SUSTAINABLE PERMACULTURE
Presented
by Scott Pittman,
www.Permaculture.org , 505-455-0514, info@permaculture.org
Saturday,
March 8, 2008
at Guru
Nam Kaur’s lovely home in Arroyo Secco
Written
by Siri-Gian Kaur, sirigian@valornet.com
Thanks
to Hari Singh (Sita) for recommending that we get in touch with Scott!
For a
description of some of Scott’s classes near Espanola this year, please either go to the very bottom of the document
or go to his website, www.permaculture.org
These
incredible classes close to home are:
PRACTICAL
PERMACULTURE FOR FARMING AND GARDENING
NATURAL
TOPBAR BEEKEEPING
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Please join us in our Garden Club Outing in early June 2008
to Scott and
Arina’s home and garden near Pojaque—they will give us a date later, when they see how far along their plants
are coming! I know that it will be fantastic to actually see and understand all
the amazing “intelligent sustainable systems” that they have put in place!
They host an
open house/potluck twice a year, and the number they accept is limited, so please let them know now that you would like to
come, before the list fills up!
E-mail to info@permaculture.org .
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What an incredible adventure Scott introduced
us to! That is a start to understanding what it is to create Sustainablity and
Permaculture in one’s life! This is not just a little recycling, rather
it is a whole life philosophy or life paradigm that is ethically based! And what
a treat to hear about it from one who has been doing his practice faithfully for over 30 years!
Scott told us that the meaning of
Sustainability is “To provide for your own and your family’s needs in
your own community without importing or exporting!” Sounds simple,
but just think about what that means in your life! That pretty much means cutting
way back on store bought stuff—especially food. He mentioned that in NM,
we export much of our wealth “to the home office” of the stores that we use here, rather than keeping our wealth,
our trade here in our own communities. Current wealth systems are based on competition
rather than cooperation, and permanently grabbing what they can from a region—such as minerals for fertilizer from the
Midwest, and exporting that indigenous land for the profits of the company owners.
On the other hand, being ethical is fundamental
to the Sustainable paradigm. That means not getting, not buying the non-replaceable
wealth from other areas of the world. He finds box stores to be unethical and
won’t enter them.
Regarding Permaculture, the ethics are:
care of the Earth; care of people; and recycle excess back into the earth. Consequently,
you develop relationships with other people (in your region) to share food and other goods.
He told us that the Bio-Region Movement around the world is composed of people who have a sense of place in a particular
ecological region, and who are invested in their environment including keeping their wealth on all levels there.
So, we expect that the practice of Sustainability
(overall operating concept) and Permaculture (growing things sustainably) to become so important to us in the near future,
in the “times to come.” We certainly hope that we can begin to put
these ideas into practice and grow them in our own lives, both as individuals and as a community starting now—at least
bit by bit! We are looking forward to an ever increasing relationship with Scott
and his wife Arina so that we can learn to create our own sustainable environs and lifestyle!
Scott gives amazing courses and workshops
here as well as in Colorado (Crestone coming up!)—please see his great website at www.permaculture.org . He suggested that we sponsor someone from
our own community to take one or more of his courses and then teach the rest of us!
Ravi Kaur “teacher” is most ready, willing, able and jumping up and down to be that person, our permaculture
explorer and teacher! Please let me know if you would like to contribute.
And Scott does consulting all over the
globe. As a matter of fact, he had just returned from northern Thailand where he directed the planning and building of a
world community Buddhist ashram to accommodate 200 people in a sustainable, permaculture system! And he has done many projects locally as well, including redesigning Seeds of Change—who grow heirloom
seeds, and who are located not far north of Espanola on the Taos
highway.
At our meeting, Scott concentrated on growing
everything that we eat in ways that cooperate with our land, using local solutions.
He advised that sustainable systems are molded on nature’s systems. And
he learns many of these from aboriginal people who live in undisturbed ecosystems such as Taiga,
Russia and Tasmania, an island south of
Australia where they are getting richer! He noted that permaculture is the national agriculture of North Vietnam.
GARDENS
Scott let us know that regularly
accepted organic gardening, without using permaculture and sustainability principles is just as (fossil fuel) energy intensive
as chemical gardening because you import such things as seaweed from Japan and other elements from other far off locations. He suggested it is better to dispense with expending lots of (fossil fuel) energy
by building our soil nutrients up from local resources.
