Northwestern Middle School Demonstration Edible ForestGarden
Back in December Dr. Palash Bartlett, a science teacher at NMS
contacted me about designing an outdoor classroom where students could learn
hands-on about Permaculture. After
meeting we easily decided on creating an Edible Forest Garden, where students
could learn about how to grow food at school sustainably. Dr. Bartlett has worked tirelessly over the
past several months to get approval for the garden and raise money to make the
project happen.
It's been incredibly exciting and rewarding to help make
this happen. I believe that we need
teachers like John and gardens like these all across the country to feed and
teach the next generation. If you are a
teacher and want to bring an Edible Forest Garden to your school, or just want
to learn more about what this is, please contact me. With every square foot of empty lawn, we
reclaim and fill with useful plants, we're also inspiring a student to get
outside and interact with their environment.
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Garden Site: Before
This is it! A week from today, on Saturday, May 21st, 2019, we're going to begin transforming this empty space into an Edible Eden. Although the changes will be incremental, the very fact that we'll be turning this barren moonscape into an ecosystem that will provide food, herbs, medicine, and so much more is absolutely thrilling! Just imagine, in another few years there will be persimmons, pawpaws, blueberries, blackberries, rosemary, sunflowers, and everything one needs to rejuvenate the body and soul.
Garden Site: After first Planting Day (May 21st)
Yesterday we broke ground at Northwestern Middle School on
the Demonstration Edible Forest Garden and made a huge leap in Permaculture
Education in our nation! A total of
about 15 volunteers came out for the day, including 5 students. All of the students had a great time and were
really excited to learn how to plant.
Next week they'll get to show their classmates their accomplishment and
give a tour to the principal as well.
The first stage consisted of 4 raised beds that we made by
digging up the tough, tough red Georgia clay and mixing in heaps of
compost. We also mixed in 5 gals of worm
castings to add some beneficial microorganisms and extra nutrients. In the process of digging up the raised beds, we created swales. A swale is
essentially a water diversion trench dug on contour to catch water and hold it
temporarily so it has time to percolate underground. We filled all of the swales with woodchips to
hold moisture and keep water from flooding the paths.
The Plants!
By the end of the day, we'd planted the following. All plants minus the peaches and lambsquarter were provided by either myself or Hungry Gnome Gardenscapes in Athens, GA:
~2 Belle of Georgia Peaches
~2 Elderberry
~2 Rabbiteye Blueberry
~2 Thornless Blackberries
~2 Wine Berries
~1 Brown Turkey Fig
~2 Apple Serviceberries
~2 Rugosa Roses
~2 Golden Currants
~2 Pawpaws
~4 Comfrey
~2 Chocolate Mint
~1 Malabar Spinach
~2 Barberry
~Amaranth
~Irises
~Keith Johnson's Magenta Lambsquarter
~1 Flowering Quince
~2 Bloody Sorrel
~2 Sunchokes
Future Development
In line with the plan above, we completed the majority of
the Yellow Zone yesterday with a few changes.
Mainly, we had to eliminate the bed of shade-tolerant plants adjacent to
the gymnasium because of conditions set by the Fulton County School Board. Also, I decided to add a mix of shrubs,
herbs, and groundcovers to fill the space and increase the overall Forest
Garden's diversity.
There are still 2 more main stages of planting that will
take place in the following semesters: the Brown Zone of mostly canopy trees
(pecans, persimmons, etc), and Blue Zone of low-growing herbs, annuals, and
shrubs.
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My hope is that through all of the advice and guidance I've
provided in this opening stage Dr. Bartlett will have enough knowledge about
Permaculture and Forest Gardening, as well as support from enthusiastic
parents, students, and teachers, to continue on their own.
Regardless of my future level of involvement in the project,
I'm very excited to see it off to a good start, and I look forward to hearing
news of how it develops over the coming seasons. I'll be updating this page with photos and
information on the Garden's progress throughout the upcoming months and years
as I receive word from Dr. Bartlett.
I'd like to thank Dr. Bartlett for taking the initiative to
bring this project to Northwestern Middle School, and all the volunteers and
sponsors who helped make a wonderful planting day on short notice!
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WE Farm/Blu Moon Silvopasture Creation
Josh Egenolf of WE The farm is a self-proclaimed grass farmer.
He cares deeply about soil ecology and how it impacts the health of his
cow, chickens, and pigs. He gets excited
talking about patterns of water flow across his 150 acres, nutrient-rich fodder
for his animals, and rotational grazing. Needless to say, when Josh asked for my help
in designing a silvopasture (pasture mixed with tree crops) plan for WE Farm I
jumped at the opportunity.
The grass is good for raising pastured animals, but grass alone
can't provide for all of the animals' needs.
