Sea Buckthorn - A Journey in Design!

What a beauty!

Sea Buckthorn, aka Hippophae ramnoides of the Elaeagnaceae family, is going in my garden.

I have a large-ish site in mind for it, with a rain garden / irrigation swale in place downhill of it to make sure the plants don't drown. I'm working on the soil, and soon the site will be ready for these babies.

Before these plants can go in the ground, I have to figure out exactly how to plant them, where each of them will go, and what to plant with them.

I have ordered 8 sea-buckthorns, because it is impossible to tell the gender of the individual plants before they flower. Ordering 8 means I'll definitely get at least one male plant.

Here are some of the factors I am considering:

The Wind Factor - Sea Buckthorn has two genders, and needs to be pollinated in order to bear delicious and nutritious fruit. The flowers don't attract insects, so they rely solely on the wind for pollination. That means I have to plant them in such a way that all of the plants have good air circulation. Apparently, some people use these plants as a wind break because they form impenetrable thickets.


The Thicket Factor - Not only does Sea Buckthorn send out suckers to form dense thickets, it also has thorns. To me, that says one thing:

I figure a thicket of sea buckthorn could act as a good fence around part of my garden, keeping the dogs from their lovable habit of digging up every sapling I plant, no matter how beautiful, rare, or expensive.

The Root Factor - Sea Buckthorn is known to send out big roots very quickly. It's great at preventing erosion for this reason. My research indicates that the roots are very similar to those of trembling aspen, which already have a colony in my garden, part of which overlaps the area I want to plant the sea buckthorns in. 

Trembling Aspen: beautiful native species with medicinal value,
not to mention a great place to put my hammock.

That means competition, and competition is something to avoid in permaculture design, opting instead for cooperation and resource sharing between species. That way, all of the species are healthy, instead of just a few.

Thinking about competition means thinking about who has the advantage. In this case, the aspen colony is already established.


But, the aspen colony is old, and many of the trees are sickly, dead, or halfway to being dead. Many of them will have to be removed in the next year or two to lessen fire danger.


The Neighbor Factor - I'm not talking about my human neighbors, who are extremely awesome and with whom I shall gladly share my sea buckthorn bounty. I'm talking about the plant neighbors. 


Besides the trembling aspen colony, there are lots of native grasses and spruce near the intended sea buckthorn patch. The only potential problem I see there is that white spruce can make soil acidic, but I am putting in a buffer of other, acid tolerant plants to protect the acid-sensitive sea buckthorns, so no harm done.

Mulch! Made of leaves! Leaf mulch!

It's very likely that there are other potential interactions between these species that I haven't thought of. I just hope that they are positive!

The main consideration here for me is what I want to plant with these bad boys. Unlike the other fruiting berry bushes that I've been planting this spring, I won't be able to underplant the sea buckthorn with perennials because their intensely thick throwing habit will strangle the poor suckers out in a couple years. That means annuals only for the area immediately beneath the buckthorns, or perhaps just some nice mulch to keep soil moisture constant (and to look pretty!)

Because the sea buckthorn is pollinated by wind and not insects, I won't need to plant any pollinating insect attractors nearby to help out in the pollination process. In fact, doing so might distract the bees from berry bushes where their services would be much more helpful.

Like, for example, a beautiful sour cherry sapling that I would like to plant. This is one of my main obstacles so far in this design: where to put the cherry. It has the same soil, moisture and sun needs as the sea buckthorns - which means that it ought to go in about the same area, on the uphill side of the irrigation trench. Because the flowers are so lovely, I would also like to have a sitting area nearby or beneath it. There will also need to be lots of bee attractors nearby.

I could plant some soil improving plants in and around the sea buckthorns, but it seems that won't be necessary, either. The sea buckthorns are some of the best soil amending plants there are.

Couldn't find a picture of a sun bowl.

The Sun Bowl Factor - A sun bowl is a way to increase the ambient temperature in a small part of your garden by 'catching' the sun, and reducing the wind. Because sea buckthorn can act as a wind break, it is perfect for this purpose.


The sea buckthorn patch wraps around the north side of my high production garden beds. Because of their light coloured leaves (light colours are reflective of the sun's heat), height and density, the sea buckthorns will be able to block wind into those beds, keep frost out during shoulder seasons, and keep more of the sun's heat in the 'bowl'. Some permaculturists estimate that a properly designed sun bowl can increase the ambient temperature within by up to 5 degrees celsius! Such an increase could lengthen my short growing season by a couple of weeks - which could make all the difference.

Ouch!

The Berry Picking Factor - Because of the sharp thorns of the sea buckthorn, an important consideration to remember in the planning phase is access to all sides of each plant for the harvest of fruits. If you have to wiggle your way between two of the plants to get at a third... well, you won't be getting at the third. Unless you hate your skin, and enjoy pain.


I figure that accessing 3 of 4 sides of each plant will be enough, which seems to indicate a triangular planting pattern.






