suburban permaculture Archives - The Resilience Hub

Hugelkultur Planting

May 21, 2020 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

Okay, I said I wouldn’t write again about the hugelkultur until I had plants to show, but I can’t resist giving another update. Yesterday, I finished planting the mound! I learned some things in the process. It is very hard to water the whole mound–the water stays on the surface and slides down the sides. So I made small indented areas along the top of the mound in which to plant seeds so they could hold water: a round bowl-like indentation for a zucchini “hill,” and a square indentation for some bush beans. I put the first zucchini “bowl” near one end, so that the plant could drape over the edge. I alternated zucchini, then beans, then zucchini, then beans. I found some brown packing paper to use to help block weeds between the plantings, and put some straw in my seed areas for mulch. I used little twigs and stones to hold down the paper.

I planted three kale seedlings in the next area, then a “bowl” for cucumber seeds at the other end. I really could only plant in the very top across the mound, because nothing else was stable enough to water and keep the soil. I did tuck a couple of borage seeds lower into the side, in case they might grow there, since they are good companion plants for all of these. I tried to pick spots that had some support, and under where the beans would be. But it is very hard to water the sides without the soil sliding down. I imagine that if someone made a hugelkultur mound in the autumn, it might settle enough over the winter to be more usable on all of its surface area. But that idea of planting up both sides didn’t really seem feasible to me, though it was part of what appealed to me in the first place. Right now, planting the squash and cukes which like to spread out with a lot of vines seems the best idea.

Meanwhile, I planted other kale seedlings tucked into spots around the peach and cherry trees circles in our orchard, along with some lettuce and carrots. I love the polyculture feel of the food forest. I now have a total of 13 kale plants thanks to friends Mihku and Sylvia. I think of them as my tried and true veggie for the year–easy to grow, pick and eat, and freeze for the winter. So far, they have grown really well in our food forest.

Meanwhile, we also have sea kale, a lovely perennial kale that we have already been harvesting in early spring, along with our chives and oregano and thyme. The asparagus has been disappointedly spindly this spring so far. I had been hoping I might get a bunch to eat since this is its third year, but I only had a few spears worthy of snacking on. I guess they need more compost to keep them well fed. However, I am excited about these new zucchini, bush bean and cucumber plantings. Wish me luck!

This post was first published in my blog, Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community. I have learned so much from my involvement with the Resilience Hub, and am so grateful for our community of mutual support.

Hugelkultur 5, plus peach blossoms

May 17, 2020 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

Wow, it has been a month since Hugelkultur 4 when I last devoted a full post to progress on our hugelkultur garden bed. I am happy to say that yesterday I planted the first seeds! It has been a slow process of adding more soil and compost, a little bit each day, plus another layer of seaweed to help keep some of it in place. I also added soil and compost to the area between the mound and the logs marking the path, so there is a lower level on that side as well as a higher level. That in turn provided support for something like a slope of soil on that side. We planted lettuce and broccoli and spinach in that lower area, which will get a little more shade than other parts of the mound. It is a bit late in the season for all of those, so we’ll have to see how they do.

I finally decided that it wasn’t really possible to get enough soil to stick to the other side to use that as a planting surface, at least for this year. I’m calling it done for now! But as the mound ages and settles year to year, I think it will continue to evolve and we can keep shaping it and adding to it. For now, I intend to plant zucchini and bush beans and maybe some cucumber and kale on the top of the mound, and the zucchini and cukes can cascade down the sides. Our last average frost date in Portland is May 24, so those will get planted soon. [This will be my last hugelkultur update until I can show you the plants growing all over the mound!]

Meanwhile, speaking of frost, we had three freeze-warning nights this past week, and we covered our blooming peach tree with a tarp each night. But yesterday, I witnessed the best thing ever. I was sitting in my chair and saw a flash of something out the window, so I looked up. There was a tiny hummingbird, the first of the season, visiting each of the peach blossoms looking for nectar. I can’t explain why it moved me so. All of the care given to the tree, all of the natural beauty of the tiny hummer. No way to capture it in a photo, but here is the peach tree in bloom.

I mentioned in an earlier post [on my own blog] that an annual activity in the spring is pruning the cherry and peach trees–each year relearning it all over again and steeling myself to the task which seems so harsh. The peach had produced an abundance of branches, but I took out all of the ones growing toward the center, and those that were smaller than pencil size, in order to preserve a vase shape and to build a strong scaffold for future years. I was happy that I was able to leave some branches that were budding, and if all goes well we might get our first peaches this year.

[This post was first published at Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community.]

Eat the Suburbs! A 1/3 Acre Permaculture Case Study

July 31, 2012 by Lisa Fernandes

I recently attended the 8th Annual Northeast Permaculture Convergence at the Soule Homestead in Middleboro Massachusetts. Beyond being a great gathering of permaculturists old and new from around our bioregion, the event afforded our community an opportunity to share approaches and ideas for how permaculture can be employed across our region. A huge thanks to the organizing team who made this great event happen.

For my part, I contributed a session on how the implementation of permaculture has been playing out on our 1/3 acre home site about three miles from downtown Portland, Maine. About fifty people jammed into the barn at Soule and heard the story of what we’re doing here (punctuated with a bit of commentary from the sheep stalls!).

I look forward to writing this up as a full slide deck, perhaps with narration (since much of the presentation was my talk accompanying the images), but for the time being, here are the two slide sets per request of the audience at the Convergence: one with the background talking points and the other is just the straight-up images. (These are kinda large .pdf files so be patient.)

My husband and I recently figured out that we’re doing somewhere between 150 – 200 hours per year of unplanned tours for folks who drop by. We love doing it and sharing what’s happening here, but we’re also thinking about scheduling some standing “open days” to try to funnel some visitors into a bit fewer slots if possible. Then we might be able to finish implementing our design a little faster:)