perma-what

The most amazing thing I have come to understand on my trip thus far is how simple solutions can create sustainable change in a community. Changes that seem surface level but reach deep down into the earth and affect people's existence from the inside out. In this case, through their food source. I have experienced this through a hands on approach, through building a permagarden. For three days last week the Cokawi co-op and the WD4H team hoed and shoveled tons of dirt in an effort to grow food that could sustain this community more effectively, not only physically but financially. In short, the goal of the training and these permagardens is to introduce low capital methods to increase household food production and income generation. It was an extremely humbling experience.

The permagarden method is the child of the practice of ‘Permaculture’, a combo of two words, ‘permanent’ and ‘agriculture’. This method focuses on designing the garden to include permanent, soil-based structures. According to the TOPS permagarden technical manual (http://www.fsnnetwork.org/sites/default/files/pg-technicalmanual-mono.pdf), "permaculture helps farmers to understand natural influences that affect the homestead, and results in a better garden location and design that optimizes the use of available resources. ‘Bio-intensive agriculture’ refers to the efficient system of planting, deep healthy soil structure, diet design, composting, and management of annual crops in beds that are found within protective and productive berms."

I want to go through the main motives behind this permagarden method, as stated in the TOPS permagarden technical manual:

"1. Ecological – enhance natural resources and ecosystem services through:

• Improving soil and water health
• Increasing biodiversity, and
• Reducing erosion

2. Economic – increase economic income by:

• Reducing input costs, and
• Diversifying and intensifying production.

3. Energy – increase energy efficiency through:

• Better garden design that works with natural influences to maximize the efficiencies of an integrated system and reduce time and energy expended tending crops and animals.

4. Nutritional – contribute to increased nutritional status by:

• Increasing access to a diverse diet, and
• Improving critical nutrient uptake 

5. Social – strengthen the skillset, capacity, and confidence of smallholder farmers by:

• Supporting local innovative farmers to become leaders enabling them to understand how to maximize local resources and
• Utilize influences improving their ability to adapt and test technologies."

Now that we understand the definition and basic benefits of a permagarden, let's understand how these things are implemented. I am going to go step by step on how we created our permagarden:

1. Community Walk

First, the co-op members did a tour of the community to recognize what resources were available to them for free. Three major ingredients to these permagarden's are charcoal, ash, and manure. These three things are the main soil amendments and fertilizers necessary in this region. They were easily collected for free within their communities. These permagardens are not only self sustaining, as the co-op members can get the ingredients for free in their local communities, but also organic! Other productive assets they recognized in their communities included, land, water, plants, animals, people and structures. The community then takes notice of how the rainwater moves, how can slopes can be altered, how can rainwater be slowed and allowed to spread, what is the quality and depth of the soil? The co-op began to look at their land in a different, new, inventive light. In a light that allowed them to imagine new and better yields, thanks to more effective farming practices.

2. Location Choice

Picking the area to do the permagarden is a whole different story. The TOPS manual talks a bit about picking an area,

"Key characteristics of an ideal permagarden site:

• Receives full sunlight at least 4 hours a day.
• Accessible to all family members.
• Protected from extreme winds, livestock, or other damaging elements.
• Contains soil that is relatively free of rocks. 
• The sun movement across the land or the slope of the land.
• In hot locations with a strong sun exposure, choose a site with shade or partial sun for part of the day.
• Place the garden downslope from a chicken coop or kraal (while still protecting the garden from animals) to allow gravity to bring manure and nutrients into the garden during a rain.
• Place the garden away from the trash pit or other hazardous materials."

3. Clearing and Design

Once we knew what piece of land we were going to use, we prepared and cleared it. Then it was time to decide the design of the garden. This required knowledge of how rainwater would flow on this land. Rwanda gets a lot of rain, and people generally assimilated all that rain with the flooding of their land. With that fear of flooding in mind, they directed the rainwater they were receiving off of their land. Causing them to have water shortages, when really they had all the rainwater they needed. Once educated by this manual, and the permagarden method, they realized that they could manage the rainwater they were receiving in a more effective way. Allowing the water to enter their land and be stored in the ground. The ground has much more capacity to store water for future use during non-rainy seasons than above ground storage. This required the help of an A-frame. As you will see pictured below. 

