My Small Garden

 For several reasons, my gardens are limited

in size but that does not mean I cannot go large. The beginnings.

Taking Time to Reflect

I am revisting what I want to achieve with this blog and my work. Seeds are on my mind. 

Forest Gardens

Have you begun to feel that the time you spend watering and cutting your lawn is a waste and probably doing more harm than good? Tired of using poisonous chemicals to keep that lawn green and golf course ready?

Or are you longing for fresh fruits and vegetables?

Perhaps both appeal to you and if you have answered yes to one or both then it could be time to turn your yard into a food forest garden.

If you do undergo the transformation, you will be no longer be using your time and energy to maintain an unnatural ecosystem- the lawn- which gives you little in return for your efforts.

Instead, you will be investing that time, energy and dollars in an ecosystem that provides you and your family with fresh right off the vine, produce all the while, creating a backyard habitat that will attract, butterflies, bees and birds.

The backyard food forest meets not only you and your family’s needs but provides food and shelter for butterflies and songbirds, for example.

The inclusion of native plants and others, such as herbs, berries and fruit trees, in the backyard forest garden will form the layers of your backyard forest.

Your lawn wants to become a forest; it wants to follow Nature’s way and eventually become a forest but the constant maintenance that a lawn requires prevents this natural progression from taking place and creates considerable work for the homeowner.

As you move away from the lawn; from an unnatural and stalled ecosystem that wants to evolve but is constantly thwarted in its desire, you move from wasting your resources to investing them and stop using resources poorly and begin to invest so that one day you can reap the rewards of your work as you harvest, fruit, berries, herbs and vegetables fresh from you own backyard.

The role of the gardener is not to stall ecosystems and combat natural growth but to work with that desire and need to grow and guide the progress so that it meets the needs of all beings.

This way balance is maintained and the garden becomes a place of mediation between Nature and Civilization rather than a war zone.

You can start small. There is no need to overturn your whole backyard into a forest garden the first time around, select a sunny corner and work with dwarf fruit trees for example.

This is a process and you may proceed at your own pace.

If you are interested in converting your backyard into a food garden then the book, I’d suggest is Gaia's Garden:A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway. It is published by Chelsea Green, 2001, and has a foreword by John Todd.

introduction

edible forest gardens

Food Forest: An Introduction

This video will introduce you  to the Food Forest. 

Permaculture Guilds

Hi, this video by Heather Jo Flores provides an excellent look at what guilds are.

MOOF Africa

Located in Nanyuki, Kenya MOOF AFRICA is an NGO working with sustainable development where eco-village concepts are used to address challenges by offering local solutions to the community making an overall global impact. Making information on ecological technologies available to farmers and international communities where this information is appropriate to meet the basic needs of humanity to enable us to conserve our mother Earth.  

https://moofafrica.com/

The SLOPES GREENS ORGANIC VEGETABLES “KIKAPU” ENTERPRISE

Used with Permission.

INTRODUCTION

MOOF-Africa is located in the outskirts South of cosmopolitan  Nanyuki town approximately 3.5 Kms. MOOF is a professional Social Enterprise  Agricultural Non –Governmental Organization, NGO, working with smallholder farmers on sustainable food security, nutrition, income generation and environmental conservation for  rural development. Regenerative Permaculture and Agro-ecological concepts are used to address food insecurity and malnutrition challenges by offering local solutions to the community making an overall  well fed and wealthy communities in Kenya. Making information on Agro-ecological Technologies and Regenerative Permaculture available to farmers, students and international communities where this information is appropriate to meet the basic needs of humanity to enable us achieve a more balanced food source with high nutrition grown   without hazardous pesticides.

Food consumers desires for fresh nutritious food information on the following:

Transparency and Traceability of food: Customers desires to know:

-Where food comes from- from MOOF farm grown through organic technology.

-When food was produced – dated

-How good is the food? - Fresh and packaged by well trained and healthy food handlers with medical certificates from government hospitals. .

- Impacts to the environment – Organic foods taking care of the environment and workers health –no pesticides used.

-Packaging of food – locally made and biodegradable baskets made of materials from swamps.

OBJECTIVES

1. Produce Organic high value crops (Herbs, vegetables, Leafy range veggies and fruits) through Permaculture and agro ecological technologies.

2. Uniquely package (“Kikapu”) Basket, and distribute the organically produced harvest to high niche end customers in their homes door steps within Nanyuki town and environs.