Also from an ethical viewpoint, it’s
best to not deplete other areas of the planet of their resources, e.g. topsoil from the Midwest, Douglas fir lumber from the
North West, rock phosphate from Florida and Idaho. The question becomes, “Am I depleting
ocean resources to grow tomatoes in New Mexico?” Formerly people lived within their financial and ecological means, but now we live
in an accelerated culture where we want an instant fix. So, his motto is “The
only thing that comes in or leaves the farm is what walks in and out.”
He relates that being vegetarian or vegan
is ethical, while eating meat is not because, for instance, an enormous amount of water goes into growing cattle. He predicts that in the future, we will reach peak water use that will force us to go “sustainable.” And the first ones to go sustainable will be the teachers of the future. (Doesn’t that sound like our familiar role?)
The only problem is that if a vegetarian
doesn’t have animals, it’s hard to get manure for soil nutrition! He
does have two goats that he milks and looks forward to making goat cheese for themselves and to trade. And I was struck that whenever he mentioned his chickens, guinea fowl and the wild birds attracted to his
place, he always mentioned how they added nutrients to his soil!
So, Scott has spent years and years building
up his living and growing systems and especially his soil there near Pojaque. They
live in a 17 acre intentional community with 7 households. Each household owns
the footprint of their home, and the rest is shared among the community in a cooperative way.
So, for us to get started with Permaculture,
he suggested that our first question be, “What do I have in my own back yard that can sustain the health of my family
and friends?!” And “What can I do in my own Bio-Region?”
THE SOIL
He gave the clearest explanation
of why and how to build our soil!
He taught us that our local soil is very
high in minerals, but it is alkaline, base pH, which is salt. (This is not table
salt—sodium chloride, but rather the molecular chemical structure category called “salts,” which includes
an enormous range of compounds bound together in a similar way.) This is the
same situation in every desert, with our extreme heat, plus dry and windy conditions!
The problem is that the salt compounds
lock the minerals in the soil, making them unavailable for our plants—making it difficult for our plants to be nourished
and protect themselves, as well as producing nutrient-poor food for us! Scott
passed around a chart of many fruits and vegetables that showed how much these foods grown now have declined in certain nutrients
compared to the early 1940s! Up to 100% loss of certain nutrients in some cases. And so we often overeat because our bodies are trying their best to get the nutrients
that they actually crave and need.
So, how do we get good nutrition into our
plants, for their sake and ultimately for our benefit?
The answer is MICRO-ORGANISMS—those tiny little living bacteria and fungi that work untiringly to process, that is to
eat and digest any material in the soil.
Their digestive process actually unlocks
those soil minerals and other nutrients in a way that they can be assimilated by plants’ roots! And those micro-organisms also produce compounds that provide specific help for plants, such as keeping
down certain bug populations, plant diseases, etc., while the plants synergistically provide sugars for fungus and bacteria. Fungi can actually give plants water that they have stored!
Those micro-organisms are incredibly
diverse and actually communicate with each other!
Now, store bought fertilizer, e.g.
5-10-5, whether petro-chemical or mined products—no matter how much they give the plants in a year, actually kill off
our micro-nutrients, and at some point become salt compounds themselves. Yikes!
The answer, of course is to build
the micro-organisms in your own soil so that your plants and consequently your food, then you and your family will be robust
and healthy, and able to fend off disease!
Scott gave us lots of practical advice
to build up the micro-organisms in our soil that is naturally less than 1% organic—being overgrazed by sheep, cattle
and goats, as well as deforested. Scott told us that all this valley land originally
was Ponderosa pine forests from the mountains down to the Rio Grande. Abuse has occurred at the hands of every group of human inhabitants, from the Native
Pueblo inhabitants, to the Spanish settlers, and finally to the Anglos moving in. Settled
farming practices—turning the soil over, planting single “mono-crops” on large acreage, using chemical fertilizers,
pesticides and herbicides, etc., are most destructive to micro-organisms!
So, here are instructions on how
to build micro-organisms—bacteria and fungi in our soil. Scott suggests
building the soil on your land slowly, over time. Addition of micro-organisms
will also change the pH of your soil from being alkaline resulting in mineral salts to being more neutral. (If your soil is too acid, micro-organisms will neutralize that as well!)