Update May 5th: The Hill and Mulch Factor - I just read a really awesome report by the Finnish Government about the growing of Sea Buckthorn. They did a study to figure out the best ways to grow these babies as they are considered a very important crop in that country. 


They found that sea buckthorn grows much better if each plant is put on a small mound, and if they are mulched with plastic. I'm willing to give that a try! Of course, I'll likely cover the plastic because I don't like the look of it, but that's just me.

Now you can see how much thought goes in to planting just one species. It may be complex, but it sure is fun. I'm going to go out in the yard and stare for a while, to see what comes to me. Stay tuned for the next installment: Sea Buckthorn - How I planted Them... with pictures!

More Bad News for Bees

Just read that Monsanto bought a leading research company whose work was linking pesticides, gmo's, and colony collapse disorder.

Looks like it's more bad news for Bees.

Beautiful Bee getting some lunch last summer in the forest near my house.

The Dangerous World of Landscaping.

Disfigurement by lawnmower.

Crippling heavy-rock-lifting related injuries.

Really bad sunburns.

These are all the real dangers that are faced by any person intrepid enough to explore and attempt to alter a landscape. Sure, some tools exist to help us avoid these pitfalls - like sunscreen.

But there is one tool in landscaping and gardening that no amount of preparation can prepare you to handle.

I am of course talking about the credit card.

That's a lot of plants.

Take, for example, a recent sojourn to the local gardening center. I wanted to get a few berry bushes while they were still dormant, some manure, seed potatoes. The usual.

But then I saw them.

Perennials.


The first shipment of perennials had just arrived, and I became blind with garden lust. The next thing I knew, I had completely filled one of those giant rolling carts with the plants seen at right, which will soon make up the greenery in the shade garden I am building. --->

It was madness.

These plants won't be able to go in the ground for at least another week. So why did I buy them now?

There are two correct answers.

1) Lack of self control and patience.
2) I figured I could 'multi-task': get these beauties hardened up while, at the same time, waiting for the day to come when I could plant them. This, instead of buying them two weeks from now, and then having to spend another week hardening them.

In the meantime, my plants sit happily in a giant tub that, when vacated, will become a potato planter.

Be careful, friends and readers. It's a dangerous world out there.

The Freedom Experiment

Marthe at The Freedom Experiment just wrote a really beautiful piece about intuitive living... inspired by my debut novel, Wild Land!

It's a great article that's worth a read!

If you want to find out more about Wild Land, you can check out my website, Wild Land's amazon page, or Wild Land's goodreads page.

Can we feed the Earth while we feed Ourselves?

Honeyberry getting settled in its new home:
my garden's berry spiral.

When talk about food security and the future of humanity comes up, there is inevitably mention that 'the only way' to feed everybody is totalitarian agriculture. All we have to do is turn even more wild land into chemical drenched monoculture fields, and everyone will be fed.

For a while.

We've reached and surpassed critical mass in our population through the use of totalitarian agriculture. If there are food surpluses, animal populations go up. Whether we like it or not, we are governed by those rules. Now, we have a whole lot of mouths to feed. Personally, I would really like to find a way to feed them without sacrificing any more non-human lives than we have to.

To me, this is where permaculture comes in.

I can already hear some of you guffawing with the sad laughter of hopelessness and cynicism. What a buffoon! you chuckle, How naive!

Chamomile, Strawberry and Onion sprouts
peaking through the winter mulch in my
'high production' garden beds.

In some ways, I agree with you. And perhaps I am naive. Given the state of things in our world, I certainly hope that I am.

There is, however, evidence to support my claim. In Russia, there is a movement inspired by a reclusive forest dweller that has the government encouraging individuals and families to grow their own food on 3-5 acre family plots.

Get this: In 1999, about half of the country's food was grown on these plots. And that is just the beginning.

According to the article above, in 2003, Russia enacted the Private Garden Plot Act to give one to three hectares of land (about 3-5 acres on average) to Russian families for lifetime use with right of inheritance. The produce grown is not subject to taxation.

That's right. Free land to grow free food, for free.


Put that in your Gross Domestic Pipe and Smoke it.

These family plots, or Kin's Domains in the words of the Ringing Cedars of Russia, the book series that has spurred the international movement, do more than provide food. They provide a motherland. A home. A piece of the Earth to which humans belong just as much as the animals and plants that grow there.

The family dogs, MJ and Maggie, enjoying some shade.

When we consider the difficulties of feeding humanity, I believe that it's important to remember the hidden hungers of a being as spiritually and mentally complex as we are. It's a blessing and it's a curse, folks: if we don't take care of these appetites, we will become sick, broken, listless, and just plain sad.

I'm talking about the need to feel connected and alive. The need to feel safe and comfortable. The need to laugh with people who know you, and who you care for. The need to snuggle. The need to be heard and understood. The need to follow that mute, pure part of yourself that points tirelessly in the direction of your destiny.


What does all of this have to do with gardening?

We all have the ability to feed ourselves. Today, that ability is being compromised by the systemic exploitation of human labour, fossil-fuel dependent global transportation, and a brutal disrespect for the integrity of the Earth.

