Permaculture

  Last month i had my first wwoof experience in an italian farm named "La Gioia" (the Joy) in the Abruzzo region, and it’s been very successfull.

Three weeks to organize the vegetable garden because the farmer didn’t had enough time to do it. Paradoxal isn’t it, but he’s so busy with his 120 goats (150-200 litters of milk/day = 6 hours/day doing cheeses), with his 20 hives, 500 olive trees, 100 various fruit trees and when i arrived with 15 hectares (37 acres) for haymaking ! Because of a warm winter and a rainy spring, the meadows blossomed lately and he had to work hard days and nights for two weeks to finished that dusty, noisy but vital work on his tractor. The property is 55 hectares…

Three wwoofers where already there, doing their own job : two were milking, feeding and carrying out the goats at the meadows twice a day; the thrid one was also milking and feeding them but he also was learning the science of bees and honey making !

So, everybody was very busy. And summer arrived immediately with 35-40°C in the afternoons! It’s been a challenge for me to install this garden because all this job is done usually in early spring. Young tomatoes and cabbage plants where installed, argillaceous, very wet due to the long rainy period. Close to them a medium square of garlics, onions and salads. Fortunately he set manure and a foot thick of straw onto all the garden. That made me decide to use the Fukuoka’s method : to sow in the straw carrots, salads, corn, spinach, beans (climbing and dwarf), parsnips, basil, and mend other tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers.

 

It’s been a long long time since i haven’t write here. Of course there are a lot of reasons but this is not the place to tell these stories. That place is about PERMACULTURE, its applications in my garden, my house, my neighborhood and in my life in general.

1- the garden

Actually it’s almost a wild garden. As i’ve been often away from home, i let genuine plants invading the land. Of course that means the productivity is low, speaking about plants that give food (tomatoes, carrots, etc, etc) but, as i started permaculture after 40 years of mechanical and chemical gardening, the soil is not completely healed and counting with local pollutions and climate changes it needs a couple of years to feed me correctly…

By the way, last month an amazing training happened here. A great specialist of ecology, biodynamics, permaculture, etc, Marc Grollimund, came here after an invitation of a friend of him, living in my village, Jean-Pierre Berlan (ingeneer in biology at CNRS & consultant of Kokopelli and a lot of other eco associations). The program was simple : let us walk around some gardens and speak about what is happening under our feet and in front of our eyes. Gosh ! It’s been like a couple of years at the university. Maybe more…

Here, the word to resume is " wow!". From the 12 people who came here, Marc and I were the only ones not to be afraid. Afraid because its so rare to see that kind of garden in a "civilized" place, a 6000 hbts village in a million and a half region. At this time there were not a lot of "normal" plants to analyze, but Marc did ! After four hours of descriptions and various analysis we’ve been obliged to stop him for a well deserved buffet. In few words, i’m doing well and i just have to put some old rusted nails here and there to balance the needs of the soil and installing a chicken house. And some other chairs and relaxing places to help visitors taking their time to discover little by little this revolutionnary place. Marc said : "don’t feel guilty if a few people can help you in your project of garden-sharing, it’s unthinkable for them, it’s like steping on a flying carpet to visit the moon!". Of course everybody laughed… and only one of the group joined me. )

Permaculture is not a revolution, it’s an evolution, a simple and radical adaptation of human manners on the planet. If the majority of humanity is not yet practicing it, the reasons are where you know : junk tv, supermarkets and ultra-liberal economy.