And these little guys need a mix of organic matter and non-organic mineralized soil to feed on.
- Since micro-organisms need to stay moist in order to survive, as well as
not go dormant, it is important to provide good organic material that holds water.
Also organic material gives them great food to eat as they decompose the matter.
So, you need to constantly and consciously build organic material in your soil.
- Scott collects manure and adds plant material for this, and keeps them all wet.
He also keeps his beds and garden pathways very well mulched with seedless straw, wood shavings, newspapers that now
are printed with soy ink, cardboard, etc. —protecting the soil from the drying sun and wind, keeping down evaporation.
Eventually the mulch is eaten by
native worms, breaking it down and creating “delicious” soil for the plants.
There are both native surface worms and deep soil worms, which he fosters.
His preferred method of composting
is called “sheet composting.” He gets a very huge box that a refrigerator
may have been delivered in. He flattens the box and lays it on an area where
he wants to improve the soil for an eventual garden. This acts as a weed barrier,
holds the soil in place, holds water and heat, and the worms love eating it!
Then he puts seedless straw on top—to
camouflage the cardboard, and to provide more organic material. He says you can
make a paste of white flour and water to glop on top. This will help paste the
straw down in high winds, and the micro-organisms and worms love to eat it, too! And
he completely waters down the soil underneath, the cardboard box and the straw on top, and keeps them wet over time.
Then when he gets kitchen scraps
and garden cuttings, he just lifts up an edge of the cardboard and throws the “green” stuff underneath! The worms love to come and help eat the compost, especially eating the glue along the corrugated lines
of the cardboard!
Then in the spring, he puts his seeds
on the pile. He alluded to this as Ruth Stout’s system. A few decades ago she wrote several wonderful and inspiring books about this kind of sustainable gardening
and lifestyle. I believe that her first one described their business of making
maple sugar on their land in Vermont.
- He invites worms, both the red worms that eat compost, and the worms
that digest nutrients deep down in the soil to his garden. According to the Sustainability
paradigm, he prefers not get imported worms, but to gather them down by the river. Worms
aerate the soil and their castings (poop)contribute to the health of the soil, plants and micro-organisms.
- Since our soil is so devoid of micro-organisms, he says that we need to introduce
them to our compost and to our organic matter improved soil to jump start their production in our gardens. Again, it is important that we do this with local micro-organisms that are used to our dry conditions,
and not import them from places such as Japan. After all, that takes petro-energy, and those microbes designed themselves wonderfully
for that environment, not ours!
His method for gathering micro-organisms
is to cook up the cheapest white rice he can find and add some molasses or natural sugar to make a mush. These guys love sugar and starch! He puts all that in a Tupperware bowl.
Then he goes up to the mountains to find the most healthy forest environment he can locate. There he digs a shallow depression and puts his bowl of fungus food in it, leaving the lid only partially
on. When he returns in a week, the bowl is rich with all kinds of fungi! This he returns to his organically improved soil and keeping it watered, thereby introducing
native fungus.
To get more information on the good
that fungi do, he suggested reading Paul Stamets’ book, “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World!”
To gather great bacteria for his
soil, he does the same process, but puts his bowl in the most healthy meadow he can find.
When he returns in a week, the contents look like they have been in the back of your refrigerator for a few months! This he mixes with 20 quarts of water, strains it, and either puts it in his soil,
inoculating it with native bacteria. Or he sprays it on his plants, which helps
clean the surface of the leaves, encouraging photosynthesis, plus lots of other good stuff!
And if you don’t need to use
your whole collection of fungus or bacteria right away, you can seal the top on the Tupperware. This traps in the ethylene gas that they produce, heavy concentrations of which put them to sleep until
you open the top again to let in oxygen!
You can also put this rice/molasses/sugar
mixture directly into the organic matter in your soil—keeping it wet (and dark), or you can spray a dilute solution
of molasses on your organically fed soil. With these applications, your micro-organism
population will explode!
- Using any kind of pesticide or herbicide absolutely kills off your micro-organisms—don’t
use them! So, he employs many other methods of synergistically controlling
those problems. For instance, planting a lot of just one kind of vegetable together
in a certain place will attract exponential quantities of hungry pest insects that dote on that kind of vegetable, completely
destroying all of it! So, he mixes different kinds of vegetable plants together,
and includes all kinds of flowers that attract beneficial bugs as well. He noted
that English hedgerows—wild plant borders rimming fields harbor lots of wonderful bugs and animals!
