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market-farming - Re: Production methods: tillage, beds, rows, etc.

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Subject: Market Farming

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <london AT metalab.unc.edu>
  • To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Production methods: tillage, beds, rows, etc.
  • Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 14:38:16 -0500 (EST)



On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, Elizabeth Pike wrote:

> To break new areas, we use a tractor. To do minor cultivation, I have a
> Mantis. To do all else-hand tools.
>
> I'm familiar with the edge principle as touted by Alan Chadwick/Jon Jeavons.
> Is this the same in permaculture? What are "mandalas"?

Read the primary exponents of Permaculture, especially
Bill Mollison "Permaculture: A Design Manual".

I'd be interested in knowing what AC and JJ mean by "edges".

Edges or edge zones in permaculture exist between cultivated,
fallow, wooded, naturalized areas within terrain. Often this
is an especially fertile and productive area where lifeforms
that have migrated into these zones flourish. It is a kind
of "no man's land" where ecosystems can regenerate or bounce back
from inhospitable conditions that may have existed previously
in that area or nearby.

Edge zones in gardening can exist as crenelated edges to garden beds
that are usually shaped into mandalas. The edges of mandalas can be
"ecologically linked" using fractal patterns (my notion), i.e.
analagous to Mandelbrot images. A mandala looks a bit like what you see in
a round kaliedoscope. A roundish outwardly expanding geometric pattern.
Religious mandalas are popular and created for many of the World's
religions by sacred artists. See also Sacred Geometry for implications
for Permaculture and narural gardening/farming/farmscaping.
For more resources on SG see:
http://metalab.unc.edu/permaculture/documents/sacred-geometry
Edge zone creation within gardening and permaculture systems
would necessarily comply with the features and lay of the land,
contours, drainage, proximity to existing plantings, natural areas
and woodland.

Its a pretty interesting topic and I think may offer major benefits
for market farming. Raised beds in the shape of mandalas with crenelated
edges, merging at the edges with other mandalas (or fractal designs of
groups of mandalas), created with the intent of being permanent beds,
never to be ploughed up, reshaped or moved, offer great potential
for plant production. Nutrient conservation and recycling, exchange
of nutrients between beds through leaching, erosion control, enhanced
habitat for microorganisms and beneficial insects are a few of the
benefits to be had from building garden beds with edge zones in mind.
I think that gardens can be made more productive and less labor-intensive
using this principle.

I have more basic info on edge zones in:
http://metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/permaculture

LL

Lawrence F. London, Jr. Venaura Farm
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden InterGarden
metalab.unc.edu/permaculture PermaSphere
metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/orgfarm AGINFO
lflondon AT mindspring.com london AT metalab.unc.edu







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