This is where the naivety comes in... maybe. I think that it's not too late. For me, permaculture design offers a way not just to grow my own food, but to grow my own home. I believe that others can do it, too. In cities, in the country, everywhere.

In the words of The Ringing Cedars...

Me examining the bark of a Limber Pine, the namesake of my publishing company.

Take Back Your Motherland, People!

Ant Garden Design: Sunflowers to the Rescue!

I was reading this really interested article about urban agriculture in Cuba, which is full of concrete, easy to imitate examples of permaculture in practice.

The use of 'traps' to contain pests without resorting to toxic chemicals in particular caught my eye. I had already heard of confusing pests with very aromatic but predominantly pest-resistant plants like chives, but had yet to come across something so brilliant as sequestering aphids by giving them a free meal: sunflowers.

And that's when it hit me.

"Self!" I said to myself, "Aphids are what the western thatching ants ranch! I could use sunflowers in my ant garden!"

Well, suffice it to say that I agreed.

My hubby loves sunflowers, but I'm not sure if our growing season is going to be long enough for them to produce edible seeds. This is a great opportunity for them to play a very useful role in the garden beyond aesthetics, whether or not they produce.

Hurray!

Bees Deserve Our Kindness!

Imagine this: you plant acres and acres of a single crop, ignoring the time honoured wisdom of 'if you build it, they will come.'

If only this farmer had thought to include an ant garden
to ranch those aphids. Yee haw!

An animal, let's say an insect, that eats that crop is all like "It's a buffet! There is endless food here! Holy moly!" etc.

Said insect goes to town, eating and eating and eating. Because of the fact that there is only a single crop for acres in every direction, the more temperamental predators who could control that population explosion are likely nowhere to be found - at least, not yet. Maybe a few of them have arrived and are slowly expanding their populations to deal with their own buffet.

But, you don't have time for that. So you spray the place with stuff that is meant to kill insects. Sometimes, you skip the story altogether and plant seeds pre-treated with insecticides.

Not only does this kill off whatever predators may have been able to help you defend your crop (if they can find the proper habitat among all that corn or wheat), giving the original 'pest' insects a chance to swoop back in and chomp merrily again...

Well, it's going to kill all sorts of other insects, too.

Like Bees.

Last year, almost 150 million acres were planted in seeds treated with neonicotinoids - nicotine based insectides or pesticides. Bees exposed to these chemicals, which are actually nerve toxins, get lost. They can't find their way back to their hives. Sound familiar?

Colony Collapse Disorder is the name given to mysteriously abandoned beehives all over North America.  This strange affliction is causing bee populations to dwindle. 

Worse, hives exposed to neonicotinoids produce up to 85% fewer queens - meaning that there are 85% fewer new colonies being established to replace those destroyed by Colony Collapse Disorder.

Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that we eat the food that is crawling in nerve toxins made from nicotine. It reminds me of that episode of the Simpsons when Homer's creative use of nuclear waste results in a hybrid tomato and tobacco plant.

Needless to say, hilarity ensues, as various barnyard animals become addicted to the snack and go on a wild, possibly-nerve-toxin induced rampage.

But I digress.

There is a very important petition that you can sign to help reduce the impact of these terrible chemicals on our bumblebee friends.

They deserve our help.

Can Cultivated Land still be Wild Land?

Ah, the endless wheat fields.

Bumblebees buzz around uselessly, looking for wild flowers, and deer find that they cannot graze. Weeds are pulled, sprayed and tilled under repeatedly.

In these places, only one thing is allowed to grow, sometimes for such distance that the eye can see nothing else.

Here, a forest garden. Many useful and beneficial plants grow together in communities that mimic those found in nature. Many kinds of food are grown, and the use of fossil fuels (as fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, or to power large machines) is limited.

Bees and insects scuttle and buzz merrily through the forest garden. They are welcome to call that place their home.


But the question is: Can forest gardens be wild places?
Can we share 'our' land with others... and can it be beneficial to all?

I think that is possible. It's part of why permaculture is so important to me.


"The Earth is already perfect; infinitely complex and almost infinitely able to support itself. It's always changing always cycling. Our part in that is to imbue creation with love and kindness.
"Each plant and animal is already perfect, because all are the manifestation of the creator's thought. By planting them together and tending them with kindness, affection and forethought to the benefit of all who will encounter them, we create pieces of paradise.
"Our purpose is to surround others with love, using the knowledge and skills that are inherent in us to build the world around us in a way that will make others happy. My purpose is to transform creation into paradise, just as every person's purpose is."

- Wild Land, my debut novel.



To find out more about my writing, check out my website!

I Dare You

It's spring time. The Earth is becoming fertile, the sun virile, and soon the million births of summer will be upon us.

As this new season of growth unfurls, I feel inspired to do a bit of growing myself. The sweet smells of spring are enticing me to connect with the world in a more profound way, and I want to share this journey with you!

