Permaculture

This post is for those interested in the actual work I did this week while wwoofing. I know not everyone wants to hear the technical ramblings and I did not want to make them weed through my other posts (ha see what I did there?).

I made a few references to the idea and practices of permaculture in my post when I first arrived, but I do not believe I did enough justice. I also learned a bit more...

There is a lot of letting nature do its thing in this particular garden. Obviously there are not any pesticides or insecticides used, which means a few weeds. But we only pull out the weeds if they hinder walking through the pathways. 

Otherwise, they are there to help pollinate the other food-producing plants. And I have never seen so much pollinating going on in such a small space!! The garden actually hums with excitement from the bees and flies. It's definitely working, everything grows so fast here.

Yesterday:

Today:

The poppies just exploded today! 

The paths exist only so we can harvest, otherwise the garden would be just one giant conglomerate of growth. Everything growing inside the rings is there for a purpose, so it needs to stay there. When I weed, I lay the weeds and their bare roots around the stalks of the plants we want so that the weed corpses protect the plant from the sun and other weed seeds. All plants have a reason for being there, and we do not discriminate. Also interesting fact; the Dutch call Weed (marijuana) 'wheet', so we had some very confusing conversations while working in the ring with the Wheat (grain). Each household is legally allowed to grow five weed plants per person, which a lot of people in this area take advantage of. Apparently there's a guy close by that built a house out of hemp. 

There are several water sources throughout the garden either in effect already or being planned. Ponds and/or canals are for irrigation and attracting animals that eat pests. Rain barrels are used now to water everything in dry weeks.  

The potatoes are in an experiment now; instead of planting then in the soil, they planted them in a thick layer of straw. The idea is that when they are ready to harvest, you just pull up the straw and bam! There are the potatoes fully grown and without disease! I'm interested to see if it's going to work. Almost the same thing was done with the corn. Which I thought they kept calling "mice" until I realized it was meant to be "maize." They have dealt with tomato blight by stabbing a copper wire through the stalks when they are still young, instead of using a copper spray. The pumpkins are planted in boxes to contain their roots system a little better. They have a cold and hot compost, which I don't think both are necessary since weeds are not seen as a bad thing in the garden. But any and all "biologicish" soil amendments are welcome in this garden.

There are a couple of things uniquely different here from how farms work in the United States. Firstly, providing great juxtaposition to my time working with organic+ agriculture is that we are basically on a conventional farm. There's a wheat field directly behind the garden that gets sprayed, and a factory chicken farm butting up against the property line. The two farms are so close to each other. 

I'm standing in the outer ring of the garden in both of these.

The other different thing is that these farms are not in a rural setting. It's called rural to those that live in the Netherlands, but we would not consider it rural.

This is the driveway to the farm:

And the street they live on:

It's in a neighborhood! One of my hosts always exclaims how quiet it is here, but all I hear are cars going by all the time. All relative I guess.

So in conclusion, I like the idea of permaculture, but it felt too disorganized to me. I think maybe a smaller garden using permaculture might be easier and more manageable alongside an organic garden. Especially to help with pollination. 

My next farm will be very different. It's in the Scottish highlands, close to the water. Will be fun to compare and contrast again!