by Tom Gibson

Okay, permaculture is an interesting gardening technique, but what else besides a New Age-y philosophy does it have to offer?   Can permaculture really “save the world” or, as Toby Hemenway likes to say, does it smell too much of patchouli oil?

Elsa Johnson and I have been working on a very down-to-earth project that, proves, at the very least, that people who disagree about permaculture  can still find common purpose. 

It’s the Oxford Community Garden.  Since last spring Elsa and I have worked with the gardeners to plan a 6,000 sq. ft. tasting and pollinator garden around the community garden’s periphery.

Click on the following link to see the plan for the first 4,000 sq.ft.:

OxfordCommunityGarden_o_11

Pretty neat, huh?

We got there first by building soil with a typical permaculture lasagna mulch [compost, cardboard (to kill grass and weeds), top soil and wood mulch]. 

In all, about 40 people–both inside and outside the neighborhood– helped. I actually have grown to love these communal work sessions.  Some of my regular volunteers do, too.  They say,” Call me when you’ve got some mindless grunt work.”  What they’re really saying is when you do lots of shoveling and raking as a group, such work becomes deeply (if surprisingly) satisfying. 

The next part was fun, too. A half dozen OCG members took a four session permaculture course where they learned the basics and each came up with garden designs that for first-timers were pretty good!  Elsa then refined their collective ideas up to a professional level–as displayed above.  The plan is to establish an addition to the garden that welcomes the neighborhood via a combination of aesthetic landscape, edible perennials, and conviviality-promoting gathering spaces.  As Phyllis Thomas, the site leader says, “The new garden addition is something we’ve dreamed about!.”

We accomplished early stage development with seed funding from the Heights Community Congress and the First Unitarian Church, but we’ll need significantly more outside funding to complete the project.

So why would any outside funder be interested? We think the argument is pretty compelling:

1. Shoulder-to-shoulder work of the kind Oxford gardeners and friends engage in is one of the best ways to promote stable diversity.  The garden is already a mini-U.N. with half of its membership African-American and the rest a nationality and racial hodge-podge–Eastern European, Indian, Nepalese, Filipino.  If there is anything we have learned in the last 50 years about integration is that it only succeeds when pursued actively. Passive integration, even where diverse people of good will choose to live next to one another, inevitably produces “leakage” and resegregation.

2. Permaculture’s most famous saying–“The Problem Is The Solution”–applies to the Noble/Oxford neighborhood in spades.  The problem is that despite great structural housing stock the threat of racial resegregation has reduced home prices to disastrous lows–e.g., a $6,000 sales price for a single family, single lot dwelling in decent structural shape! Could this “problem” provide an especially inviting “solution” for prospective eco-pioneers? It wouldn’t cost that much to add solar, on-site water capture, and a mini-food forest as demonstrated in places like Alberta.  We’re already seeing early signs that such a transformation could happen. Tremont, the last Cleveland-area neighborhood to undergo bottom-up renewal, has gotten way too expensive.

3. The garden plan links directly–via a “Children’s Garden”– to the adjacent Oxford Elementary School, a lively, hopeful  school that is burdened by an “F” rating. The prospect of such a planting space next door has already inspired a worm-raising/microgreen/outdoor planting program just getting started with Oxford Elementary’s first grade classes.

Other schools around the country  have reinvented themselves through inspired eco programs.  Why not Oxford?

So, smell any patchouli oil?  I don’t, either.  Maybe we can save at least one small piece of the world!

by Tom Gibson

I hear and respect Elsa’s pain.  And I empathize further with anyone unconvinced by permaculture founder Bill Mollison’s rather blithe definition of the term as “working with the processes of nature to grow the most food with the least amount of effort” and his frequent invocations of “hammock time.” (Ha!)

But I think there’s also danger in conflating permaculture with organic gardening.  “”Permaculture is always “organic”, but “organic” is not always “permaculture.” And, done correctly, permaculture can bring greater yields with less effort. Moreover, as I’ll try to demonstrate  in a bit, the last 15 years have brought fresh thinking on how to increase the yield/effort ratio.  (Kind of amazing if we contemplate all the millennia humans have focused on this very problem!)

First, some essentials on how permaculture increases yield per sq./ft:

● Planting perennials instead of annuals. This eliminates the standard practice of tilling, among other things, and builds soil rather than degrading it.

● Filling available ecological niches with companion plantings of different height, root size, fruiting times.  This eliminates significant weeding and often–say, if one companion plant is a nitrogen fixer–strengthens companion plants.

● Slowing water flows via swales, fairly heavy mulch and other methods. Making water available to plants longer means less watering.

There are others (many of which we’ve seen work in practice), but you should get the idea. 

Second, here’s some of that “fresh thinking” that may or may not fit any formal definition of permaculture, but certainly complements it.