I dare you to find a wild edible plant that you've never eaten before, and then eat it. Make sure that you properly identify it, first! My recommendation, if you live in a city and there aren't that many wild edibles around, would be dandelions. As the season goes on, Pineapple Weed will be popping up in sidewalk cracks and makes a very lovely, chamomile like tea. If you are getting this plants from the city, be sure to wash them very thoroughly as it's likely that they've been sprayed.

If you are feeling particularly proud of your efforts, then post your experience in the comments section! Put up a picture! I'll do the same :)

Let's partake of nature's bounty! Hurray!

If you get stuck, check out this helpful list of common wild edible plants in Alberta.

And here are seven delicious recipes for dandelions!

Dandelions!

An awesome sign I found at a garden show, along with the plants that will go in my new shade garden and a single pansy that my hubby got me as a present yesterday (he knows me so well), all chilling on the wood stove.

I learned something amazing yesterday: every single part of dandelions are edible. Some have multiple uses. All are highly nutritious, even medicinal.

It turns out that our most common weed is also an amazing superfood!

Get this: the roots of dandelions, best gathered in spring and fall, are highly nutritious and taste like parsnips. They can be stored the same way. Now I grant you - parsnips are not the most delicious thing. But here's the clincher: if you leave even a little bit of the dandelion root in the ground, it will come back. The whole thing will grow back. That means you pull out the root, eat it, and then enjoy the rest of the plant for the rest of the summer, once it's grown back.

Picked before the flowers come up, the leaves are decent tasting and tender. They can be eaten as salad, added to soups or stir-fries, are dried and added to things later. They can also make a mild tea that has mild laxative properties and helps the liver.

The flowers can be made into wine. The milky sap from the stems can treat insect bites. And then, in the fall, pull up some more parsnip-like-roots to feed you through the winter. The roots can also be ground up to make a decent coffee-substitute.

I figure that, fried with some garlic or baked with rosemary, those roots will taste just great.

Gooooooooooooo Dandelions!

Spiral Gardens - Not Just for Herbs!

Permaculture design relies in part on understanding microclimates. This may sound sciency, but do not despair: a microclimate is simply a small part of your yard that is shady or sunny, dry or wet, acid or alkaline, etc. etc. Figuring out microclimates can be accomplished through observation alone.

To give your plants their best chance at life, you can also build microclimates. You can design them right into your garden!

A beautiful example of this is the herb spiral. It's called a herb spiral because it is usually planted with lots of herbs and flowers. Those that need the most light go on the south side. Those that need the most water go closer to the bottom. It's a great way to meet the varied needs of many plants in one, space saving garden bed.

Now let me introduce you to...

THE BERRY SPIRAL!

Ta da!

As you can see, this spiral garden is fairly squat. Its highest point is less than a meter above ground level. But that meter can make a big difference!

I laid some serious partially composted vegetables, eggshells, and manure as my first layer. Because the grass beneath is buried at least 6 inches deep, and is suffering anyways because of its proximity to the spruces you can see in the background of this picture, I didn't feel the need to lay down a weed barrier. Will keep you posted on how that goes.

Next was a layer of partially composted grass. I put that in partly for water retention, and partly to help balance the bacteria / fungi ratio in the soil as decomposition happens. Grass favours bacteria in the soil, while woody fibres favour fungi. I needed the grass to balance out the large amounts of mostly-rotted woody materials that I used to build the inside spiral up with.

I used some really old, very rotted firewood from the former owners of our home to give shape to the spiral. Not only is this free and easy, but decaying wood can hold twice as much water as soil, even healthy soil. That means that my berry spiral will have lots of water, encouraging deep root growth and reducing irrigation needs.

Then came the tough part. We are doing some construction right now, building a garage, and I had to lug bucket after bucket full of topsoil from that construction OVER THE FENCE, WITH MY BARE HANDS, to this beautiful spiral. At the end of the day I could barely move, but when I taste those berries, it will all be worth it.

Next, I carried the beautiful, flat rocks that you see from miles and miles away, again with my bare hands, to hold the soil in place. For the upper part of the spiral, these actually visually block the old wood that provides the main structure. The rocks will act to hold heat from the day into the evening, helping to regulated the soil temperature and extend the growing season.

The berry spiral from up the slope. By extending the slope
with basically flat beds, I'm encouraging water retention!

Finally, I planted that bad boy. I chose to use a highbush cranberry in the back, and three different varieties of honeyberry for the front and two sides. The middle, highest point is being held (in deference) for a beautiful, edible nut producing siberian almond that will be arriving by mail in the next week or two.

Beneath the bushes, I planted a 'living mulch' of clover. Between the bushes, I planted a combination of native bee-attracting species, as well as a couple sunflowers in the back. All of those flowers will attract bees and other beneficial insects throughout the summer, ensuring that my berries get pollinated AND keeping excess herbivory down.

And last but not least, I put a little fence up to keep the dogs out. Of course, I didn't quite buy enough to go all the way around, so I set up some plywood as a stop-gap to protect my bushes.


I cannot wait to see how this looks when it is in bloom!

