The Resilience Hub

Permaculture, Food and New Economy

Permablitz & Community

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As we plan for a new Permablitz season, I offer you some reflections about the Permablitz held at Margy’s and my house two years ago. (A version of this post first appeared in my blog, Finding Our Way Home.)

Over 20 people came to our yard and worked together on projects organized by the Resilience Hub. They installed rain barrels, built a composting system from pallets, built a fire circle, and created five more growing beds for future fruit trees, raspberry bushes, & hazelnut bushes, and one bed for flowers & herbs.  We also got the first shovelfulls dug for a pond.

Opening Circle-Sylvia, Cathleen, Ali
[Opening Circle]

At the end of the day, I felt teary-eyed with the sense of Gift.  The generosity of so many individuals coming together and creating something so beautiful and full, helping us to realize our dreams for this piece of land, was deeply moving.  There is something about this giving and receiving of human attention and wisdom and care, that feeds our hearts. Much of our lives are shaped by transactions—we pay a certain amount of money, and receive a product. Or, we put in so many hours and receive a paycheck.  But giving and receiving freely and generously touches something much deeper. Giving and receiving must trigger deep neurotransmitters in our internal chemistry, sparking a profound sense of well-being and belonging.

I also realized how many layers of community are involved in such a project.  One layer is this community of people who care about the earth, and who come together to give and receive, to learn, to share, to grow, to get to know each other.  People connections are made.

Another layer is the community of the soil itself.  During the blitz I was mostly working with several others on the project for creating new growing beds.  We were adding nutrients through sheet mulching so that the soil could create a thriving fertile community.  I have learned so much about the variations in soil communities from the book The Holistic Orchard by Michael Phillips.

What a food forest needs, what fruit trees need, is soil whose fungal community is stronger than its bacterial community.  In contrast, annual vegetables and flowers and grasses prefer soil with a stronger bacterial community.  A bacterial community is enhanced by tilling the soil and incorporating organic matter by turning it into the soil.  A fungal community is enhanced by no tilling, but rather adding organic matter on the top of the soil to decompose, as it happens in the forest. (Similarly, compost that is left unturned will generate a stronger fungal community.)

Forking the beds Cathleen
[Cathleen forking the soil]

We prepared the soil by aerating it with garden forks–since it had been rather compacted.  We added some granite dust for mineral enhancement, then put down a layer of cardboard to kill grasses and weeds.

Raspberry Bed-manure & chaff Mihku & Heather
[Mihku & Heather adding manure and chaff]

Then, we added chicken manure, coffee chaff, seaweed, leaves, grass clippings, composted manure, and a really thick layer of deciduous wood chips.  We were able to get a delivery of 8 yards of wonderful ramial deciduous wood chips–these are chips which include lots of thin branches, which have more lignin content that is not yet woody.  The wood chips are the most important part of enhancing the fungal community.

After-Fruit Tree & Flower/Herb Beds

We also made several pathways with cardboard and wood chips, and I worked to complete those bit by bit in the days after the blitz.  Wonderfully, the process then works on its own–we add some water or it gets rained on–and the microbes will work together over the next several months and years to create a thriving soil community.  We planted trees and bushes the following spring.  My friend Roger Paul said that the Wabanaki word for “soil” means giver of life.

I encourage you to consider participating in a Permablitz to experience this sense of community for yourself!

Ancient Soil Amendments

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This is the first in a series of blogs, about ancient soil amendments used in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific type of soil amendment used in the garden, along with documentation for its use, as well as occasionally discussing why a particular soil amendment was chosen, or its relation to modern gardening practices. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

After several years of gardening in a space, you will notice a steady decrease in how well the garden produces. For the modern gardener this is annoying, but very few of us in the western world live or die based on the production of our garden. During the Middle Ages, without grocery stores and mega-farms, this was a serious issue.

it is generally accepted that you have to add something to the soil to improve soil productivity. Typically this is done either by straight up adding something to the soil (a soil amendment) or by completing a process (a soil improving practice). Both have an important role. If a soil doesn’t have a characteristic or a mineral, it may be faster and more efficient to simply add what is missing. If the soil is merely low or constantly being drained of a mineral it might make more more sense to regularly perform a task, or build in a system, to replenish the soil.

The modern gardener, even the modern farmer, deals with soil decline quite simply – we order soil amendments from our farm supply or hardware store. If our soil lacks nitrogen, we buy a fluid or pellet mix to spread out and and water in. Obviously, our agrarian ancestors could not do this. Before I discuss the ways pre – industrial societies dealt with decreases in soil productivity, it will help to understand how it happens.

One aspect of soil health (which determines productivity) is fertility. According to the Queensland Government, soil fertility decline occurs when nutrients being removed from the soil in harvested products exceed nutrients being added to the soil. These nutrients can be removed in three ways – by growing crops, soil erosion, and leaching. These first two methods – growing crops and soil erosion cause most of the problems.

Growing crops both draws out and adds in nutrients to soil. Some plants (like peas) add soil nutrients like nitrogen to the soil if most of the plant is allowed to grow, die and compost in the space. Others, (like corn), need large amounts of soil nutrients in order to create healthy foods which is difficult to get back. The nutrients are generally pulled out of the soil into plants through their root structures. For example – lead in soil can be removed through growing (and than disposing) sunflowers through a process called phytoremdiation. If you plant too much of one type of plant – or don’t use proper balance, you hurt the soil health.

Erosion is when wind or water is able to remove nutrients, organic matter, clay or the soil itself from a piece of land. It “decreases nutrient bio-availability, root growth, plant fertility, biological productivity, moisture retention, and water filtration of soil, and erosion perpetuates further erosion” (Palmer, 2009). Although we commonly associate this problem with the “Dust Bowl” of American history, erosion happens every day. Stan Buman says soil can – in best case scenarios – only rebuild at a rate of .24 tons per acre. The same report found that the average soil loss in modern farming practices is 5.8 tons per acre. In a best case scenario, with no-tilling, you will still loose about .22 tons per acre, or just slightly less than you can rebuild. These numbers are designed for big farms but the point is clear – with any tilling or turning over at all, you wil loose soil – and also lose nutrients.

Over the following months, I will share some discussions about each of the different soil amendments and soil improvement practices I have found reference to in medieval or pre-medieval texts. Some of these may seem familiar to you as techniques we use in permaculture or modern organic farming, others may be new. Enjoy the reflection on the past – and I hope you generate some ideas on what you can try in your own gardens!