4 Steps to a Permaculture Backyard Garden this Spring 1. Map your garden. If you haven’t done so already, create a basic garden map. This should include the property lines and any topography or other salient features like existing fences, trees, or water features. Next, add an overlay or separate version of the map that indicates how much sun various areas get. Plants need the right amount of sun. Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com 2. Repair and maintain fences, raised beds, and any other artificial structures. Walk around the garden. Inspect everything. There may not be much to do, or there may be quite a bit of wear and tear since last year’s growing season. Depending on the climate, this step might also include replacing garden hoses or getting seasonal items out of storage. Garden items also include the picnic table and fire pit for my household. 3. Prune trees and mulch or compost the old growth from last year. Oh, the first pruning of the apple trees. They were just planted last year, and the majority of the new growth in the branches had to be removed. This lets the root growth catch up, but it feels so brutal. Not everyone feels the need to prune trees if they are approaching the garden from a permaculture perspective. That is okay too. If all the old growth was left to over-winter, a certain amount of rearranging is in order, such as discarding the spent second-year berry canes from last year. Photo by Maria Tyutina on Pexels.com 4. Plan your plantings and start any seeds indoors that need a head start on the season This is the fun part! For zones 8-10, late freezes are much less of a concern. Farther north, it makes sense to start a few seedlings indoors if you are so inclined. As the garden matures, there will be fewer and fewer new plantings in the spring. In my garden, I just have to have annuals such as tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, and pumpkins. Seed saving last year was limited to a few different legumes and some nasturtiums. With hazelnuts, roses, apples, walking onions, blackberries, and a few other perennials coming along, it is set to be an exciting year!
On Homesteading and Minimalism Homesteading and Minimalism Can homesteading and minimalism go together? Both concepts speak to identity. Ultimately, you decide, what does the label mean? Then, whether the labels apply to you. Being a homesteader can mean doing more things yourself, being more self-sufficient, and resisting the culture of materialism. Being a minimalist usually includes defining a personal focus on what really matters, and engaging in an ongoing process of weeding out things that do not add value or meaning. Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com If your ideal homestead includes land, trees, and livestock, then you must own the objects needed to provide care and maintenance. The care itself might be part of an intentional lifestyle. If being a minimalist includes only owning an arbitrary number of items, you might fall into the trap of being forced to buy items when you need them, and regularly discarding items just to avoid ownership. Photo by Matthis Volquardsen on Pexels.com Intentional Living I have been thinking a lot about the themes of a life well-lived. There are certain things that I call “part of my definition of the good life.” A good example of this is books. Notoriously, books are heavy and not very practical if you move around a lot. I have used a Kindle device, Audible subscription, and Kindle app on my phone at various times. But, I love books. Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com So, I have found a balance. I buy books secondhand, and I keep a limited number of books that I really like. I come back to them again and again. But we do not keep accumulating them. Instead, we frequent the library, we use electronic sources, and we limit the size of the home library. The good life looks different for everybody. I find that with music, good food, good stories, and companionship, life is rich. Having material things on a bigger or grander scale does not enhance or replace the essentials. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. (What is essential is invisible to the eyes.)Antoine de Saint-Exupéry in The Little Prince Commonalities of the Homesteader and Minimalist Can you be both? I think so. And what I like about it, is that both ideals can be scaled to your current life. We don’t have to wait for the perfect life circumstances to come. Photo by Anete Lusina on Pexels.com You can practice minimalism in your attire or your bedroom. You can practice homesteading in an apartment or on an acreage. Commonalities include focus, resourcefulness, and efficiency. Being mindful. Using resources, including your own time and energy, wisely. Photo by Craig Adderley on Pexels.com For more thoughts on homesteading and minimalism Medium – The 12 Design Principles of Permaculture as Rules of LivingMorning Chores – 20 Tips to Help You Become a Minimalist HomesteaderA Home Made From Scratch – Minimalism vs. HomesteadingHomestead Hustle – Minimalism on the Homestead15 Acre Homestead – Minimalism in the HomeCouch to Homestead – 9 Essential Tips to Becoming a Minimalist Homesteader Photo by Roberto Cervantes on Pexels.com
