permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

Rain Tenaqiya wrote:
> I had a friend who was an apprentice of John Jeavons that was growing
> all his own food for him and his small son on 4000 square feet, in
> northern California.  I recounted this tale a couple years ago, but
> as I recall it was about a half-time job.
>
> A student at UCSC also tried growing all his own food using the
> Biointensive method on 4500 square feet, including paths, propagaton
> area, and compost piles (only 2500 of this was actually beds.  You
> can read about this in the Winter 1997 issue of The Cultivar.
>
> As I understand it, neither of these projects fully utilized the
> potential of our Meditteranean climate to grow grains and legumes
> during the Winter.  I've recently realized that I could grow most of
> my food without irrigation if I wanted to do it all with annuals
> (which I don't).  Annual gardening is hard work, and my plans are to
> minimize it.
>
> What hasn't been tried, to my knowledge, is to grow all of one's food
> by maximizing the area covered by food forests.  These use
> practically all the sunlight, resulting in greater efficiency and
> less weeding.  They also require much less work and inputs and
> fulfill more functions.

Great thought. A complex integrated permaculture food production system 
on a homestead that emphasizes deriving preservable protein from nut 
bearing crops and vitamin C sources from various fruits, which can be 
dried. This is an often overlooked component of food production. Maybe 
people think it is too much trouble or too expensive; it deserves more 
thought and planning.

> These studies aren't purely academic.  It is useful to know how much
> land needs to be devoted to growing food, whether you live in a small
> household, a community, or a town.  Growing food without fossil fuels
> will require labor intensive methods and minimal transport.  This

My documents address this need, adjusting to and fine tuning labor 
intensive food production methods.

http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com/2010/05/permanent-biointensive-double-dug.html
Permanent Biointensive Double-dug Garden Preparation & Handtool
Information & Sourcelist

I plan to devote much more time developing the information resources 
that go into this document. I have also started an online collection of 
scans of old agriculture books, selected pages and covers. See this URL
and stay tuned for updates. See: http://venaurafarm.blogspot.com.
Look for my Picasaweb gallery, Books. Be sure to see the pix of pigs 
feeding in the kudzu patch and especially that harvest and preservation 
of forage plants (cut and bundled fresh daily for sale in local markets,
or dried and sold - what a great idea for a product to be sold at 
farmers markets or even csa's - forage crops for urban farms with 
livestock, especially chickens, which need to eat fresh greens daily, 
supplement what can be produced on site).

I do this myself, having recently sold all my fossil-fuel powered farm 
equipment; all I have left are trucks and electric implements, lawnmower 
and modular device with string trimmer, brush cutter and 
micro-rototiller, all useful in their place.

We should keep this thread going.

> means that we will need to assess the ability of our local land to
> provide for its inhabitants.

You will need to plan for having to work marginal land using a variety 
of methods, including pre-preparation using heavy mulch, cover crops
and relying on earthworms andother other creatures to begin the process 
of improving soil quality; follow with double-dug beds.

> Make the least change for the greatest effect and start growing some food.

Less is better, keep the process simple and direct with minimal wasted 
energy or materials, utilizing all opportunities (recycling, stacked 
functions, intercropping) to best advantage in a timely fashion.