What is a wicking bed and how does it work?

After learning about wicking beds in my Permaculture Design Certificate course (which I graduated from last weekend!), I had a hard time understanding how they worked. Here is a great illustration from Urban Food Gardens:

What did not make sense to me was how the moisture got up to the soil even after the water level drops. I had to make a model to demonstrate this purpose using materials around the house. Here is what I came up with:

This is reused container filled about 1/3 of rocks, a piece of landscape fabric, a reused piece of tubing down the side, then cotton from a pill bottle. To make the wicking of water more obvious, I added blue food colouring to the water before pouring it down the tube to fill the bottom reservoir. Additionally, I poked a hole just below where the rocks and fabric meet for drainage.

After an hour or so, here is what it looked like:

After 2 hours and a bit of compaction to make the cotton fibers touch each other better (shredded paper may work better) :

At 2 weeks after construction and adding water, the cotton has stayed moist even though the water level has dropped below the fabric level. The main idea behind this design is that the plant roots will grow down toward the moisture, hence stronger and more resilient. Watering from the surface produces roots that extend outwards (not down) because the whole container or bed rarely gets watered thoroughly enough to allow the roots to grow down. This design is particularly successful in very arid climates or for lazy gardeners who only want to water once a week or so.

I deem this experiment successful and now have a much better understanding for how wicking beds work.

Try this experiment with your children, then make a Global Bucket or larger scale wicking bed if you are so inclined!

Spring rains bring...

...opportunities to learn about water harvesting! The most important principle and design element in permaculture is water; how to direct it, make multiple uses of it, infiltrate it into the landscape, and have it leave your property cleaner than it came in.

A child's mind is an uncluttered, imaginative playground for ideas and innovation. Whereas as adult's mind is often cluttered with thoughts and reasons why something cannot work. As it is raining, go outside and ask your child how the water coming out of the downspouts can be put to better use than simply running into the grass or back alley.

Questions to ask:

1. How can we get this water to our vegetable and herb growing areas or to young trees?

2. How can we store this water for later in summer when it does not rain as often?

3. What else can we use the stored water for? (ie dog, feet, or tool washing)

Here are more resources to familiarize yourself with water harvesting ideas:

http://permaculture.org.au/2009/03/13/tackling-urban-water-runoff-in-a-sydney-suburb/#more-1161

Activities on swales and other water storing ideas coming soon! In the mean time, get yourself a rain barrel or repurpose your plastic garbage can into a rain barrel by just putting screen over the top to keep out the mosquitos.

Where does my food come from?

So many children (and adults) do not know where their food comes from. You may not think twice about where the strawberries you buy in February are coming from or how the cows were raised that produce the dairy products you consume. Here is a quick activity that all adults and children should try:

1. Make a list of the 5 most common items you buy at the grocery store.

2. Go to the store, find the products and write down mark on a map (like the one below) where they come from.

3. For older children, calculate the distance that each item travels to get to the store.

4. Look for the same item and see if you can find another variety that travels a shorter distance to get to the store. Decide with your child if you should still buy the item based on your new knowledge.

5. Visit your local farmers market to meet the farmers who grow or produce foods that you enjoy close to your home. Ask the farmers to see if you can visit their farm with your child.

When faced with the choice of A. organic or B. conventional produce, most experts will agree that the answer should be C. local. Local and organic would be double bonus, but may not always be available. Depending on the source you look at, for every calorie of food about 10 calories of fossil fuels were used to produce and transport that item. If we can reduce the calories used to transport the food, by buying close to home, we can positively impact our environment.

Here are a few more sites for information on local food:

http://www.cityfarmer.info/2010/05/26/the-zero-mile-diet-a-year-round-guide-to-growing-organic-food/

http://greencommunityproject.blogspot.com/2008/03/how-far-does-your-food-travel.html

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/camiles/foodmiles.pdf

Which item on your shopping list traveled the furthest to get to the store? Leave me a comment!

Tree patterns

Something that children are very good at is recognizing patterns. Permaculture principles are also based around noticing patterns in a landscape. One of the most common patterns that children will be able to identify are tree or dendritic shapes.

Observe and have your child sketch what a tree branch looks like. Then lie on your back under the tree looking straight up the trunk and sketch the pattern. This is a dendritic pattern and can be found all around us. Look for a washed out bank of a hill, parking lot drainage, pictures of rivers, kidneys, lungs, blood vessels, and the nervous system. As you travel around town or go for a walk around the neighbourhood, point out a few of the tree patterns you see and prompt your child to do the same.

Here are some examples of dendritic (tree) patterns :

Let me know how your pattern observation goes and what your child notices that has tree patterns in their environment. Can you incorporate a dendritic pattern in your garden this year?

Plant seeds

One of the most important things that I have been learning about is food security. Namely, growing as much food as I can on the land that I have available. A great way to teach children about this idea is to help them plant seeds, or if they are older, help them plan out a section of garden that they will be responsible for.

This time of year in Calgary, good seeds to plant include: herbs, lettuce, squash, cucumbers, and any other plant that needs to be started about 6 weeks before the last frost. Young children would benefit most from quickly sprouting seeds like lettuce that can be grown to eating size in your window in about 3 weeks.

Be sure to plant in a container with drainage holes and use organic potting soil with compost or worm castings mixed in. Have your child mist the seeds each day.

Micro green mix planted in a spinach container with holes poked in the bottom and the top cover used as a drip tray.

In 3 weeks, we had a beautiful salad mix to eat for pennies.

Let me know what you plant with your children this week!

Meet the Blogger

Hi! My name is Sara and I am a certified science teacher who is obsessed with learning how to become more sustainable and passing on that knowledge to anyone I meet--especially children.

On our urban homestead, we are constantly striving to grow as much food as possible, preserve food by canning and dehydrating, and learning all that we can about permaculture to make our lot as productive as possible with minimal human input. With my passion for teaching children in combination with the foresight and guidance of Verge Permaculture, I am working on developing courses for children to learn the principles of permaculture in a hands-on way.

Check back weekly for ideas on how to help your child learn about permaculture and other sustainable practices that you can implement in and around your home.