Rain Gardens II: Back to the Future

When designing a forest garden, you have to think big.

I'm not just talking big in terms of big space: small spaces can have big yields, big beauty, and big health benefits for all creatures involved just as easily as sprawling acreages can.

I'm talking big trees. That cute little sapling you want to plant could grow into a 30 foot wide behemoth that takes over your entire yard.

When you design a permaculture garden with trees in it (ie, a forest garden), you have to plan the future before you plan the plants that you want to plant now. If you see what I mean.

In my observations of the natural forests near my house, I've come to notice a few useful things to consider while planning a future forest, and trying to understand what actions need to be taken now in order for that forest to become a reality in a few years. There are lots of pieces to this puzzle, but for now, I want to talk about water.

Trees need water! Usually, they need a fair amount of it!

In my last post, I talked about possible designs for maximizing natural irrigation in your garden by including a rain garden in your design. A rain garden won't just help things grow this year, though. It can be a vital part of your forest as it matures THROUGH TIME.

(cue sci-fi music)

Seriously though. If you start with a rain garden with the initial plantings of a forest around it, then everybody gets water and all is well. As the shrubs and trees of your garden grow and develop the architecture of a forest, they will overtake the rain garden from above in the form of shade, and from beneath with roots. Those roots will increase the soil's capacity for storing water, taking over the heft of the responsibility from the rain garden.

But the rain garden does not disappear!

Instead, it continues to maximize irrigation, and fosters little tiny microclimates within your growing forest garden for all sorts of other plants to grow.

Rain Gardens - The Way of the Future

I live in the Ghost watershed. Here on the Eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, spring melt and rain runoff trickle through the cracked stone, around giant mountains, and eventually meet with other springs and tributaries to form rivers. Those rivers provide the water for much of the rest of North America.

Sort of a big deal.

Oops.

Living in a watershed comes with responsibilities. This picture shows what can happen when those responsibilities are cast aside like so much used kleenex.

This road sits about 2 meters above the ranch pastures on either side of it. Those pastures were likely seasonal wetlands before. But now, they are tilled yearly to encourage the growth of hays and grasses for the cattle to eat. This prevents the growth of solid soil ecosystems, and also prevents the anti-erosion action of water loving bushes that would have flourished here otherwise. The cattle compact the soil, further reducing its water holding capacity. You can see the result.

Let's filter some water, baby!

To provide some contrast, here is a picture taken only a few days later in a natural, seasonal wetland, which is being enjoyed by one of my devastatingly beautiful dogs. During the summer, fall, and winter, this plateau on the slopes of the foothills does not have standing water.

But when the spring melts and rains come, this area is ready to deal with it. Notice the thriving water loving plants, the criss-cross of twigs and leaves under the waters' surface, and the standing, living trees in the photo's background.
Not only does this area support a thriving community of living things (you should hear the frogs and birds), it is able to hold and filter massive amounts of water, before releasing them into the river below.

You can bet your bippy that the moist forest below this wetland, between it and the river, relies for moisture in the dry summer months on the soils and plants that are storing it in this picture. Unlike the cow-poop rich runoff in the first picture, the water that filters through the wetland in the second picture will be clear and clean.

How can we imitate this wonderful, water-conscious strategy in our own gardens?

Easy!

It's called a rain garden. The idea is to create a low-lying patch of well-draining soil with many water-loving, probably native, and hopefully otherwise useful (ie medicinal, food for us, food for local insects, etc.) plants. Mulch around these plants with stones or pebbles for beauty, remembering that during heavy rains, the pebbles will be submersed. You could even get wild and install a rain-powered fountain or something crazy, or get creative with the kinds of things that you plant around your rain garden, inside your rain garden, down hill or up hill from your rain garden.

It's fun!

For example: Let's say you want to grow some dry-soil loving sea buckthorn, which has the added benefits of producing a highly nutritious fruit, being beautiful, attracting beneficial insects, naturally fertilizing your soil, and forming an impenetrable hedge to keep the dogs out of wherever you don't need any bones buried, thank you very much. Let's say you also want to grow some water lovers, and some plants that need frequent watering, but don't need to be up to their eyeballs in water.

Plan a curving line of sea buckthorns along the north side of your planting. Depending on the amount of sunlight and wind you get, you can plant those sea buckthorns with a deep curve, coming down the east and west sides of your planting, or a shallow curve. There are benefits to both: a deep curve keeps wind (and dogs) out, but can shade the plantings within the curve, while a shallow curve invites much more sunlight during morning and evening, and during marginal seasons. Allowing more sun into your planting has obvious benefits, but shade isn't a bad thing. There are lots of beautiful plants that would thrive in a partly shady environment, like ferns, bleeding hearts, and currants, just to name a few. See my posts on shade plants and shade polycultures for more ideas.

Next, plan your water garden to fit inside the sea buckthorn's curve, just south of it. It's probably smart to plan for a path between the north side of the water garden and the south side of the sea buckthorn hedge. Make sure that the water garden is lower than the sea buckthorns, in its own little depression. This works best if there is already a natural, south facing slope. If there isn't, don't worry: just dig for the water garden and use the excess soil to make a little hill for your sea buckthorns to stand on.

