Permaculture Garden in My Backyard (and frontyard)

Front section dedicated to growing stuff. As you can see, it needs some work first.

Gonna start blogging the plans I have for my parents yard. I have done a few things such as mulch a spot in the backyard and clear the portion of the front yard that I plan to use. I purchased some seeds from a local organic store.

Seeds that I bought and hope flourish

Seeds of Change sells organic heirloom and rare seeds. I purchased 9 packs at $2.69 each, for a total of $25.20 (incl tax). Online site sells a pack for $3.29. I will experiment sowing the seeds of change.
On to a more technical issue: Am I allowed to use the term "permaculture?" Is what I am doing considered permaculture? I am taking my influence in design and theory from permaculture concepts I've read about in books and online, but I haven't been trained and therefore cannot legally use the term. I'll use the term Toby Hemenway uses in his book, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to homescale Permaculture. He calls what I plan to do "ecological gardens." Hereinafter, I will use the term e-garden to make it simpler to refer to. I may not end up being an e-gardener at all, and only reach the status of organic gardener. It may be beyond my scope to include many of the aspects an e-garden entails. All said and done, there may be no difference. Either way, I hope to have healthier and fresher foods to eat.
As I mentioned, I am not trained nor have much experience in gardening (apart from owning a few house plants) so you will witness a total beginner as he goes through the ups and downs of designing, implementing, and maintaining a garden, with the additional trials of living at home. Got tips, ideas, comments, or the will to share? Bring it on. Life is too short to learn the hard way.

Feeble backyard attempt at sheet mulch. Toby Hemenway said sheet mulch was forgiving. We'll just see how much.

Recycle Energy

I've been reading The Permaculture Way, by Graham Bell, as well as Gaia's Garden: A Home-scale guide to Permaculture, by Toby Hemenway. In both these books, the use and reuse of energy is shown as a cycle rather than a concept of consumption.

We usually think of energy in terms of kilowatts that come from a power plant, gasoline and mpg, and for some of us, propane tanks. The various forms of energy we know of are all derivatives of our benefactor, the sun. It shines and gives plants energy, producing food for herbivores, in turn creating food for carnivores and omnivores. The oil, coal and gasses the earth provides are all forms of the suns energy stored from millions and billions of years.

So in fact, we can look at all life as different manifestations of the suns energy. The plants, the animals that eat the plants, the animals that eat the animals, the decomposers who eat everything, are all created by the energy of the sun.

We can reuse the energy stored in our "waste." Leftover food for example, can be returned to the cycle instead of being sent to the landfill. Yes, it will eventually be consumed by some other life form, but why not let that energy be spent on something nearer to home, and that can actually provide you a benefit. Send it to your compost, mulch it, give it to other animals, give it to your neighbor with a garden who will greatly appreciate it. These are much more efficient ways to recycle the energy. If we can find ways to keep the energy in a system longer, then more benefit can come from it.

19th Floor Garden: One month later

It's been a little over a month since I began my series on gardening, by way of my 19th floor garden. Several updates: as you can see, the tomatoes and basil have flourished. The thyme, which was in the forefront in the pics of the first post, have perished. I have never had luck growing thyme. Lots of sun or shade? Lots of water or little water? I am not sure.

I have just received my copy of Gaias Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture by Toby Hemenway, and as much as I feel weird admitting it, it excites me. I have read alot about Permaculture online, watched videos on YouTube, visited websites and on-location experiments. Most give a summary of Permaculture philosophy and tenets. Few actually give concrete steps (of which I am a fan) of what to do, how to do it, and how to fix it if it goes wrong. I was able to download a copy of Bill Mollisons A Permaculture Design Course from Scribd.com. This was actually very helpful. I learned applicable techniques. I recommend this if you too are interested in the topic. But eventually you will feel the need to learn more and move onto a piece of land to implement all these wonderful skills that you have aquired. As I mentioned before, I really can't do that while here in Taiwan.

Which brings me to another point. I will be moving back home to Maui to live with my parents. As loser-ish as this may seem, I don't care. I want to commandeer a portion of their yard to carry out my botanical experiments. In the process, I hope to repair the soil, bring wildlife to their yard, fill the bare ground with fruiting plants and trees, provide food for them, and build a welcoming envrionment. I am now formally against lawns and ornamental fixtures in a yard. I believe it is a waste of time and space. We are always complaining that our food isn't healthy, medical science is lacking. We have the potential in ourselves (by extension of our yard) to provide some of the healthful things we need to be stronger, live longer and happier. We as a society can do so much more with this land.

But I digress. I hope soon that tomatoes will bear fruit soon as winter is approaching, with cooler shorter days. Not good for tomatoes which like sun and warmth. Winter in Taiwan isn't so harsh, no freezing or snow, but not conditions for growing great tomatoes outdoors. We will see how this all plays out within the next couple of months.