To avoid squash bugs and bean insect
predators, he doesn’t put his squash or bean plants out until the 4th of July, after those destructive bugs
have quit for the season! To control grasshoppers, he lays out fresh NoloBait
in a bar along the southwest side of the property because typically, grasshoppers migrate from the southwest to the northeast. He does this before the little ones appear—about April 15, and gives a few applications
early each season. Nolobait has bacteria that paralyze grasshoppers’ digestive
systems. And since they eat their dead members, the killing bacteria spread throughout
the season.
One year, when a plague of grasshoppers
decimated his crops, he got 20 guinea fowl at the Country Farm Supply in Espanola. These
guys love to eat grasshoppers! Now he has lots of them as they have multiplied. They roost high in the trees, and make lots of noise, but they eat grasshoppers! He puts out a little corn feed for them each day—not enough to really feed them,
but to imprint on them that this is home. Otherwise they are inclined to wander
off.
- When preparing to plant, do not turn your soil over! This dries out your soil and exposes it to sunlight which kills the worms and the micro-organisms—your
very best soil friends! Instead, break up and loosen your soil, but don’t
turn it over. Throw away your roto-tiller!
If Scott is using a tractor to break
up very tight soil—“caliche,” he puts an attachment on the back that has two steel shanks, perpendicular
to the ground that break the soil in two parallel lines to about a 4” depth to the subsoil. This allows oxygen to get into the soil without disturbing the local ecology of the micro-organisms, worms,
seeds, your plants’ roots, etc. It also allows water to penetrate the soil.
And he and his wife have a two person
digging fork to break the ground! They start at one end of the garden, and progressively
move backwards, continuing to loosen the soil along the un-worked edge each time.
RECLAIMING LAND from its abused condition:
Scott let us know that we receive
about 10” to 12” of rain annually, which is an abundance of water! Theoretically,
this amount of rain annually provides 12 gallons of water per 2 square feet of surface land throughout the year, which would
be plenty if it all stayed on our land.
The problem is that it comes down during
only two periods during the year, often times in very intense spurts, which doesn’t allow the rain to soak into the
soil, but it runs off to the river, thereby flushing soil, along with its nutrients and organic material with it—“exporting
your wealth!” When it is raining, go out on your land and watch where the
water is flowing—usually OFF your land.
SWALES
To catch and keep the natural rain
water from draining off, he creates “swales,” which he calls terra-forming.
These swales encourage natural green belts and can be used either for natural reclamation for beauty and nurturing
general health of the land—you may need to introduce seeds, or it can form the basis of your garden.
Start making your swale at the top of your
watershed. But if your land is at the lower elevations of a watershed, you get
other peoples’ water! You form a swale by moving the earth to make a level
depression in the earth following the natural contour lines of the land. Then
build an earthen berm or short dam along the length of the downhill edge of the swale to hold the water. As time goes by, be sure to plug up any leaks. Very large
swales can be 18” deep at one end, and 1” deep at the other hand. But
swales on homeowners’ land are usually smaller, requiring a level surface.
To create a level surface in your swale,
you can use a sort of primitive surveyor’s equipment system, using a builder’s level. Standing on ground that is the elevation that you want to create all over your swale, sight through the
bubble level window to a vertical marked stick that is placed at a distance on a surface that you want to determine whether
you might need to lower or raise to be a the same level with the rest of the
swale.
Or
you can use an “A-frame” apparatus that is made from two long pieces of lumber (maybe 1” x 2”s that
are perhaps 5 to 8 feet long). These are the long edges of the A. Then nail a cross piece straight across the A to hold the apparatus steady and to
hold your builders’ level. Put the foot of one of the long legs of the
A on the elevation of ground that is optimum and that you are working towards. Then
put the foot of the other long leg anywhere it falls. As you do this, you can
easily see on the crossbar level if the elevation of the ground where the second leg lands needs to be increased or decreased
to make it level with the land where the first leg of the A is resting.
Scott suggested using a company called
San Isidro Permaculture, as well as others that he can recommend to either advise you in creating swales, or these folks can
actually build them for you.