The final piece of the puzzle are the 'needs reliable water' plants. For me, that would be my "high production bed" of vegetables. It could also be shorter berry bushes that get thirsty easily but won't block the sun, or a flower garden that does best with good irrigation. Plan for these plants to sit down-hill of your water garden, which is itself downhill from your sea buckthorns, in its little depression. This bed should not be in a depression.

Here's how it works:

When it rains, water will run off of the sea buckthorns and into the rain garden, preventing the buckthorns from getting too much moisture. The flat depression of the rain garden will fill with water, making the pretty water plants happy. Your steady-irrigation garden of vegetables or flowers below it will get a good watering from the rain. Once the rain stops, the water caught in the rain garden will seep into the soil and downhill: watering your steady-irrigation vegetable/flower garden for days to come!

The exact shape(s) of your water-conscious planting can be limited only by your imagination. You could put a little island in the middle, or include a bridge that crosses it, or train your sea buckthorns to grow over it on trellises or arbors or even pergolas (such fancy words, those). You could surround it with an actual pond, making the rain garden a natural filtration system for your water feature. You could make IT into an actual pond, albeit quite a shallow one, though that would limit its use for irrigating things downhill from it. You could put lights underneath plants so that when it rains it looks real spooky. As for what to plant in the water garden, you now have the perfect excuse to go and find a wetland, and take note of the kinds of plants growing in it.

The options are literally endless!

I hope that this simple planting arrangement idea, hereafter referred to as "Kathryn's Brilliant Sea Buckthorn Water Garden Irrigation Extravaganza," has gotten your creative juices stirring.

Can't wait to install my own!

Those Evil Red Ants

Fire Ants. Carpenter Ants. Biting Ants.

Red Ants.


Just thinking about them made me, well, antsy.

Especially because there is a huge colony of them in my backyard. I was concerned for my pets, who are quite oblivious to these fellows, and of course, for my garden.

But now I have seen the light!

The ants in my yard are western thatching ants. It turns out that these bad boys eat herbivorous insects, especially aphids, which means that they can act as a police force protecting nearby plants that might otherwise fall prey to excess herbivory. That they are already established is a bonus: by including them in my plans for the garden, with some knowledge of their habits and behavior, I can do what permaculturists do best:

Turn unwanted ants into another ally in the garden.

Huzzah!

My garden design is evolving and becoming more detailed every day. With this new information, I have one more concrete goal to help the design gel: I want to surround these ants with plants that need protection from pests. I also want to ensure that they have adequate water supply, so I will elongate a burm that I've designed into the garden, bringing it right past them. I will also cut off the possibility of negative ant-pet interaction by fencing off the donut of delight that will be: THE ANT GARDEN.

There will be an offering of raspberry bushes and / or milk thistle very close to the colony (as close as I can get without becoming terrified of bites and running away) for them to 'ranch' their aphids. These bushes will likely suffer as the aphids are encouraged by the ants to eat them, become plump with nectar, and then become food themselves. Around those I'll put plants that are less attractive for aphid ranches, but may become prey to slugs or beetles. My theory is that the ants will find those pests during their rounds, and hunt them for food, thus protecting the plants in the long-run. Finally, I'll put a fence around the whole donut to keep the dogs out!

I'll let you know how it goes.

It is supposed to be sunny for a few days after nearly a week of late-season snow. Can't get to get outside and start building!

Arsenic, acetaminophen and anti-depressants fed to chickens

A few studies have recently looked at feather meal from chickens to determine what kind of chemicals the chickens are being fed. It turns out, they're getting a whole wackload.

These studies are disturbing for a number of reasons. Firstly, arsenic is given to chickens so that their meat is more tender.

Seriously? We poison animals that we want to eat so that we'll want to eat them more as long as we don't know about the poison?

Second, acetaminophen (active ingredient in tylenol), antihistamines, and in China, anti-depressants are fed to chickens, ostensibly to reduce their anxiety. At the same time, they're fed caffeine to keep them awake longer so that they eat more and grow more quickly.  Talk about selling the problem and the solution.

I can't imagine any person sick enough to treat a bunch of living animals this way on a daily basis. But that's possibly the most disturbing thing about this article. Tucked away in the middle and not addressed again, the author alleges:

"These findings will surprise some poultry farmers because even they often don’t know what chemicals they feed their birds. Huge food companies require farmers to use a proprietary food mix, and the farmer typically doesn’t know exactly what is in it. I asked the United States Poultry and Egg Association for comment, but it said that it had not seen the studies and had nothing more to say."


Woah. So you're telling me that some big conglomerate is selling a 'proprietary food mix' to farmers, who don't know what's in it. Worse, these Huge food companies REQUIRE that farmers use this particular mix.