3. Market the organic produce targeting high niche customer base including; British army (BATUK- Brattish Army Training Unit in Kenya) families, residential white westerners and supermarkets, hotels, Lodge and Eco-Camps in the wildlife conservancies and middle-class locals’ sensitive of healthy eating habits in Nanyuki town.

4. Establish a sustainable water management system so as to efficiently use the scarce water resource for vegetable production.

5. Permaculture Designs Training:  Actively engage Permaculture and Organic growing in MOOF-Africa farm as a demonstration and training centre for organic production to young girls, (e.g. Baraka Academy and girls from other academies in Nanyuki region), women and youth in Laikipia County.

For more information please visit     
                                               
Website: www.moofafrica.com

                    Facebook page: https://web.facebook.com/MOOFAfrica/

Permaculture: Ethics: Earthcare 2

A wise gardener grows soil. Growing and nurturing soil is part of Earthcare and one of the most important actions we can undertake.

"According to 2017 study by the University of Basel, the European Commission -- Joint Research Centre and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH, UK), almost 36 billion tons of soil is lost every year due to water, and deforestation and other changes in land use make the problem worse..."  source

A little reading.

No space to grow, then take an inventory of your food habits. How much food do you toss away? 

"Consumers also squander huge amounts. As much as 37% of animal products and potentially a fifth of fruit and vegetables may be wasted after being purchased, according to the FAO. Rich nations have higher levels of waste due to limited shelf life or poor consumer planning, while poorer countries typically grapple with climate and infrastructure issues."  source

Ecosystem restoration may well be the most effective method we have for combating climate change and for practising Earthcare. The next post will go into some detail on the why and how.

Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, Part One.

The phrase "Think globally, act locally". come to mind when you are planning to incorporate Earth Care into your life. You do not need to be a permaculture designer to work with the three permaculture ethics, People Care, Earth Care and Fair Share.

Reduce, better yet, eliminate your use of single-use plastics. This is simple enough to do. Do not by bottled water, for a start. If the tap water is unfit to drink where you live, then you will need to filter or boil it, but the next thing you need to do is engage in non-violent political action to support your right to drinkable water. Water is a human right and our politicians have an obligation to honour that right.

Eliminate the amount of garbage you toss away, after all, there really is no such place as away. We are all inhabitants of one planet. Everything is connected. Reduce, reuse, repurpose, compost. I

Composting turns what is called waste into valuable, organic material, any garden will love. This act of adding compost to t e soil is a great way to take care of the Earth.

Harvest rainwater. Don't let it run away down that asphalt driveway, use it to water the ornamental garden, or lawn, if you must have one, create a rain garden. Do some research on rainwater harvesting before you set up a system.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 25.

 

"(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."

Articles 26 and 27 should also be read.

source

I see the ethics of permaculture in alignment with this existing Declaration. Next post I will discuss People Care and how it is supported by the Universal Declaration.

Fair Shares: Permaculture Ethics

The best explanation of the Fair Shares ethics begins: "By governing our own needs, living within limits and consciously co-creating, we can create surplus resources to further the other key permaculture ethics (Care for the Earth and Care for People). 

Living within limits is not about limiting people's free movement, tight border controls and one-child policy. It is about conscious efforts to achieve a stable human inhabitation of the Earth and respecting the genuine needs of other beings. " source

Accepting and designing human environments to incorporate the rights of human, and all other beings, to water, clean air, adequate and appropriate shelter, education for all, and healthcare, for example, is how we honour the Fair Share ethics.

Fair Shares is essential if we are to achieve the other two ethics, People Care and Earth Care. What can you do to actively embrace the Fair Share ethic?

Workshop Photo: Hugelkultur

This photo was taken a few years back. I lead a weekend intro to permaculture course.

https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur

Gardening and Climate Change !

The glass gem corn I grew, there are six plants in the small garden, along with white pumpkins and sunflowers, grex beans and black-eyed Susans, is part of a project to create plants that have the resilience to withstand a changing weather system.

I have never grown corn before and when I read about the glass gem corn and how it came into being, I was encouraged to learn more about plant breeding and seed saving. 

The course I took, more about this in a future post, introduced me to glass gem corn and some great seed people and the books they produced based upon their experiences.

This blog was created to share the knowledge and its sources that I have uncovered over the years since I took my Permaculture Design Certificate in 1999.

I will also be sharing my own gardening experiences with photos as often as possible.

In my next post, I will discuss my plant breeding strategy,