“Two plant geeks, one-tenth of an acre and the making of an edible garden oasis in the city
Jonathan and Eric and their families manage a 1/10 acre urban backyard garden in Holyoke, Massachusetts. This edible landscape features little-used edible native plants as well as useful species from around the world. Over forty species of fruit and seventy perennials with edible leaves make for a long season of foraging.
“This is about one woman deciding to do something very dramatic and revolutionary in Ireland…taking three acres of wet, rushy, north-facing land and planting trees like her life depended on it…it does! Bealtaine Cottage smallholding is in the west of Ireland. In May 2004, this was a derelict cottage on a north facing slope of three acres of wet, rushy land. My aim, living alone and without any workforce or helpers, was to create a self-sustaining smallholding designed and constructed on Permaculture Principles. This has included planting over 1,000 deciduous trees including two large orchards, as well as many perennials and bushes.
Busting Drought for $10 per Acre from Christopher Gill on Vimeo.
“We call the combination of wild animals, planned grazing, water harvesting, and Keyline subsoiling “Drought Busters”. Drought Busters is cheap, fast, poisons no plants, kills no animals, and increases the numbers and diversity of both. Drought Busters can’t make it rain, but it will make actual rain more and more effective, which is practically the same thing.”
Here’s an update about the keyline cultivation system that I covered in a previous blog post titled Restoring Degraded Land. Building soil on degraded land is one of my biggest passions lately, because this is what the world needs now. Scientists say it takes nature between 100 to 1,000 years to form an inch of topsoil, depending on local conditions. The keyline system can form 4″ of good topsoil in 3 years by chiseling grooves in the ground with a simple farm implement.
During one of the early morning circles Sunray Kelley pointed up the hill to a group of trees and explained that he would be building a tree house there and that people were welcome to join him in the project. It didn’t take him long to attract a group of helpers willing to go around scrounging structural elements for this.
Sunray is a well known character around previous colloquia and a famous artist/builder in his own right. He grew up in the woods of Washington State and still resides on the family property, where he gleans material for most of the building that he has done there. I have never seen him wear shoes.
“The natural way of gardening is a big change from the traditional way. It is human nature to resist change! This change will be much easier to accept if you take a good look at a forest or natural glades.