I am quite baffled and upset by this. If I were ever to become a chicken farmer, I would be more than a little peeved to have some 'huge food company' force a toxic blend of chemicals on me and my chickens. I would also be stressed out beyond words to have to grow chickens waaaaayyyyy faster than they usually grow in order to sell them fast enough to make ends meet. No autonomy, no hope of advancement, unsustainable livelihood...


Farmers ought to be esteemed members of society. Food is our most basic need! These people ought to be lavished with the best tools, given control over the land, plants, animals and equipment that they use, and assisted with the best research and resources. 


If they aren't, we end up eating arsenic chicken.

A bit of Inspiration...

In ecosystem succession, weeds perform some of the most vital soil building functions. Many 'weeds' are dynamic accumulators that dig deep into the ground and draw nutrients up to the topsoil. They are the brave few who dare to go where other plants cannot: the infertile places, the too-hot-and-sunny places, the in-between places.

Why?

So that other plants can grow there afterwards. Weeds build up the soil, and in doing so, forfeit their competitive advantage over less hardy plants. They thrive in conditions where no one else can, but spend their lives making their homes hospitable for others, who will eventually overtake them.

Few forests would be possible without the efforts of weeds.

The Revolution is Fungal

Round-Up is Terrifying

Studies show that factory farms produce less food. Many of these farms are using Monsanto's Roundup Ready plants and of course, Roundup with them.

While I'm the first to admit that I'm no expert on the science of Roundup - no, I just have a blog about human ecology that someday, god willing, more than one other person will read - I did just find an article that explains part of why that is.

I do recommend the article, which has lots of links in it to other interesting articles, but if you're not in the mood to read it, the connection to lower crop productivity is this:

Glysophate (the main ingredient in Roundup) interacts with soil by damaging beneficial microbes in it. As I understand it, those microbes are pretty darn important for the health of anything growing in the soil. Like the healthy bacteria in our digestive tracts: if it's killed, then all sorts of nasty yeasts and angry bacteria get in there and just start chomping away. When that happens to a human, nutrient absorption goes down: you can eat and eat, but your body is unable to access the vitamins before they leave your system.

When Roundup kills beneficial microbes in the soil, the same thing happens to plants: nutrient uptake is 'interfered with' and nitrogen fixing is reduced. Nitrogen fixing is how some plants can grow in 'bad' soil (ie, everywhere): they dig up nutrients with their long roots and 'fix' them into the top soil, where successive generations of plants can benefit from them. As they said in the Lion King, it's the circle of life.

Which is of course stunted when Roundup is applied, resulting in "overall lower-than-expected plant productivity"

Permaculture, Biodiversity, and Feeding the Masses

An awesome article at the David Suzuki Foundation explains that large, industrial farms actually hurt biodiversity, and aren't that great for feeding the masses, either.

Duh.

After explaining the multifaceted harms that these monolithic, pesticide soaked, fossil fuel rich farms inflict on the living breathing world, in the name of food security, the article goes on to say:

 despite the incredible expansion of industrial farming practices, the number of hungry people continues to grow.

Huh. Well get this: according to a number of studies cited in the article, small scale organic farms produce more output per unit than industrial farms.

I really liked the quote from Eliot Coleman:

"[T]he thinking behind industrial agriculture was based upon the mistaken premise that nature is inadequate and needs to be replaced with human systems. They contended that by virtue of that mistake, industrial agriculture has to continually devise new crutches to solve the problems it creates (increasing the quantities of chemicals, stronger pesticides, fungicides, miticides, nematicides, soil sterilization, etc.)."

According to Edible Forest Gardens, Native North Americans employed a kind of agriculture known as agroforestry. It's a very specific form of permaculture that relies on the systems of the forest and its cycles to grow or harvest an array of food, without harming the forest or its inhabitants. Quite the opposite: it seems that many of the agriculture oriented activities of Native North Americans were an integral part of forest health, and that many species relied on the careful attention that these people paid to the land.


And get this: new evidence suggests that the 'empty land' that Europeans invaded actually had a higher population density than Europe did at the time. 


Don't clean out your ears: you heard right. This eco-positive, respectful, caring form of agriculture was able to support higher population density than the intensive monoculture farming that has evolved into todays industrial agriculture.


Why? How? Am I saying that modern science has failed us?!?! 


Not at all. All I'm saying is that Mother Earth hasn't.


Polycultures (multiple plants planted among each other), one of the fundamentals of permaculture and forest gardening, allow plants to partition resources among themselves more easily. A field of only one plant will use up lots of some nutrients and none of others. It will only support certain soil bacteria, the rest of which will perish, leaving the soil food web broken. Meanwhile, a polyculture patch is much more likely to grow and be healthy without us having to dump fertilizer on it all the time.


It's like this: let's say soil is like your cupboard. If you're me, you have some people food, some dog food, and some cat food in there. But if you're house only has cats, they are quickly going to run out of cat food, and more will have to be brought in. Meanwhile, the dog food and human food will spoil, benefiting no one. If, on the other hand, you have a happy multispecies family like I do, then everyone is happy and you don't live in a crazy world run by cats, which is absolute madness.