Trees add shade, necessary to keep them cool on hot days. By selecting low-maintenance fruit and nut
producing trees, we can also give animals a more diverse and nutrient-rich diet
to munch on. Crabapples, plums,
elderberries, persimmons, pecans, locust beans pods are just some of the fodder
tree crops we decided to incorporate.
Trees also absorb more of the sun's energy than grass
alone. Because grass can still grow
beneath trees, we can add another layer of solar power collectors, which
convert that energy into food for the farm animals and worms in the soil.
Finally, trees help keep more moisture in the environment
because their roots can pull water up from deeper in the water table and bring
it above ground where it transpires and becomes available to surrounding
plants. At my first permaculture course
I remember a friend and instructor Zev Friedman saying that "trees are
standing lakes". Keep this image in
mind when you think about stripping the rain forests––not only are we
destroying vital plant and animal habitat, we are removing water and moisture
from the environment.
Knowing this it's no surprise that devastating droughts have
hit the Amazon basin in 2018 and 2020.
Luckily the solution is easy; plant more trees and you can increase the
amount of moisture held in the local ecosystem.
Eventually, this can result in greater annual rainfall.
Reforest and Rehabilitate the Land
Not only are Josh & LB of WE Farm behind this concept, but Blu Moon landowner, Lisa Harris ( from whom WE Farm is leasing the land) supports it 100%. With her help we broke ground earlier this month, starting with twelve serpentine swales stretching across hills on the northwest side of the property. Using a rented bobcat machine Jonas and I dug about a mile of swales (terraces dug on contour to collect water) over two days.
It was no small feat but it sure was fun doing "the
good work" as we came to call it.
If anyone hasn't heard of Geoff Lawton and seen his films Establishing a
Food Forest the Permaculture Way or Greening the Desert, please check them out
because they show just how amazing and effective these swales will be in the
years to come.
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I can't express again how excited and thankful I am for the
trust Lisa, Josh, and LB have put into this project. Up until now, I have designed mostly smaller,
home-scale systems, the largest being about 3 acres in size. Having 150 acres to play with––including
forests, pasture, ponds, slopes of all aspects––allows for much greater
impact! All in all, we'll be planting
several hundred trees, including the nearly eradicated American Chestnut (a
hybrid variety to survive the blight), each of which will grow into a lake of water
(and supermarket of food).
UPDATE: February 2020
After heavy mid-winter rains, the swales filled to the brim,
showing us just what they were made to do.
As a Permaculture designer, this is a wonderful time to sit back with a warm cup of tea and relish a job well done.
The swales we put in place have increased the water-holding capacity of
WE Farm/Blu Moon tenfold!
A Word on Weeds
"What is a weed? A weed is a plant whose virtues have
not yet been discovered." … Emerson
The biggest benefits to this “weed” are that you don’t have
to work to get it to grow, and it improves soil quality by mining minerals from
deep below the soil surface. Next time
you are about to curse a dandelion and yank it, think about all the things it
can provide you with: an evergreen lawn, nutritious greens, medicine, free
fertilizer, and fun for kids (who like to blow their seeds and make wishes).
The same goes for
just about all other plants we commonly refer to as “weeds” or “invasive”. Plants know when the earth is hurting and how
to heal it, and if a certain plant is prevailing in an environment (even if it
be a plant we desire not), its presence may be for our benefit.
Despite what the lawn bag may tell you, raking leaves and
putting them on the curb for your municipal leaf & limb service to collect
is not all that “green”. It takes energy
to make leaf bags, even the post-consumer, biodegradable ones. And while it may
be nice to have someone else take care of your unwanted leaves, think about the
oil used to power the fleet of those leaf & limb vehicles (not to mention
that tied up in the creation and maintenance of the vehicles themselves).
Hands down, the only sustainable way to "dispose of" of leaves is to keep in at home. Leaves return carbon to the soil and the microorganisms in your lawn, and while you might not like the look of it, this precious recycling of nutrients to the soil is natural at its best.
By
interrupting this chain of life and turning nutrient cycles into linear models
to suit our human needs of convenience and expediency, we are burdening the
planet (and ourselves with unnecessary work). Just leave it to the worms!
Multiple Functions of Leafbags:
~Added Insulation to stone wall foundation
~Protection for frost-sensitive plants (figs, citrus, kiwi,
etc)
~Chicken yard scratch
~Compost concealer (adding carbon to compost is necessary to
keep odors from emanating)
~Free future soil
Options for those who want leaf-free yard:
~Ask your neighbors if they want them
~Put them up on Craigslist for other people in the area who
may want leaves
~Just rake leaves to the corner of the yard, away from view. Keep an eye on that area as you’ll notice
incredible soil accumulation over the years.
"Give us Bread, but Give us Roses"
Take a walk through a
HUD or local public housing neighborhood, and one of the most prominent things
you’ll notice is a dearth of trees. No trees mean colder winters, hotter
summers, less oxygen, less life, less soil, less food, less beauty, and less
hope.
