My experimental permaculture patch

At the request of shiny I thought I'd do a up post on the story behind my experimental garden and give a explanation on the concepts as I see them. Probably going to end up a bit long but without understanding the 'why' behind the garden, the 'what' makes very little sense.

About 5-6 years ago I was getting really into producing my own food. I was playing mostly with hydroponics and raised beds. Both methods had their problems and were both labour intensive and resource intensive. As someone who enjoys nature I always looked in the bush and in rain forests noticing a lack of a need for fertiliser, pesticides, fungicides ect... I was reading books on gardening, farming, hydoponics, aquaponics and permaculture to find the solution.

Aquaponics is very promising, I've set up a few systems with good results but they're still plagued by fish food and electricity inputs, they also require maintenance. The concept however is sound, establish an ecosystem that recycles unwanted outputs into inputs. I found permaculture and no-till gardening, it promised abundance for little effort and inputs. The claim being made is that without disturbing the soil and focusing on biology you can eliminate inputs to the soil and grow 'as nature would'. There's a lot of magical thinking in the permaculture community as it attracts a lot of 'alternative' types. I set out to understand what was going on from a biology standpoint and at every turn it seemed to support no-till.

I started this garden a few months after securing land in the spring of 2013 to explore a hands off 'as nature would' system to see if these theoretical ideas showed true in reality. This is a small trial plot (15m x 15m) that I dream of implementing on a much larger scale (5-20 acres) so all decisions are made on that basis and methods need to be scalable. In a typical year I only get 350mm rainfall so I need to rely on things like dew capture, rock moisture traps and heavy mulches to keep things going but will be aiming for 600-800mm for the next one.

I started the garden by digging trenches and interesting shapes in the ground, somewhere for water to collect so it didn't just run off whenever I got rain. I then sew seeds by hand throwing them in as many different areas as possible. Species selection is done by utility and its ability to grow in 'poor' soils as I started with a heavy sandy clay. Weeds and old plant stalks are never removed from the garden but cut just above the soil with secateurs if unwanted or I get in with the wipper snipper if a larger area is to be re-seeded.


Dense plantings support each other by acting as a 'living mulch' keeping the soil covered and the moisture loss to a minimum.

The large leaf plants in the middle are arrow root, they generate a lot of mulch up top and collect a lot of moisture with the large surface area. The Kale and chard seems to grow really well at its base.

I put large rocks around the base of my trees and 'important' plants, these sweat moisture (same way your car is always covered in dew in the morning) releasing it to the plant. This pomegranate has been growing really well despite looking quite dead when we had our heat in December.

Green line shows where the original plot was planted out. All the mustard, rocket & sweet alice in the foreground has blown over by the wind.

The arrow root on the left is on a hill and the chard has found a trench. Has been growing very well despite the hot weather and not being watered.

You can also see the kale in the far left seems to be growing in a row parallel to the arrowroot, this is another trench.

FAQ

Why is tilling/digging so bad for the soil?
It Kills the fungus in the soil and moves it towards a more bacterially dominated environment. Soil fungus creates the soil structure, it helps move water and nutrients to where they are needed and breaks down the organic matter setting them into much more stable humic acids. Weeds are a symptom of bacterial dominate soils, not a problem in themselves. I've seen weed pressure significantly reduce as my organic matter and fungal structure has gone up.

Why don't I need to add fertilizer inputs?
In a living soil you don't need to 'feed' the plants as they can get it themselves. If a healthy plant needs specific nutrients not available in the soil around them they release exudates from the roots (mostly sugar) which is a bacteria food specific to the nutrient they lack. The bacteria have the ability to break up the minerals and clays releasing 'locked' nutrients in the soil for consumption. These bacteria attract the soil mesofauna to consume the bacteria releasing the nutrients that were initially unavailable to the plant. Now I've over simplified this but the basic idea is a plant controls the soil nutrients around the root zone by feeding the soil the sugars it creates in its leaves.

What's with all the flowers?
Not only do flowers feed the bee's and promote pollinators, many of them promote insects that attack pests. By having specific families of flower you encourage these 'protector' insects and eliminate the need for pesticides. There are also flowers like nasturtiums and marigolds that emit scents that deter pests (this is more contentious) but I've had good results companion planting both of these between tomatoes, capsicums, eggplants...

What's so good about self seeded plants?
I try to establish a 'seed bank' in the soil with the idea that if they're in the right spot and the right time of year, they'll grow. Also given my approach to neglecting these plants, only plants that are adapted to the area make it to maturity so the seeds get more selected for my specific climate conditions every season. This creates varieties that require even less water/nutrients to create food and moves away from the high nutrient, chemical requiring cultivars grown more widely.

Well that will do for now, I'm sure most peoples eyes will have glazed over as tends to happen when I show people around the patch. Feel free to ask any questions... you may have noticed I like talking about this stuff.