgardenofsurvival.com/
Out of our backyard http://ooooby.ning.com/group/tauranga
Many thanks to Christine and Catherine for a very thought provoking and inspiring morning.
Sonya
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| Catherine's property |
