The Big Project, Part 4

16 years ago

A few more detailed pictures of the ongoing permaculture garden project. The garden is completely surrounded by livestock pens for sheep, cattle, and hogs. The basic theory is that these animals keep clear the underbrush and help reduce the insect population. These pens form the outer ring of a perimeter defense against garden pests.

The next-to-outer ring is a series of poultry pens. Any bugs that make it through the livestock pens have to crawl through the poultry pens -- sort of a moat of death if you're a crawling insect. Here's a chicken pen:

The next zone toward the center of the garden is an orchard. There are three rows of trees in the orchard. The outer two rows have trees that shed their leaves in the winter. So, when the sun is low in the winter, they don't block the sun from entering the garden. The inner most row of trees don't shed their leaves in the winter but have a short growth habit; citrus or olive trees. The outer most row is mulberry trees; they provide shade to the chicken pens during the hot summer. The entire orchard is planted in a forage grass and the sheep and a few chickens will be allowed in this area from time to time to eat the grass (and fertilize the orchard). Here is a picture of the three rows of trees and the grass that is just beginning to emerge:

I built a retaining wall around a series of chicken coops that are under construction. I planted mints in the retaining wall because this area is shaded for a good part of the year. Here are the mints beginning to gain ground in the retaining wall:

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Comments (6)

muddyclogs
16 years ago
Impressive! Do you have more information about your project elsewhere? I started a blog about my own urban-scaled permaculture projects, including a few about my urban chickens: http://muddyclogs.blogspot.com

I'd love to learn more about your project, especially the windmill and water system you have forming. How much land are you on?
muddyclogs
16 years ago
Okay, I went back and read your earlier posts that answered my questions on where you are located, what the windmill is for, and how much land you have :)

Are you transitioning to living off the grid? It looks like a pretty huge operation. How close are you to an urban area? This is really inspiring!
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stoneunhenged
Original Author
16 years ago
I guess I'm sort of transitioning off the food grid. I'm about ten miles from a city of 200,000 people. I hope to adapt some sustainable farming techniques for this area that have some commercial-scale application (at least enough to supply a few restaurants in the area).

I read your blog. Really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
gardenlen
16 years ago
g'day muddyclogs,

just visited you site very interesting, noticed there doesn't seem to be much if any use of mulches of any kind???

also seem a lot of intenese type gardening with hilling of beds, just wondered if raised beds had been considered? one aspect of the true permaculturist (if there is such a person?) is to produce as much as possible with the least amount of toil.

and mulching is imperative as it conserves soil moisture, keeps weeds in control and insulates the soil from cold and/or heat.

another person of interest to you may be "manitoba fukuoka" (spelling?)? the style of production garden he promotes fits very nicely into permaculture practise, best bit for you he is doing this in what i would see as a similar climate to you.

tried replying with a comment on your site but it requiered registration details to do so ie.,. & , you will find this could impede a lot more comment coming your way from visitors. it's not so hard to set up a web site, lots of page generators around easy to use, i find this way user friendly no or involved.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page
muddyclogs
16 years ago
Hi Len-

Thanks for the feedback! I will make a point to post about my mulch materials soon - good timing since it's finally getting dry here in Portland. 1/4 of my soil mixture already has mulch worked into it. As I put in new plants, I also rake in a huge mound of chicken-manure laden straw, then cover with dirt. I think that is the reason so many of my new plants have made it. I am also working on rain barrels this week to collect roof runoff, to get us through July/Aug which are the only really dry months here in the Pacific NW.

There are so many great bedding ideas, like the keyhole beds, mounds, etc. I decided on raised beds because we have a tall dog (greyhound) and I wanted to reduce the amount of damage he could do to our veggies with his waste.

I know we're not really maxmimizing the food space yet, but this is the first spring. My focus is also on providing habitat for insects/birds, conserving water, creating my own mulch materials, etc. Over the next year you will see all the grass disappear, a patio with trellis be made, and hopefully edible plants spreading over all these areas! It's a big change from when we moved in last Fall to all grass backyard!

-Renee
P.S. I'll check on the comments are. Blogger is suppose to have an option to just leave comments annoymously, as well as just leaving a name instead of your Blogger ID. I will double check!
gardenlen
16 years ago
renee,

at least have the comments on your blog set so that people can comment without having to sign up to your blogger host, if you can at least get the respondents e/mail addy as part of reply that give you right of reply then.

we add about 8"s of mulch on top of our beds around the plants.

len