Greening urban
deserts are my effort to inspire social and environmental justice in our
community. I set aside $5 from every
consultation and lesson fee toward educating urban communities about growing at
home and providing them with plant material to grow their own food. I do this because I believe that our human
race cannot evolve until we help all people to thrive as one.
“If you want to
eliminate hunger, everybody has to be involved” ...Bono
"If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the
same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread;
otherwise, there will be no peace." ...Norman Borlaug
"35 million people in the U.S. are hungry or don't know
where their next meal is coming from,
and 13 million of them are children. If another country were
doing this to our children, we'd be at war."
...Jeff Bridges (The Dude)
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Don’t be fooled by
the name. Forest Gardening isn’t about
trying to grow tomatoes in the woods.
It’s an approach to landscape design that seeks to establish perennial
plant communities for mutual economic and environmental benefit. A Forest Garden aims to create food, fuel,
fiber, fodder, fertilizer, “farmaceuticals”, and fun, by observing and imitating
how forests develop in nature.
7 Layers can be found in a healthy, stable ecosystem: Canopy
Trees, Understory Trees, Shrubs, Herbs, Groundcovers, Roots, and Vines. Keeping this in mind we can maximize yields
by using all available spatial niches.
See the example below.
Example of 7 Layers:
Canopy: Shagnut Hickory, Northern Pecan
Understory: Redbud, Dogwood
Shrub: Blueberry, Hazelnut, Buckeye
Herb: Ginseng, Lingonberry, Mayapple
Ground Cover: Strawberry, Yarrow, Violet, Miner’s Lettuce
Root: American Groundnut, Jerusalem Artichoke, Ginseng
Vine: Wild grapes, American Groundnut, Maypop
Gareth and Salem (not pictured) of Hungry Gnome installing
Karen Frank's Forest Garden
Guilds are human-designed plant communities that mimic
natural ones. It’s very similar to
polycultures or interplanting that many people try in their gardens to improve
yields, except that it’s used to establish long-term perennial ecosystems.
We create guilds to provide multiple uses (edible,
medicinal, tea) and functions (nitrogen-fixing, improving soil fertility,
providing forage and shelter for beneficial insects) within our forest
garden. Below are a number of purposes
forest gardeners incorporate--as you can see many plants play multiple roles,
increasing their utility for people and the environment.
Succession is the temporal progression of a forest
garden. When planning what plants go
where it’s necessary to plan ahead so that as trees & shrubs grow they
don’t crowd each other out. The key here
is to design for a tree’s mature height and spread. While you’re waiting for the canopy to fill
out, you can feel free to experiment with different annuals or perennials in
the sunny space below.
For more about Forest Gardening, there are excellent books
available (or refer to our education packages).
~Edible Forest Gardening -- Dave Jackie with Eric Toensmeier
~Gaia’s Garden -- Toby Hemenway
~Forest Gardening: Cultivating an Edible Landscape -- Robert
Hart
~How to Make a Forest Garden -- Patrick Whitefield
~Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow
Edible Crops -- Martin Crawford
I am a gardener, I have been gardening neigh on to 70 years.
My first attempt at having a garden to care for was when my mother became ill
when I was in 8th grade. She knew that our family survived on vegetables from the
garden and I was the one chosen to care for it.
That is when I became interested in gardening, and have been
doing so ever since. At this time, because of my health, my garden has become
considerably smaller. The picture above shows my tomatoes grown over 6-foot
cages with the sweet corn next to them.
I was lamenting to a friend one day that I missed having the
large garden that provided food for me, for some of my kids, and for some of my
church family. This friend suggested
that because I loved gardening, maybe I could help others become enthused with
the benefits of gardening. As we talked
of this, I decided to do a website that could help people become gardeners.
The website, homegardenpatioplace.com features many of the
tools I have used for years. It
also features items to make your home, patio, and garden more beautiful. I am
constantly searching for garden tools, yard supplies, patio enhancements, and
pretty things for your home. I will be
adding more things all the time, to make your garden, yard, and patio easier for work and more fun and relaxing.
Mainly my gardening has been done in Minnesota, where our
winters are long and summers short. But we spent eight years in Florida and
had some interesting experiences learning to garden there. This year I was
privileged to plant my son’s garden in Florida. So while the snow is still
blowing around in Minnesota, the beans are doing nicely, and the okra is
starting to pop.
The only thing, I’m not seeing yet are the three kinds of
peppers I planted. I also planted a couple of flower beds, but we had a
drenching rain just as the flowers were coming up and may have washed a good
many of them away. But that too is a part of gardening.
I would like to answer the questions you have about worlds gardens, yards, and patios. I
don’t know everything, but I will certainly try to find the answers for you.
Just shoot me an e-mail to worldsgardens@gmail. com. The blog is also open to
response. So please let us know how we can help you!
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