● Nutrient balance.  We’re learning just how important to plant health it is to have full nutrient balance, and it’s having a dramatic effect on yields.  One of the leaders in this thinking is an Amish wunderkind from near-by Middlebury. See this article in the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-amish-farmer-replacing-pesticides-with-nutrition/380825/

● Biochar.  Biochar is wood cooked in the absence of oxygen (like any charcoal, but without the petroleum additives), but used for growing plants instead of cooking them.  It seems to be especially good at restoring highly depleted soil–just as it did for the pre-Columbian dwellers along the Amazon who used it to create rich, productive food forests.  Starting with anthropological studies of this version of biochar called terra preta, it has become one of the hottest topics in soil science, as well. http://www.cornell.edu/video/johannes-lehmann-finds-key-to-new-energy-soil-fertility-in-biochar

● System of Rice Intensification. It turns out that rice actually grows more productively when it isn’t flooded!  (Think of all those geography book pictures of water-filled rice paddies and farmers working their water buffalo!) Instead, farmers in India and elsewhere have been quadrupling yields simply by coming up with a different routine. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/may/13/miracle-grow-indian-rice-farmer-sri-system-rice-intensification-record-crop.

In short, conventional organic horticulture/agriculture is undergoing a dizzying rethinking. A lot of that is already feeding into permaculture.

Besides, permaculture has also broadened significantly since Bill Mollison’s early definition.  The concept now fully embraces such concepts as energy (solar power, rocket stoves), water (cisterns, gray water, leaky tile), and, especially, community.

The most immediately accessible example of such holistic thinking that I have found is this series of videos from Alberta: http://permaculturenews.org/2015/11/24/our-permaculture-homestead-video-tour/

When I look at the neighborhood in these videos, I also see Cleveland. We’ve got the same naked roofs waiting for solar power, the same gutters waiting to be fed into cisterns and leaky tiles, the same barren lawns just waiting for low-maintenance food production.  And, not least, we likely suffer from the same frequent human isolation—–isolation that is waiting for a chance to escape into the embrace of real human   community.  We could do what Rob Avis and his wife have done in just a few years and have the same energy, water, and food independence–with modest long term cost and effort.

By Tom Gibson

What better time than January to ask that age-old question:  What is permaculture?  Actually, we trained permaculturists wrestle with the concept ourselves. Partly that’s because we don’t really like the word “permaculture”—which seems clunky and ideological– but we still use it because the rest of world (that is, the narrow part of it that more-or-less understands the term) has made the word part of standard usage. Partly that’s because the question reminds us of too many party-stopping conversations that go on for 10, 20, 30 minutes and get increasingly down in the weeds.  And partly that’s because everyone seems to have his or her own–albeit overlapping–take on the concept.

But, in the end, permaculture is a concept worth wrestling with. Few things once grasped, in our experience, seem to generate such enthusiasm. Many of our students, including quite experienced gardeners, call their exposure to permaculture and its possibilities “life-changing.” It is, in fact, a different take not just on gardening, but on life.  That is perhaps best illustrated by David Holmgren, one of the co-founders of permaculture, in his flower of interconnectedness:

See something in that wheel that resonates with you? That’s the point.  All of us come at the topic differently.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be giving you our personal takes on the concept and where it can lead.  And, if you have your own thoughts on the topic, we’d love to hear from you.

What can a permaculturist learn from a Soil Fertility course at Ohio State—one taught mainly for future corn and soybean farmers? A surprising amount, actually.  Here are a few learning highlights.

● Nitrogen is fickle; only 15% of the nitrogen in good organic soil is typically available to plants, but those nitrogen compounds are also prone to moving through the soil,  washing away or disappearing into the atmosphere as gas.  Permaculturists can take advantage of this mobility by establishing nitrogen-fixing plants like sea buckthorn

throughout their plots. Nearby plants can then access a steady flow of fresh ammonium or nitrate–their favorite nitrogen sources. 

But artificial nitrogen applied during conventional farming is way too mobile—especially for farmers who prefer to fertilize in the fall when it’s most convenient. By the time corn really needs nitrogen compounds for its July growth spurt, most of that nitrogen is usually long gone–often off polluting rivers and lakes.

● Phosphorous is stubborn; it only makes itself available to plants when it “feels” like it.  Usually it forms strong bonds to minerals like aluminum and calcium and only chooses to disassociate itself at just the right pH (around 6.2) and with the help of lots of organic matter. Even then, it may hold back. Phosphorous-rich plots may not allow plants to access this essential element because the soil doesn’t hold enough (surprise!) zinc. As one of our guest lecturers said, getting nutrients to interact productively can become as complicated as any subject in science.

Major storms, which global warming has multiplied dramatically in Ohio over the past 30 years, have exposed a special difficulty with artificial phosphorous fertilizers: The few percentage points of phosphorous that are soluble have increasingly become Ohio’s major nutrient source for toxic algae bloom. 

 Any sudden rain over 2 inches and we’ve got major water quality problems in Lake Erie.