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SAN
ISIDRO PERMACULTURE in Santa Fe. 505-983-3841
Since Jeremiah is now consulting on creating a
couple of permaculture projects in Africa and will return on March 24, 2008, his delightful
wife Katie filled me in.
Jeremiah has been working in New Mexico for 20 years, so he really knows our environment!
He can give you advice and consulting with you completing the project, or his outfit can perform the whole job. His areas of expertise are, but not limited to:
- Permaculture
design and consulting.
- Water
catchment—rainwater harvesting, grey and black water systems for irrigation.
- Native
grass and wildflower seeding, whether really big or small projects.
- Native
plants, native grass lawn.
- Land
restoration, erosion control including gabions (big rocks in wire baskets that you may have seen lining some walls of some
arroyos).
- Swales,
re-contouring, catchment ponds.
- Constructive
wetlands that can be planted or left wild.
- Native
plants, edible landscapes, orchards.
- And
much more!
He works by first estimating a job and then bids
it for you.
His experience ranges from city, county (e.g.
Santa Fe and Los Alamos) and state projects to small homeowners’
jobs. He also teaches classes, and can complete a whole project, or give advice,
and/or work to complete a project at one time or in phases, such as a 10 year plan.
He has worked on the Earth Ships in Taos; in Oregon, he created cob buildings and hydro-electric; and he
also was the landscape director with the cooperative business called Green
Building. He has headed
this business since 2001.
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NATURAL LAND RECLAMATION
Swales give you a place to begin your land
restoration. This is where you can actually use a roto-tiller, following the
contour of the land. It pays to put manure in your swale, seed it and mulch it. And it is ideal to do this just before a rainy season.
The resulting vegetation attracts ground birds such as quail.
As you capture water on your land, it will
eventually percolate down to the water table, which may cause springs to arise along the walls of a nearby arroyo!
Scott calls the first plants that grow
on land after it has been cleared or burned “pioneers.” Locally some
of these are the tiny grain Amaranthus, also called pigweed. Also Calites appears,
whose leaves can be eaten like spinach. Pioneers have deep roots to tap the nutrients
in the subsoil such as zinc and iron. Iron is typically not available to vegetable
and fruit plants in our alkaline soil, which results in anemia in those people whose survival depends on local produce grown
in our soil that has not been built up with organic matter. We better get started
now!
The first-line soil recyclers are ants,
termites and weeds. These work to replenish the soil! Once the soil is replenished, they will disappear.
To get nitrogen in your soil, for the winter
you can plant your swale with winter rye or hairy vetch—a nitrogen fixing legume, then let it die. One vetch plant can grow up to 68,000 miles of roots and hair roots that loosen the soil!
WIND PROTECTION
Since our plants actually spritz
themselves with moisture, creating a humid environment for themselves, drying winds blow that nourishing water away from our
plants, causing tremendous dehydration that you might see as browning around leaf edges, or wilting on windy days.
Therefore, to protect our plants from the
drying wind, it is best to plant a wind break on the southwest side of your swale or area that you want to flourish. A good windbreak will throw the wind up, and then that wind won’t reach the
ground until it falls to the earth at a distance from the windbreak that is about 6 times the height of your tallest windbreak
trees. Then to continue the process across your land, you can plant another windbreak
at a distance from the first one where the first one’s effect diminishes.
Designing a good wind break is similar
to creating the aerodynamic shape of an airplane wing. You graduate the height
of your windbreak from shorter to taller, starting on the windward side. Begin
by planting a few rows of shrubs. Then plant a couple rows of mid-height trees,
then finally a few rows of tall trees (probably evergreens). 30% of the wind
passes through the trees, but it does decelerate the velocity of the wind significantly.
THE ANIMAL ASPECT
Gophers serve to bring air to the soil
and to fertilize it. But once you have your garden or orchard operating well,
gophers eat the roots of your plants. So Scott traps them in gadgets that kill
them. If you want to trap them live, you can take them to the perimeter of the
river to let them go.
Because he has Great Horned Owls, he doesn’t
have rabbits! These owls also eat cats, small dogs, and guinea fowl. Rabbits don’t like forests; they can’t see their predators well.
