Our favorite permaculture tips..
Do you have a bit of land, such as a backyard? Or even a tiny front yard? You can grow some of your own (clean) food, and improve your environment. Make a difference, even if it is just in one small way! Trees are very important in the ecosystem. Ever been to the Sahara, or the Kalahari? How about to an urban desert? Deserts are expanding, because of our poor land management. But you and I can improve our quality of life, and be better stewards of God’s earth, by doing our little part.
We have always been planting trees and other perennials. Here at Bountywoods Farm, we are making woody perennials the central part of our farming enterprise. We have learned a lot from Restoration Agriculture, as well as from permaculture. Restoration Agriculture is actually a branch of permaculture, developed by Mark Shepard of Wisconsin. But first, let me briefly define permaculture.
Permaculture seeks to apply a set of common sense principles to designing and maintaining your environment, including your house and property. One of its key things is making good use of resources, including water and energy. Trees are an important part of permaculture because they make efficient use of sunlight and water. They are also good soil builders. Changing the shape of the land to direct water to where it will do the most good, is an often-used technique.
Mark Shepard, the founder of Restoration Agriculture, zeros in on trees and water management especially. He emphasizes that we must observe our local environment and learn to grow productive, perennial plants that do well in our location – rather than trying something like growing coconuts in Canada. (We would like to grow coconuts, though, if we could!) Mark is also an expert in earthworks for water management. He teaches a farming system that regenerates itself continually with minimal help from people, while constantly building soil and supporting life. We have learned a lot from him as we have been designing our farm.
The Foundation: Observe
First, we observed the landscape and the climate. We saw that our land, even though it is on a hillside, was wet for much of the year. But it does get dry for a few months in the summer. So the next thing to do was to start making water diversion swales and berms – to drain excess water and to hold some water in the landscape for the short dry period.
You can do the same on a backyard scale. Watch where water flows after a rain or a spring (or winter?!) thaw. If your yard is normally dry, you will want to hold as much water as possible. To accomplish this, you can hand dig shallow ditches on contour (following the level of the land) to store water until it is able to soak into the soil, replenishing the water table. You can even utilize water from the downspout to further add water into the soil. Of course, I’m just tossing some ideas out there to get you thinking. You will want to further research the topic before making major changes. You’d want to avoid saturating the ground around your foundation.
Putting Pieces In Place
After digging our first swale (or water-holding ditch) we planted fruit and nut trees on the berm formed by the soil we dug out of the ditch. We placed these trees on the berm to keep them high and dry during wet weather – fruit and nut trees don’t like to be water logged. (At the same time, however, trees planted on the berm can send roots to access water that was caught by the swale. In this way we are both avoiding saturation in the wet period and providing passive irrigation for the dry season, using the same means.)
We also inter-planted small fruiting bushes, perennial flowers, herbs, and other beneficial plants. Some of them provide nitrogen to the fruiting plants; some are to provide bee food, and others encourage predatory insects, to balance the populations of pest insects. In the picture above, you can see the tree tubes which we placed over the young trees to protect them during their first winter. We don’t always do this, though, since it prevents trees from hardening off properly. The tubes do help prevent deer and rabbit damage.
We covered the soil around the trees with woody mulch to prevent erosion, to retain moisture, and suppress weeds. This also encourages fungal growth in the soil, which is what trees prefer.
If you decide to go ahead and turn your yard into a “food forest”, you may want to add such things as compost, to supply nutrients and to introduce beneficial microorganisms; and whatever else seems to be needed in your situation. These are best added while shaping your landscape, before planting.
Woody matter should not be tilled in, since it will use up nitrogen for decomposition. The proper way to use woody matter is on top of the soil, like you see in any forest. You can greatly speed up the growth of newly planted trees if the soil is deeply amended with an aggregate, an artificial water absorption material, and a fertilizer such as compost. However, this would have to be carefully planned. We simply add compost and mulch on top around the trees.
One great benefit of tree-based ecosystems – such as the savanna we are establishing – is their three-dimensional aspect. There are more layers to catch sunlight energy, so there is much more potential to grow organic matter (carbon) as well as food. In our farm scale system, we can even have poultry between the trees and cows grazing the grass, both of which add fertility as well as food products.
For the upper story, we use larger fruit and nut trees, with nitrogen fixing trees like Honey Locust or Russian Olive between them. We have planted apples and pears, Asian pears, plums, and heartnuts. We are also starting some Korean nut pines.
The next layer is the bushes such as hazelnuts, blueberries, Saskatoon berries, elderberries, haskaps (edible honeysuckle berries), aronia berries (the emerging superfood), and bush type sour cherries. We inter-plant these with the larger trees on the berms.
We also have areas where we planted rows of mixed blueberry and Saskatoon bushes in existing strawberry rows on raised beds. As the strawberries decline, the berry bushes will continue to grow and start producing. We will be inter-planting legume shrubs and flowers and herbs between the berry bushes as the strawberries drop in production.
The next layer is small bushes and plants, such as currants, horseradish, Jerusalem Artichokes, and various flowers and herbs. We harvest some cut flowers and herbs to sell at the market and at our farm market stand; the rest are left for seed, or for the birds and insects.
Other possible layers are climbers such as grapes which can be trained up the trees; and a fungi layer like mushrooms, which can be grown on wood chips or logs, in the shade of trees and bushes. We are currently growing oyster and shiitake mushrooms on birch and willow logs. Winecap or King Stropharia is another one that does well on wood chips and doesn’t require shade.
Your Turn..
I hope I’m beginning to paint a picture in your mind of what can be done:
We can stop excess water from running into the ocean, and eroding away the topsoil. You can accomplish this by simple changes in the shape of the land.
We can cover it with a diverse variety of fruitful perennial trees and plants in a carefully spaced pattern. This network will capture the maximum amount of sunlight and nutrients.
Once established, such a system can regenerate itself for many years; it will not only beautify the earth, moderate our climate, and provide wildlife habitat, but also enable the production of tonnes of healthy foods. If we were to do this everywhere, in town and country, we could put an end to claims that GMO’s and chemicals are our only hope to feed the world’s population!
Well, what do you think? Ready to start a little forest or savanna where you live? If you would like to get more ideas first hand, why not plan to visit us on our next Open Farm Day. If you are on our email list, you will get a notification when that will be. You will get plenty of food for thought, and who knows, it might lead to food from your yard!