This is an amazing tour of Zaytuna Permaculture Farm lead by Geoff Lawton. He shows various places on the farm, and if you’d like to cross reference that with a map of the farm, I’ve posted it below!
There are so many systems in play here I couldn’t even scratch the surface to give a good description, so please watch it and let me know what you think.
I’m a member of instructables.com and a little while ago, I found this ible which I loved. Turns out the people who made the instructable have a blog here which has some awesome articles on growing in the desert, cooking and my favorite is this one on a zucchini which cross pollinated with a pumpkin making a massive zucchini!
Give them a read.
Caleb
My wife and I recently finished a 2 day introduction to permaculture course last weekend that we took with Kym from Giggling Chi Tree and a bunch of other great people.
While we were there we went over many more philosophical ideas than practical. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I think it’s a great thing because this is what gives us critical thinking ability and the desire to experiment.
We spoke in great detail about Continue reading
Hey everyone. I wanted to share a video I posted on YouTube showing a great permaculture urban garden.
Check it out and let me know what you think!
How frustrating is it when you put so much work and effort into a garden, and then like out of nowhere, your plants are nearly ruined from insects munching on them? I’m going to explain how you can control the insects that feed on your precious crops.
blossom!
A while ago, I learned a technique to fertilize a garden or lawn using a method that’s cheap, easy and organic! I’m so stoked to actually get to try it.
tea for your garden!
Now this method doesn’t actually put biomass down on your garden as fertilizer, instead, it increases the microbial growth in your garden by a million times! (results may very) Your plants will love this!
I was reading a while ago about people who raise backyard chickens in their cities. I thought this was such an awesome idea. It provides eggs, chickens are very quiet when compared to a dog or even a cat in heat (ugh…), they provide nitrogen rich manure which goes great in a compost, the scratch the soil making your grass grow thick if they have enough of it. I’ve heard of people growing food in their greenhouses in the winter using chickens body heat to heat the greenhouse. Lots of benefits.
Then I looked for people who raise chickens in Calgary and found out, Calgary has a bylaw making it illegal to raise chickens in the city. I couldn’t figure out why this was the case. They’re totally safe, they’re penned in, even if they get loose, who cares? It’s a chicken. What’s it going to do?
Here’s a cool site on urban chickens
Anyway, I’ll skip a 10 page rant that I could write about how stupid I think this bylaw is and talk about a super nice dude that’s actually trying to do something about it.
His name is David and he’s the president of “the AREA“. David is working on a pilot project to raise urban chickens the AREA’s yard so that the city can study and monitor any issues that might arise. I read about this about a year ago and just last week, I finally stopped in for a visit.
I don’t know why, but I felt embarrased about how much I knew about the place. After I read about the chicken thing, I also read quite a few more articles about how they put on art shows, concerts, parties, permaculture design courses, etc; so when David showed me around I was reluctant to tell him how much I had read. Seriously though, I don’t know why. He’s a super nice dude and would probably just be flattered.
Anyway, I wanted to give the place a shoutout and hope that tons of people will go there and meet David and his peeps and support the place. Like them on facebook and send them a tweet or an email. They really seem to have good hearts and from what I’ve seen they give back everything they receive.
Thanks for reading
Caleb
I’ve always been very interested in ways of taking care of our needs which are beneficial for the planet. My personality wants to solve problems and I think that’s why I ended up in IT. So whenever I see something that solves a problem in a way that is good for the planet, I’m blown away and I research it like crazy.
the first bit of inspiration
I was in college when I was watching National Geographic and it was on deserts, but they had a segment where they showed a lady who lives in the desert and planted trees there. She planted palms I believe and used mulch to capture rainwater. I don’t remember well enough to say if she was using permaculture or not, but it blew my mind that you could reverse desertification by planting trees. That was when I realized how important trees really are.
Since I was in college though, I didn’t have any time to research agriculture, so I left it for a while.
I wish I could remember what the video was. I tried searching for it, but I wasn’t able to. If anyone knows the video I’m talking about, please let me know!
the next kick of inspiration
I got into a phase of watching TED talks. I found them right up my alley. People presenting their ideas and solutions to issues we face. If you haven’t ever watched a TED talk, I would recommend you look into it. They’ve had speakers like Bill Gates, JJ Abrams, etc.
While searching for TED talks, I stumbled upon a talk by Vandana Shiva (who is one of the most brilliant people alive today IMHO), and she was talking about sustainable and organic agriculture. There is so many layers to her lectures, so I’m just going to post a video rather than write 10000 words on her.
my introduction to permaculture
Up to this point, I had never heard of the word permaculture. Then while looking for that video I first told you about, I found this one by Geoff Lawton which is better. This video amazed me because they took a desert plot in Jordan which is one of the driest countries in the world and made a forest in it. Not only did they make a forest, they made one that requires no watering, reverses the horrid effects of chemical fertilization and over grazing and feeds people.
Everyone in the world should watch this. It is incredible.
Since watching that video, I’ve watched hundreds of other videos on permaculture. I’m reading Gaia’s Garden by Toby Hemenway and often I wish I could learn everything by osmosis so it would go faster.
in conclusion
I could write pages and pages and pages on this, but I feel like I’m pushing it when it comes to keeping people’s attention, so I’m going to leave this post where it is and write more later.
Let me know how you like the videos, and if you agree or disagree with anything. I’m happy to hear everyone’s thoughts.
Thanks for reading.
Caleb
I was playing around on twitter and noticed an account I’ve never seen before belonging to the urban farming guys. I checked them out and looked at their blog and it’s really cool. I’m very impressed with their success with talapia farming using aquaponics. They seem like good hearted people. Check them out.