As mentioned, guinea fowl eat grasshoppers
and other bugs, but they are loud and roost high in trees to stay safe from coyotes, etc.
Their eggs are too hard to find to be depended on for food.
Chickens, of course give eggs in their
nests. They are seed eating, so he only sets them free in his garden before he
plants it. Since they scratch in the earth, they dig it up for him! They also provide great manure for his garden.
Quails eat bugs.
The best insect control is other insects,
so encourage the beneficial ones in your garden. Bill Mullen says that more flowers
such as yarrow, fennel and the carrot or “umbal” family attract good bugs.
Rhubarb, roses, grapes and berries also invite beneficial insects.
In this area, we have very tiny wasps that
are especially drawn by Rocky Mountain Bee Balm. These wasps land on other bugs,
such a squash bugs, make a hole in their exoskeleton and lay their eggs inside the other bug!
BUYING PLANT VARIETIES
Check the roots of any plants that you
are considering buying. K-mart and the other big box stores usually get their
plants from FL, and they often have tiny roots. The plant can then spend all
its time, maybe years growing roots before it begins to show any growth above ground.
Conversely, you want to be sure that the
plant is not root bound—tied up with too many roots jammed in the pot. If
the store or nursery doesn’t want you to examine the roots, then don’t buy your plants there.
Agua
Fria Nursery on Agua Fria St. in Santa Fe is a good nursery, as in Tooley’s
Trees in Truchas. Scott says that Gordon Tooley concentrates on gathering
the hardiest old varieties of fruit and other trees that will survive here! Tooley’s
Trees are open from about mid-March—depending on snow and mud conditions to November on Fri., Sat., and Sun., from 8-5. Call them at 689-2400 for directions and to get a catalog sent to you.
Scott is interested in planting Siberian
varieties of plants. Sea buckthorn produces berries that are high in antioxidants
on a small tree that also fixes nitrogen in the soil! The berries are tart so
birds don’t eat them. Plants of the Southwest on Agua Fria in Santa Fe usually carries them, but they may be an ornamental variety
that doesn’t have berries.
Scott is actually supportive of our invasive
Chinese elm! He says that they attract birds that give good phosphorus manure. If he has “weed trees,” he leaves them in there until he has something
to put in its place.
Rosemary and basil grow well here. And there are many non-native plants that grow better here than some native plants!
SCOTT’S GARDEN AND FOOD PRODUCTION
He concentrates on food production in his
garden. Beauty and ornament may arise, but only to support growing food.
He let us know that we have about a 120
day growing season here in the Rio Grande valley. One of our plants’ problems is “light saturation,” or too much light. At about 1 or 2 PM, plants take a siesta—they droop, with their water being stored in their roots,
and they stop photosynthesis until the evening brings cooler relief when they perk up again.
Therefore, it is best for our vegetables
to grow in light shade. So, he plants feathery leafed trees in his vegetable
garden such as locusts. Desert willows are also good. These are legume trees (with pods) that also fix nitrogen in the soil.
Another good one is Siberian pea shrub, a perennial also called Caragana caragana.
It can be cut back every year, which causes a proportional amount of roots to die back, leaving their nitrogen behind
in the soil. Or you can let it grow to about 10’.
Starter plants definitely need shade. Floating row covers provide about 15% shade.
To feed one adult per year on vegetables,
you need about 200 sq. ft. of intensively cultivated garden. This is about 10’
x 20’. Storage includes canning, root cellar, and fermenting. He says that fermenting sauerkraut from cabbage almost doubles its nutrition due to the bacteria releasing
the nutrients. He feels that this is a lost art and should be practiced more!
Scott has created “keyhole”
gardens. That means he doesn’t plant in traditional rows, but makes mulched
pathways with boarders (maybe rocks), which at intervals extend into rounded cul-de-sacs or keyholes into the garden area,
so that he can get in the garden to work it, but still have mulched paths underfoot.
Consequently, the paths have become so fertile from the mulch breaking down, that he has occasionally returned it to
the garden or switched the path areas with the garden area!
He adds up to 1 ft. of mulch each year. He uses rough mulch on all the garden paths such as tree shavings, which the worms
totally break down. He definitely doesn’t make raised beds, which are a
European invention to drain excess rainwater off your plants, and the plants are raised to the drying wind. Instead, he advocates digging depressions (basin-shaped) for your plants to catch the rainwater. Native Americans used “waffle” gardens, which are a grid of depressions in the earth for each
plant or group of plants that is designed to draw rainwater to them.
