[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3e2VpV9wIc?wmode=transparent]
Chris discovers some pea nitrogen nodules during our evening of weeding this week. A very geeky video capture at the end of a long day :)
Tag Archives: permaculture
Introduction to Permaculture
This weekend, Chris and I attended a two-day course on introductory permaculture principles and design concepts. The course was taught by Adrian Buckley of Big Sky Permaculture (a Calgary-based permaculture company). Day 1 of the course was spent in a classroom at Kwantlen College’s Langley campus and included a tour of their horticulture/ growing spaces. Day 2 was spent in a greenhouse and on the grounds of the absolutely magical Maple Discovery Gardens in Langley. (Separate blog post coming on Maple Discovery Gardens and what they’re up to there).
The course was great. A number of the theories and principles we discussed were things that I was already familiar with, but the course provided me with a more thorough foundation than I’d previously received from random google searches and YouTube video viewings. Particularly helpful and AWESOME were the lessons in land planning. It was like interior design for land (and we all know how much I love interior design!). Okay, okay – kind of like interior design, but a little more complicated than the kind of interior design projects I take on…
There are a lot of details that I could repeat from the course here, but rather than listing everything I learned, I’m going to break topics and concepts into separate blog posts. Time to make this blog a little more technical and informational (alongside our fun stories and photos).
To start though, for those of you who aren’t familiar with permaculture, the basic premise of it is this:
Permaculture is a philosophy of working with nature – allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.
It includes three basic principles: 1) care of earth, 2) care of people, and 3) return of surplus. Rather than just focusing on sustainability (meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future), permaculture focuses on regeneration. It emphasizes becoming a producer instead of a consumer and modelling our efforts on the cycles we see occuring naturally in nature. When practiced and carried out correctly (noting that there are many ways it can be done), permaculture results in small pieces of land creating high yields of food, water and other energy sources while regenerating the soil, water, plants, insects, animals and humans that use it.
More details and examples and permaculture farm projects coming soon!
combining the rabbit hutch & the compost system
Last weekend, we completed the compost/ rabbit hutch combo. Matt and Chris built a roof over the compost so we were able to slide our rabbit hutch right in above the bins, ensuring protection against the elements for the rabbits.
Combining a rabbit hutch with a compost (aka ‘worm bin’) is a great way to create rich compost by combining the strenths of the rabbit manure and the worms below. Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home=Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway puts it (and the overall benefits of working in tandem with animals) like this:
“…they employ rabbits in the garden by combining rabbit hutches with worm bins to naturally process manure into a perfect compost. This technique links two animals together and, like all well-connected relationships, provides benefits – great compost and fat worms – and solves problems, by conscientiously using rabbit manure and urine.
With animals, we extend the reach of our garden into yet another kingdom of nature. In the rich soil teem the unseen wonders that bring the dead back to life, the decomposers who work their magic on wood and leaf, on bone and chitin. Above ground are the plants, green marvels that capture the sunlight and build sugar and sap, the flowers, fruits, and seeds that feed us all. And now we bring in the animals that flit and buzz, scamper and scratch, nibble and manure. Animals are the final link in nature’s cycle. They are nature’s mechanics, accelerating growth here with seed disperal and fertilizer, retarding it there with a vigorous browse and trample. They haul nutrients and seeds great distances, from a lush nook to a dry care patch used for a dust bath, inoculating the barren soil. They process seedheads through their bodies and hoovers, mash seed into the soil, trim branches, thin the hordes of bugs. Without animals, our labour is doubled and redoubled, and we must pollinate, spray, dig, cart and spread fertilizer and fill the thousand others tasks easily and cherrfully done by our marvelous cousins. Without animals, nature just limps along, and in a garden lacking animals we must supply the crutches. By creating a garden that nurtures our two-, four-, and more-legged friends, we close the cycle and shift the burden more evenly, letting nature carry her share.” (pg. 171-172)