Homestead Inspiration Inspiration for the small homestead Homestead inspiration in the suburbs What is your homestead inspiration? Nutrition? Sustainability? Independence? Simple living? With homesteading dreams, but practical constraints, it can be hard to focus on living a less consumerist life in the here and now. Let’s live within our means. Let’s produce more of our own food and keep our homes from being filled with a bunch of “stuff” without function or lasting value. Finally, let’s cultivate free time, and spend it doing more than just watching TV. Yes, I love a good movie night, but I want to keep up skills and learn new skills. Photo by Davyd Bortnik Homestead vs. practicality Not everyone can up and move to the country, as many of us are still dependent on our jobs. Country living homesteading (in the sense of having land and livestock) is a daily, time-consuming commitment that can take up a lot of time, effort, and resources. It is worth counting the cost and making sure you want to do the work. Living less wastefully We live in a highly consumeristic, materialistic society. All too frequently, we buy things new and then send them to the landfill a short time later. Planned obsolescence defines the lifespan of too many products. Still, many items can be bought used (cell phones) or repaired (laptops) and a modern way of life enjoyed without fully buying into the production stream. Use it up, wear it out, make do, or do without.American proverb from the Great Depression era Homestead inspiration for the small garden Start small! You can do it. This is all supposed to be fun. I believe that with life, homemaking, gardening, and even working, it is supposed to be fun. Without fun, something is not right. I believe that in family life there is supposed to be fun in our day-to-day lives and interactions. Without fun, our relationships are out of balance. Photo by Caroline Feelgood Currently, I live in a suburb with a front yard and a backyard garden. In our neighborhood, we get more wildlife than you might expect, which has been the primary barrier to food production. There are also a lot of trees, which are beautiful and stately. They provide a lot of shade. Placement of plantings has to be very strategic to work around all that shade. Now a few years into this, we are getting a few more berries, a few more squash and tomatoes, a lot more hickory nuts and just a couple of hazelnuts. It is exciting to see our novice efforts at permaculture gardening starting to bear fruit, literally. Here are a few of my sources of inspiration Tenth Acre Farm – Permaculture for the Suburbs Mother Earth News – 1-Acre Dreamin’Homestead.org – Permaculture PrinciplesAtitalan Organics – Mapping Zones on Your PropertyTenth Acre Farm – How to Develop the Permaculture Homestead in PhasesMother Earth News – 9 Permaculture PracticesFood Tank – 16 Successful Projects Highlighting Permaculture Use Whatever else is going on out there, when we’re on the homestead… Let’s keep it cozy.
Celebrate Harvest Season Celebrate the Summer Harvest Once again, it is my favorite time of the year! Time to celebrate harvest season. The leaves change color and fall, and it is time to put the garden to sleep for the long winter. But first, we take some delicious veggies to the kitchen. Summer veggies! Reflecting on the summer garden, I realized that we have actually made a lot of progress in a relatively short time. Celebrate Progress in the Garden First there was a late frost, and then significant competition for our produce from the deer, squirrels, and birds. Now that the harvest is wrapping up, here are a few of the successes after a couple of years in progress: Increased the number of raised bedsAdded mulch (and learned how to get a truckload of free mulch for the asking)Added compost (accelerated by adding the birds’ used bedding to the pile)Blackberry bushes grew well and so produced more berriesTomato vines were enormousPeppers and onions grew better than expected Herb garden expanded to include rosemary, parsley (2nd year plants!), mint, garlic, onions, cilantro and corianderPlanted some new flowers that seem to be doing wellPerennial garden including hazelnuts, cranberries, and elderberries continued to grow wellAdded a couple of treesKept my potted lemon tree alive another year and it produced two lemons Indoor garden added a few plants and propagated a few plants Celebrate Positive Reflections This year I felt like the garden had setback after setback, but when I actually reflect on it, there were a number of areas of growth and success just because of things set in place in the first year. The soil improved. The perennials are more established and more productive. Time to celebrate the harvest season and the transition from summer to fall. Reflections on 2020 Never has the garden meant more than in such a wild year 2020!
