PERMACULTURE! (Part Two)

After meeting Kenneth and Dennis last week, we set up our first meeting with them for this week. This morning, the two of them met with us, surveyed our land, and sat down with us to discuss some of the fundamentals of permaculture and to develop our action plan for the next three months. Since Matt and I are already sensitized to permaculture and are gung-ho for it, we were able to get started on the planning and design. Our preliminary action plan is as follows:

September
-Planning and Design
-Uproot Blue Gum trees in our backyard. (Blue gums drain all the water in the soil and raise the soil acidity to deadly levels.)
-Mulch entire backyard and create walking paths. (Walking paths are needed so the ground is not compacted where you want to plant.)
-Create compost piles.
-Obtain manure to enrich soil.
-Develop nursery.

October
-Continue mulch, compost, and manure
-Construct fencing to keep livestock out; also, find funding for fencing.
-Construct Chicken Tractors. (Chicken Tractors are moveable chicken cages that restrict the damage chickens can do by scratching the soil while also enabling the gardener to focus their droppings in certain areas for fertilizing.)
-Plant fruit plants and water them. (Water costs big money here, so this is quite an investment.) We plan on planting a mango tree (a local breed and a hybrid), a guava tree, a paw paw tree, banana trees, an orange tree, masuko, and harare. (I don’t know what those last two are, but apparently they are great!)
-Plant the guilds. (Guilds are a major aspect of permaculture philosophy. There are seven categories of plants in a permaculture guild: food for people, food for the soil, ground coverings, protectors, supporters, diggers, and climbers. Each of those categories contains a variety of plants that support the garden in some way. It is the interaction and interdependence of these categories of plants that enable the permaculture garden to become a permanent garden. With proper planning and design, once these guilds are developed, they should take care of themselves, resulting in more abundant and more resilient produce.)

November
-Continue mulch, compost, and manure.
-Manage guilds.
-Complete guilds.
-Create any needed additional pathways.

With all of this, it’s safe to say Matt and I are quite excited. Our main concern right now is finding the funding we need for our own garden. According to Fr. Richard, one of the Marianists, Chaminade has a sizeable sum of money for food security. That money should be able to fund at least the start of our work at Chaminade. But before we get there, we need to get our model garden up and running. Ryan Dugan, one of the outgoing volunteers, has allocated some money he had received as a donation that did not already have a destination. However, Matt and I may need to do some more work to get this garden off the ground.