Permaculture Gardens: Solving Problems, Answering Needs.

 With hopes and dreams on one hand and circumstances on the other, I was hopelessly observing my gardens and thinking, "Can only retired people really have enough time to invest in all that their gardens need? If I could only fit my gardens needs into my busy schedule!"
 
For me, gardens in general have become my avenue to self-realization, therefore I could not drop my dreams. So, I kept searching. I kept observing other gardeners and soon found new approaches that would allow new ways of tackling the gardening issues altogether.
 
This is what my blog is going to be about - In this blog we will travel the road of discovery that leads to freedom and abundance as stewards of our gardens.
 
The famous saying by the Masters of masters was “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” I was not free as a gardener. I was a struggling gardener. So, I searched for the truth and for the wonders of nature so that I can know them and become free as a gardener.
 
What I found was – Permaculture.
 
Why Permaculture?
 
Well, because it is permanent and self-sustaining. It is true to its nature. If we, the gardeners, respect the nature of the garden and not impose upon it ways that are not of its own, it will reward us in new ways that we have not yet experienced. 
 
The first reward in adopting permaculture to my back-yard gardening was that there is hardly any need for watering and weeding.  Why?
 
The nature of natural plant habitation is found in forests, where the floor is not raked, not tilled and turned. It is covered with twigs, leaves, branches, mushrooms, and all sorts of fungi, and swarming with wildlife that live in and off that floor. Nobody mows it or manicures it, and in that environment the trees and plants thrive for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years. Never watered. Never fertilized. 
 
So, I set out to create the same floor covering. There will be no more lawns!
“It is all about the covering” says Paul Goutschi in his famous documentary  Back to Eden. 
All it took was one phone call to a local arborist and some patience to wait for the prized wood-chips pile to arrive at my driveway. I also prepared some cardboard and a roll of construction paper that I used to cover the lawns before laying the wood chips on top of them. This would kill the grasses and weeds and convert them to humus. (Whitefield P. (1993), Permaculture in a nutshell, Making a mulch bed, P.32-34, Hampshire: Permanent Publications.)

The first thing that struck me after I lay the floor covering in my gardens was: There was no more pooling of water and mud as was normally the case, especially at springtime. The second thing that I realized quickly was: There were no mosquitos! Mosquitos like the moisture held in between blades of grass. Wood chips are not a favourable habitat for them. Wood chips pull the moisture down to the ground leaving no moisture for the mosquitos. A win-win situation!
 
The third problem to be solved was weed infestations, especially Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus), also commonly called Nutgrass and wild garlic that grew like green unwanted hair everywhere in the lawn and in and among the perennials. 
Yellow Nutsedge grows back in 3 days after weeding it, even more dense and vigorous than before. A thick application of wood chips, about 8 inches and bye-bye Nutsedge! Bye-bye weeds! 
 
Broad-leaf weeds around the asparagus? No problem! A few buckets of wood chips applied around them and they were perfectly weed free for the rest of the season! 
 
Three weeks after the wood chips application, the wild garlic pulled out of the ground with the entire bulb and root attached.
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The soil in my gardens is clay. When I had lawns, the bulbs of wild garlic, as well as all other unwanted weeds would remain rooted tightly. The thick layer of wood chips loosened their hold and out they came with the entire root intact - Relief again!
 
Now I can come to my gardens for quick visits with no need to work. I only need to harvest its delicious fruits. 
 

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