Back from the Permaculture planet
I don’t know where to begin.
The Permaculture class I took, which spanned eight solid weekends over three months, is over. I haven’t blogged in two months and I feel like I’ve been on a trip to distant lands, even though class was held at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, just a 20 minute walk away from my home.
In our welcome email we were boldly told “You will be transformed!” At the time I thought “Oh right, we’ll see...”
But it was true, I don’t quite feel like the same person I was when I started the class. Now I look at things with new “permaculture eyes”. Every time I turn on the faucet, I’m aware of that precious water going down the drain and into the sewers. Every time I use the bathroom I remember several of our presenters pointing out how strange it is that we pee in potable water. Everywhere I go I shut off lights. I look at labels now, not just for the ingredients, but to see how far the product traveled to get to me.
When I look at a dandelion, I see an edible green, a dynamic accumulator, a generalist nectary, an invertebrate shelter, a medicinal plant and, possibly, a cup of tea.
Roots intertwining with roots, everything connected in a web of life and death.
And now, to lighten things up a bit, here are some photos from a sheet mulching afternoon.
Preparing to lay cardboard down on a weedy area.
Wetting the cardboard.
Spreading compost on the wet cardboard.
Spreading a thick layer of straw over the compost.
Watering the straw.
Getting ready to inoculate the sheet mulch with the mycelium of oyster mushroom growing on millet.
Making a mycelium “burrito” by sprinkling the mycelium covered millet on the corrugated side of some cardboard.
The burrito is almost ready.
Giving the burrito a home under an apple tree.
Mulching the apple tree.
Now we are opening a space in the large sheet mulched area, by cutting an X into the cardboard layer, to show how a plant is put into the mulch.
The opening is tucked under.
A plant is added.
Our work is done. Nature will do the rest.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Pia & Co.
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