What is more important: feeding hungry people or growing food sustainably?
Permaculture is a design system for food production that emphasizes both earthcare and peoplecare. Even in an urban environment, permaculture has lessons to teach about growing food more sustainably.
I was among a group of gardeners and environmentalists who came together recently at Common Good City Farm to discuss the ethics of permaculture as well as learn some practical skills. Farm founder Liz Falk and Steve Gabriel, Educator and Program Coordinator for the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute led the three-day course, which is part of the farm’s ongoing series of educational programs.
Permaculture teaches us to design agricultural systems and living arrangements that more closely resemble nature. Its principles can be applied to designing a garden, a neighborhood, even a city. In fact, we spent part of one of the course making plans for a re-design of the farm and an entire DC neighborhood.
But first, we spent Saturday caring for the earth by planting an edible forest garden. In a natural forest, tall trees protect shade-loving plants from the sun and mushrooms spring to life in the wet areas at their bases. A permaculturist looks at these relationships and decides to mimic them by planting in “guilds”—or close-knit groups–instead of rows.
We planted strawberries and blueberries near fruit trees and mushroom spores around their trunks, creating a guild of plants that will feed and protect each other. As we dug, it started to pour rain. Our outdoor classroom space became a small pond. As we scurried around picking up shovels and taking down tents, the rain turned us into a guild.
We turned the storm into a lesson. After observing how the rainwater dispersed in natural patterns, we discussed how we might design the space to work with the water’s flow instead of against it. When the flood ebbed, we dug a rain garden based on our observations.
In addition to the guild and the rain garden, we:
- Discussed projects in cities across the U.S. that represent different permaculture principles, including City Repair in Portland and the Neuestra Raices in Holyoke, MA.
- Talked compost, from how to make compost tea in hours to building a vermicomposting bin for an apartment kitchen.
- Built cold frames–small, mobile greenhouses from wood, PVC pipe and sheet plastic that help extend the growing season.
- Innoculated shitake mushroom spores—sometime next year, mushrooms should be growing out of the hickory log we placed them in.
- Remediated the soil using a technique called sheet mulching, which uses recycled cardboard boxes, compost, and wood chips to improve the quality of soil during winter months.
- Had World Café-style conversations about how to engage neighbors meaningfully and how we can identify and distribute the surpluses we produce.
[Photo by Rafamerchan on Flickr, of a different workshop at Common Good.]
By combining concrete skills and big ideas, conversation and labor, we learned to embrace lessons that the earth teaches to feed and protect each other.
Liz Whitehurst writes for the Bread for the City blog, Beyond Bread, and is currently cover cropping at Sligo Creek Farm.
I love the idea of planting in guilds instead of rows…and that your human group became a guild as you worked through the rainstorm. What a delicious landscape!
Brynn Slate