Project Bumblebee

Bumblebee's wings are so small, compared to their bodyweight, that they shouldn't be able to fly.

In spite of this, bees are one of the most important species on the planet. In many ecosystems, they're the glue holding the rest of life together: they pollinate, buzz around, look adorable, etc.

Einstein estimated that the extinction of the bumblebee would give humanity 4 years before extinction. That's right. We rely on that little bumbler for our very existence.

To me, bumblebees are a poignant reminder of nature's tenacity, resilience, beauty... and fragility. By the laws of nature itself, these little striped crusaders shouldn't be able to do their vital work, but they do anyways.

Given the immense complexity of every single tiny ecosystem on this planet, it seems equally impossible that living land communities could survive, let alone flourish, while under ever greater attack by human activities. But all around us, in cracks in the sidewalk, empty lots, parks and protected areas, and so many other places, living things are working to restore the balance of the world.

Project Bumblebee

If given the chance, I will buy land in ecologically fragile areas to give the life of those areas a chance to flourish. My focus will be on farmland that has been rezoned or is for sale at a decent price; large hobby farms / acreages (5 acres and over); and previously protected land that is now available for development. Using permaculture principles, non-invasive planting techniques and native species, I will help these pocket-ecosystems to mature into a self-sustaining state.

If possible, these land communities will include one species that is native all over the world: humans. There are many people who would love to live in ecovillages on their own plots of land, growing much of their own food in a sustainable way that mimics natural ecosystems known as the forest garden. I know that I want to. And if given the chance, I'll make it happen.

In the meantime, my half-acre in the ghost watershed will have to do, and I'll build it up with living things and nutrients as best I can. I'll also make sure there are lots of flowers for you, bumblebee. You keep on buzzing.

Artifical Fertility: Yay or Nay?!

Today I did something scandalous. I bought fertilizer, and I even put it around some of my plants.

DUN DUN DUN.

This is scandalous because part of the reason I am so interested in growing my own food is to avoid eating food contaminated with toxic chemicals. However, the chemicals I applied today are not toxic, as far as we know.

Often, it's necessary to add artificial fertility to a permaculture forest garden until the garden has grown-up enough that it can provide its own renewing fertility. Seeing as installing is happening now and maturity won't happen for a while, I think it makes sense to give my plants a boost, increasing their success and that of the entire garden ecosystem.

Also, it gives me a chance to evaluate the effectiveness and possible side effects of the fertilizer, and pass that experiential knowledge onto YOU, dear reader!

You're welcome.

One Hundred Onions

Today I planted one hundred onions! Well, I planted one hundred onion bulbs anyways.

I put half of these in containers in a very sunny spot, and the other half in my "productive patch" beds. Also in containers, beside the onions, I planted potatoes. My container potatoes far outperformed my in-ground potatoes last year, and were much easier to harvest, not to mention easier on the soil. In order to keep digging to an absolute minimum, potatoes in containers just makes sense! I'll see how the onions do in containers, and take it from there.

I also worked on the design for the rest of the garden. I had great inspiration for the especially shady, spruce stand directly beside the house on the east side that features about 20 spruce trees, their in-soil fungal friends, and absolutely no other plant life: terracing the slope!

I plan to dig the slope in so that it forms little roughly-flat terraces, held together by rotting-wood retaining walls. I'll fill them with composted soil, plant them with uva ursi, some ferns, nannyberry (a shade loving, native north american berry) and whatever other plants are needed to flesh out a thriving shade polyculture. Then I'll mulch with moss. I think this area would also be a great spot to grow edible mushrooms, because it is directly beneath a drain pipe that drips almost all year, and the soil is generally damp.

Another benefit of terracing, especially with rotting wood, is that it will help conserve the water that flows down that slope. Brilliant!

I'll work on the design for that tonight, and hopefully get started in the morning.

Can't wait for tomorrow!

First Seeds of Spring

Frost free days are still a month and a half away here in the high, northerly places of the world, but spring is in the air nonetheless. Today I moved the seed-trays that I started over the last few weeks outside to a little cold-frame in the warmest, sunniest part of the yard. About half have already sprouted, and I'm a bit worried about them getting too cold over night, but we just don't get enough sun through any of our windows to keep them inside any longer. The seedlings that have been going for a week or more are quite leggy, and lean way over towards the window.

I also prepared my two 'intensive beds' for veggies, and planted some onion bulbs, kale seeds carrot seeds and radish seeds directly into the beds. To prepare the beds, I used a modified 'lasagna method' of composting in place: I laid down about three inches of dead grass and hay, then put composted manure and finally topsoil, into which I planted the seeds. I planted the seeds in 'clumps' instead of rows or even hexagons. Some of the clumps of different species or varieties are overlapping. This is something new that I'm trying: we'll see how it turns out!

Grass will provide a buffet of nutrients for a variety of bacteria and beneficial soil organisms that will help my veggies to grow well. As it decomposes, it will also help build up the soil with rich humus, which will increase water retention.

Can't wait for tomorrow!