permaculture

[Rick Valley <bamboogrove@cmug.com>]

Simon sez:
> We're not covering the walls as we build them and they shed rain very
> effectively - they are dry within minutes of a downpour ending, but I don't
> know if they would do this with continued contact with wet soil.

From my recent experience, cob debris makes a decent garden soil. It will
assume the moisture content of the adjoining soil, and become one with it.

Garden walls, with a roof, can be made with cob or rammed earth or adobes,
as you can see all around the world.

From my long-ago teacher Peter Chan, the important thing is not raising the
bed, but not walking on it. From a long discussion with Emilia Hazelip, the
best reason I can see for raising your beds is to keep clueless homonids
from walking on them. How many visitors have I had that assume that mulch is
to walk on!!!

Terrace walls, on the other hand, are crucial if you're on slope. I like
stone, and often use urbanite as the most readily available, despite
warnings of ash from industrial processes used in the manufacture of cement.

I think the coolest thing to do with a stone wall is a trick I learned from
folks in the rock garden society. Weeds in stone walls are a real pain in
the glutes. So make a "mortar of 1/3 compost 1/3 peat (or coco fiber or ?)
and 1/3 3/4 minus crushed rock, and slap this between your stones as you
build and put in (pelletized?) seeds of appropriate species as well as
transplanting 1 inch plugs of other appropriate types. Of course, you'll
want to select your wall polyculture (singing pollywallyculture all the
day?) carefully for traits such as supressing grasses allelopathologically &
etc. You'll end up with garden in your retaining walls instead of weeds to
continually infest your beds.

I do often use raised beds- but they'll be of a hugelkultur sort, literally
building on top of the grade. Here, I start with alder logs as a foundation.

-Rick