The control of water flow can be utilized to prevent erosion and fertility loss. The A frame you see above is a device to measure the contours of the land. This is an important measurement as it will show how rainwater will enter the land, how it will spread across it, and where swales and berms should be placed. To transition to the A-frame and swale activity, we introduced the swale and its ability to stop, slow, sink, and spread water. What is a swale you may ask? The textbook definition is, "a low or hollow place, especially a marshy depression between ridges". The TOPS manual describes this part of the process as, "The gardener can control water flow into and through the garden for maximum use. It is therefore important to determine where rainfall will enter the garden and how water will flow through the garden. As water flows down slope across the land, it carries nutrients from other areas, including manure and biomass. The aim of the garden design in dry regions is to encourage these nutrients to flow into the garden and to sink into the soil, especially for use in the dry season or during dry periods in the growing season. Likewise, good design can help mitigate flooding in wet regions by diverting excess water away from the garden, preventing crops from getting waterlogged. The flow of water is controlled through effective design and integration of technical practices, such as double digging, composting, close plant spacing, and mulching, combined with the appropriate use of swales, berms, holes, beds, pathways, and fencing. Using these techniques can significantly increase the amount of water infiltrated into and stored in the soil." And to finish off, the berm is the raised area above the swale, used to protect the garden from runoff water, to store water, and to plant perennials on top of. You can see these different aspects of the permagarden illustrated in the diagram below.

Once we knew where the swales and berms would be located we had to decide how to orient our garden beds within the larger structure of the garden. In the drawing below, the swales are the narrow collumns.

4. Digging The Swales And Creating The Garden Beds

First part of construction was to dig out the larger swales on the perimeter of the entire garden and then the smaller swales between each garden bed. 

Above, you can see one of the coop members posing in front of the rudimentary design of the garden. Now that everything is formed as it will be in the future, it is ready for the next most labor intensive part. 

5. Double Digging

This concept is described in the TOPS manual as, "Double digging allows for closer plant spacing, as the roots grow down rather than to the sides. Double-dug beds are permanent, which allows them to absorb and retain water more effectively. They can be amended with important nutrients and soil organic material that is sourced locally. Crops can then be rotated between beds or from one place in a bed to another place in the same bed from season to season to maximize pest control and achieve higher yields." This process, compared to other soil preparation practices, increases the air, water, and nutrient content in the topsoil and subsoil. Double digging is a very effective, free alternative to expensive fertilizers. Double digging can significantly improve yearlong food security, reduce weed growth and water loss by 80%, and decrease overall labor requirements in the long-term. 

I am going to attempt to describe the process of double digging

1. As you can see in the photo below, in small segments you first remove the top layer of the garden and move it to the side. You remove approximately the first 40 centimeters.

2. Then you dig down another approximately 30 centimeters, into the subsoil. You simply break up the soil with a hoe and loosen it, but don't remove the soil.

3. Then you add the soil amendments. In this case, ash, charcoal, and manure. Then you mix the soil amendments and the subsoil

4. Cover up the now amended subsoil with the top soil that you removed earlier. 

5. TAADAA! You can move on to the next section of the garden and repeat until you have 4 blisters per each hand!

Above you can see the ash, charcoal, and manure added to one of the sections of one of the garden beds.

The benefits of double digging are talked about by Stephanie Blennerhasset, who worked for a non-profit in Uganda creating these permagardens, "By breaking through the compacted subsoil layer and amending it, plant roots can grow down further, instead of growing out to the sides. When plant roots grow out to the sides, they compete with one another for the available nutrients in the topsoil layer. Consequently, plants are spaced farther apart. This compromises plant yields and increases the surface area of soil exposed to the sun (if beds are not mulched). When plant roots can grow down and deep into the subsoil layer, plants can be placed closer together, and yields can increase." (https://permaculturenews.org/2012/10/31/permagardens-in-practice-resilience-in-action-uganda-africa/)

Then after much labor all of the permagarden beds had been double dug and smoothed over!

6. Planting Seeds

The most important part of planting seeds in the permagarden method is the concept of triangular planting. Pictured below.

The TOPS manual describes the benefits of this method, "Bio-intensive planting uses a triangular approach when planting most crops in the garden, rather than the usual square or rectangular pattern. This allows a greater density of plants per square meter, which increases yields and creates a beneficial microclimate in the bed. Using a triangular spacing method, where the sides of the triangle are all the same length, means planting seeds or seedlings at their correct spacing at an angle from one another instead of in a straight row. Deep soil quality allows crops to be planted closer together. By using close, precise triangular spacing, plant density, plant health, and overall yield per square meter are maximized."

7. Mulching and Watering

As seen below, we covered all the beds with dry hay-ish mulch in order to protect the beds and the seeds from the sun and from rain erosion. When rain hits the ground it is moving very fast but this mulch slows it down so the soil can not be eroded. 

FINISHED

I wanted to finish by talking about how humbling this experience was. A lot of the time higher classes are very disassociated from their food source and the processes that go into producing it. It's almost like people think that they are "above" farming. One of the only things they need to continue their high class lives that are disassociated from the food system. It was interesting to see how these men and women commit their lives to extremely difficult labor in order to do one of the most sincere professions I think there is, assisting the earth to produce the food it was made to produce and nourishing the masses with it.