● Adding gypsum (calcium sulfate) can be an effective way to increase the calcium content of soil without raising pH. This has special relevance for my small pawpaw orchard since calcium helps fruit trees hold on to baby fruitlets. (My five trees, which formed 200 emerging pawpaws last spring, ultimately lost all but four!) Moreover, since pawpaws prefer acidic soils in the 5.5-6.5 pH range, gypsum offers a preferable alternative to lime (calcium carbonate), which tends to raise pH.  Finally–and of great interest to NE Ohio gardeners–gypsum penetrates hard clay soils, especially when applied regularly over several years. The dissolved sulfate half of the gypsum molecule forms a mild solution of sulfuric acid that cuts a path into the clay through which the calcium can pass.  Calcium then helps the clay form those lovely soil aggregates that gardeners dream about.

Calcium in its lime form, by contrast, can take years to penetrate clay.

● Leaves give out color clues about what minerals they’re missing.  Phosphorous-deficient leaves turn purple, for example, 

 and potassium-deficient leaves turn brown around their outer edges.

These signs never offer the final word, which should come in the form of a formal soil test.  But several of my honeyberry bushes turned purple (phosphorous?) last summer and five of my young salal bushes turned brown around the edges (potassium?) several weeks before their sad, dusty end.  I was able to restore one to green, expanding glory

with several buckets full of diluted urine, but I’m not sure which of urine’s many beneficial elements–including potassium–was the real savior.

I learned a lot more, but, of course, the Soil Fertility class wasn’t about permaculture. In fact, it only just barely touched on permaculture’s broad-acre cousin: agro-ecological farming–the type of farming that is represented by the Ohio Ecological Farm & Food Association (http://www.oeffa.org/).

Instead, it gave me a snapshot of Big Ag’s best thinking at a moment of major ecological and political change. Big Ag’s assumptions of ever more artificial fertilizer for ever more productivity, of course, face increasing skepticism.  Big Ag’s response seems to fall somewhere on the continuum of Kubler-Ross’s famous stages of grief–maybe between “denial” and “bargaining.” Too many fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides? Big Ag’s solution to carbon loss, climate change and pollution is more of the same:  top-down and big bucks.

Take the problem of inefficiently applied nitrogen. Why not perform remote sensing of nutrients from the air?

Or better yet why not develop a machine that will sense nutrient needs as it passes with sufficient height through a field of already growing corn and then apply just the right amount of fertilizer on the spot? 

Machines like these, of course, cost tens of thousands of dollars and are likely only affordable for farmers growing monoculture crops across broad acreage.

And that was another major takeaway from the course: Big monoculture farming is getting bigger yet.  Over half of Ohio agricultural land is now farmed, not by its owners. but by renters. These renters farm as much land as their equipment will let them. Moreover, they have little incentive to improve the land and its capacity for carbon retention. Next season, after all, they may well be working someone else’s land.

Yet even in Big Ag, the trends point in multiple directions. Those farmers who still work land they do own are showing rising interest in planting cover crops. These, of course, improve fertility and raise soil carbon content naturally. They augur well for the long-term soil health of the land.  My professor says he’s never received more inquiries about which cover crops to plant when.

So what’s the outlook for our state’s agriculture?  Muddy, just like Ohio fields after all our burgeoning high-volume thunder storms.

by Tom Gibson

A very busy, single career woman friend of mine is planning her permaculture garden. What, she asked me, could she plant that would be really easy to harvest and eat?

She’s a yogurt-for-breakfast kind of person, so my first thought was berries.  Raspberries are easy to harvest and freeze, and only require a bit of care in the early fall disposing of spent canes and trimming new ones to encourage multiple fruiting stems.

Red and black currants are others that require even less work and could be sweetened with honey to eat with that yogurt.

She also eats a lot of greens.  So I suggested Turkish rocket, a perennial that also requires minimal care.  In early June, its buds form broccolis that can be harvested multiple times, and its leaves are also good in stir fries. 

A second would be lovage. (She reads this blog and liked the possibility of lovage in pasta. See link: http://www.gardenopoliscleveland.org/2015/10/recipe-corner-lovage-pasta/). 

Some easy-to-grow annuals would include swiss chard and kale. 

A quasi-ground cover for her sunny location would be yarrow, whose young feathery leaves are good in salads and whose flowers can, depending on the cultivar, bloom a variety of colors.

My co-editor Ann McCulloh suggests June-bearing strawberries, as well as peppermint, spearmint, lemon balm, violets (flowers and leaves), 

and daylilies. The buds of the latter are excellent in stir fries.

Then there are the perennial stand-bys, asparagus and rhubarb.  Once planted, they grow for 20+ years.

Walking onions are also a good one-to-one substitute for scallions, with the advantage that they come up first thing in the spring, even as the snow is melting, and are available to eat through November. In August, they form seed bulbs at their tops, lean over and plant themselves–thus the name “walking” onion. Once again, little or no care required and constant warm weather availability.

Finally, no permaculture garden would be complete without at least one “dynamic accumulator” (or fertilizer plant) and one nitrogen fixer. For the former, I’d pick sterile Russian comfrey, the one non-edible in this group. It simply does too good a job of building soil to ignore–and is attractive. 

For the latter, I’d pick sea buckthorn, whose berries make a great, high-antioxidant juice. The plant is dioecious, which means that you must separately plant both one male and up to seven females  to get fruit.

How’s that, my friend? This would be a combination of fruits and vegetables that practically serve themselves!