Subject: Re: [permaculture] Community Pc Gardens?

From: Steve Diver <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 22:36:49 -0500

".....it's not easy to determine from existing lists which
Community Gardens include permaculture."

A few perspectives:

*When people have to leave their homes and drive
to a community garden, it falls outside of any
PC zone connected to where they live.  

*On the other hand, there might be such a thing
as community-wide PC zones. 

*Home food production is part of permaculture, 
any way you slice it  

*Polyculture and biodiversity is inherent to 
any community garden

*Just visited the Lake Oswego community garden
near Portland. They used heavy duty sheet mulching,
with cardboard + wood chip pathways to separate
plots, and it was beautiful. Land usage stipulated
organic methods, so compost and sheet mulch and
so on were everywhere.  Each garden plot had its own
character, using trellises, raised beds, with 
mixed cropping of veggies with flower and herbs
and strawberries... and garden structures.   

*I suppose the community garden could add rainwater
catchment, a spiral herb garden, etc.  But on the 
whole, it is adding permaculture to the Portland
region as is, it seems to me.   

*Once you have a community garden, you can
add workshops on compost, beneficial insect
habitats, and so forth.  One of the workshops
can be on permaculture principles, patterns,
guilds, and related practical applications. 

*Altogether, it would seem hard to find 
community gardens designated as PC, per se. 

*A community of people, by definition, is
made up of scattered ideas, learned behaviors,
and expectations. 

*Yet, it would be interesting to have community
buy-in to host a PC workshop and design charette, 
to explore garden-site wide implementation of
PC principles and practices... with site analysis, 
water systems, soil fertility regeneration 
strategies, integration of small animals, 
vertical spaces,polyculture and guild schemes, 
and so on.  

Steve Diver

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