Parts 2 & 3: People Care & Fair Share

People Care and Fair share were lessons that I learned under an apple tree last year during a pick for the the Calgary Urban Harvest. My husband and I joined the harvest because we longed for free, organic, local fruit that we grew accustomed to while living in Oregon. Not only did we have access to more fruit than we could eat in a year, we learned so many more things while harvesting.

Now that the fruit harvesting season is in full swing again, it has reminded me of all the lessons we learned picking apples, plums, and cherries. After harvesting the fruit from tree owners that would otherwise not use the fruit (earth care), we leave 1/3 of the harvest for them (if they want it), share 1/3 with the other volunteers fruit pickers, and donate 1/3 to charitable organizations. While picking we were building community, making connections, sharing recipes, life stories, and metaphorically weaving a support network of new friends. People Care.

Donations of fruit were shared with the Mustard Seed, Drop In Centre, Food Bank, and other organizations. There is no better way to start a day than dropping off fresh, organic, local produce to a charity in the morning before work! Fair share.

Have you figured out why I chose the title for this blog and my business yet? I believe than many of the world's problems can be solved under an apple tree and the complicated nature of permaculture can be easily broken down.

Bring your kids, friends, and family on our next harvest to share our experiences with the three main principles of permaculture: earth care, people care, and fair share.

Part 1 of 3: Earth Care

The first main principle of permaculture is Earth Care.

In essence, this principle implies that humans are not inherently destructive to the Earth, we can be mechanisms of repair if given the proper knowledge. One of the easiest things we can do in a city situation is to remove our role as a grass farmer and use that space to grow our own organic food. Here is a great article about lawns from my friends at Verge Permaculture: The Grass Isn't Greener.

In our zone 2 climate, it is challenging to grow melons, hot peppers, and okra. However, we can quite easily grow lettuce, beets, carrots, peas, beans, squash, cucumbers, onion, garlic, strawberries, raspberries, apple trees.... and the list goes on. We can grow more edible plants than most people think! It is important to select varieties of seeds for this climate carefully, as some are better than others. Try to save your own seed from successful plants or barter for some from a friend.

Another easy thing to do to aid in Earth Care is to compost. Composting can be done on all sorts of scales in many different ways, but they all need similar materials: browns (carbon) and greens (nitrogen). Here is a good source for more details on composting.

If you do not have space or ability to start a compost pile, you can vermicompost in your home or apartment with worms. Not only is it a great activity for children to be involved with, it can be maintained with minimal effort. Here is where I get my worms and info from: Worms @ Work and "Worms Eat My Garbage" by Mary Applehof. We have maintained our worm bin for over 2 years, feeding them every other week, without so much as a hint of smell from the bin. Give it a try!

When you are working on a project around your yard or home, think about if you can source the materials you need second hand via Kijiji, bartering with a friend, or check out ReStore. Do you really need to remove your bathroom cabinets, or could you refinish them? Instead of buying new wood to build a raised bed, could you find some pieces that someone is giving away for free or low cost to avoid them being dumped in the landfill. Many construction sites around town now have debris recycling bags that can often be a source of good pieces of wood or other materials.

In summary of Earth Care:

1. Stop being a grass farmer and turn your lawn into a food productive space

2. Plant seeds that are well adapted for your particular climate and growing season

3. Compost

4. Reduce, reuse, recycle, repurpose

Next topic: People Care

Weeds? No such thing!

"If there is no such thing as a 'weed', what do you call a dandelion?!"

"Food, profit, and a hard working immigrant"

This is a snippet of a conversation that I had with an older man at a bookstore when I was looking to buy "One Straw Revolution" by Masanobu Fukuoka. I was trying to tell him the basics of permaculture and how we view "weeds". I doubt that he will ever look at a dandelion the same way after I told him what the environment and humans can use them for.

Look for different weeds in your garden with your child and then look them up on a chart like this one: http://www.oregonbd.org/Class/weeds.htm to see what they can tell you about your soil. Many of the "weeds" are edible or medicinal. Since dandelions are so easily recognizable, spend a day picking dandelion flowers in a chemical-free area to make into dandelion syrup. If you are looking for more reasons to love dandelions, check out this site: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/dandelion-000236.htm

While you are out picking dandelions, notice where they are growing. School playgrounds, around bus stops, near sidewalks, but rarely in low use areas. With their large tap root, dandelions help to break up the soil (which can be harvested, washed, dried, roasted, and ground up into a coffee substitute in the fall) to allow for other plants to have a suitable place to live.

Let me know where your adventures lead you and how your dandelion syrup turns out!

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?