Scott uses cold frames (usually with about
knee high wooden sides with glass panes, such as old windows or glass doors hinged on the top as a roof. This keeps your plants fairly warm in the winter). All winter
long, they collect fresh chard, kale and lettuce from it.
And he definitely advocates saving your
seeds. He says that our “germ-plasm” which is the DNA coding in seeds
is being pirated and altered. (Monsanto does outrageous things in this category!)
Alcalde, New Mexico State University’s
experimental growing station, which is not too far north of Espanola, just off the Taos highway is devoted to organic gardening
and does cutting edge things such as introducing bind weed mites that attack bind weed!
Yeah!
HIS HOME
Astonishingly, his home is built 3 sides
around a green house as an atrium! This I really want to see at their Open House! He laid out the sewage drainage so that the blackwater is dispersed under the green
house soil. There is no smell, and it fertilizes the plants there, where he has
brought in a banana tree (that hasn’t yet fruited), Surinam
cherries, parsley, cilantro, fish in a pond, birds to enjoy watching, dragon fruit, and he starts his veggie plants from seed
here!
To heat thier home and the green house,
he has built a “Russian Stove.” This is an engineering marvel! It is composed of a big ceramic box in which he burns faggots (bundles of sticks or
branches—such as Chinese elm). The heat produced in the ceramic stove heats
a substantial mass (usually bricks or rocks), which in turn continues to radiate its heat out to the living area for the next
8 hours. So he fires up his stove only 2 times per day—once in the morning,
and once at night, (with the afternoon sun bringing its own warmth).
Please remember to send an e-mail
to Scott and Arina as soon as possible to reserve your place in their generous Open House and Potluck in early June! info@permaculture.org
A BOOK that Guru Nam Kaur showed us has
simple directions and drawings of many things that Scott talked about. It is:
“Growing
Food in the Southwest Mountains: A Permaculture
Approach to Home Gardening Above 6,500 Ft. in AZ, NM, Southern CO, and Southern Utah.” by Lisa Rayner. Published by Flagstaff Tea Party. $12.95
And we have lots of resources—including
these introduced by Scott on our webpage at www.sirigian.com/garden_resources.html . This paper will be available on our webpage
www.sirigian.com/permaculture_scott_pittman.html .
Please excuse the formatting problems recently
developed by my web host!
Some
workshops by Scott and others that are coming up soon near Espanola. To register,
either go to www.permaculture.org or call 505-455-0514.
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PRACTICAL
PERMACULTURE FOR FARMING AND GARDEN.
At Seeds of Change, Farm, El Guique (North of
Espanola,) NM
This series of three five-day long workshops is
field-based, hand-on classes that offer plenty of opportunities for learning outdoors.
Each workshop can be taken in series or separately. Completion of the
entire series leads to permaculture certification. Limited space!
Intro
to Sustainable Design Principles, Sat.,
May 17-Wed., May 21
With Toby Hemenway & Scott Pittman
Natural
and Constructed Ecosystems, Sat., July 12-Wed., July 16
With Scott Pittman & Brad Lancaster (pending confirmation)
Sustainable
Home and Community, Sat., August 12-Wed., August 27
With Scott Pittman, Les Crowder & guests
Hands on in reading the landscape, soil preparation,
mulching, beneficial organisms, spring planting, farm biodiversity, planting for pollinators, role and management of weeds,
native pollinators and honey bees, soil management in drylands, rainwater harvesting, natural building methods, use of alternative
energies, design for communities and Ecovillages.
505-455-0514, www.permaculture.org
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NATURAL
TOPBAR BEEKEEPING
Without chemicals, contraptions or expense…
Weekend Season Long Series 2008:
At a bee yard in Albuquerque, NM
May-September 2008
(limited space!)
Biology of the honey bee
Building hives and obtaining bees
Raising Queens
and collecting swarms
Hive products and dividing hives
Hive health and maintenance
Making salves, soaps and candles
Becoming a bee keeper
Short Topbar Beekeeping workshops are offered
throughout Summer 2008 in Santa Fe and Albuquerque,
NM
505-455-0514
www.permaculture.org
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