Permagarden

Today my language class and my friends’ language class made a permagarden at the house of a girl in my class.  We also learned how to make an awesome compost pile.

Permagardens are sustainable, year round gardens where you plant like a million different types of plants.  You put a permagarden right next to a house so that there’s easy access, and also so that the rain that runs off the roof is directed to the garden.  Permagardens are also special because of the way they’re constructed.  We dug trenches around the whole garden to direct water flow, with several big holes in the corners to collect water.  The beds were dug deep and the soil was mixed with manure and charcoal—if our compost had been ready we would have mixed some of that in too. 

It was hard.  No kidding.  I have so much respect for Mozambique-ans that go to their machambas (farms) all day and swing a hoe all day.  Those things are heavy.

How to make a permagarden:

First you collect brown material (should be dry, but today it was raining so everything was wet), green material (grasses, non-toxic leaves) and some good, rich soil with lots of starter-bacteria to aid in the decomposition of your brown and green materials.  Then you hack the sweet-life out of these materials with small swords called catanas.  hack that stuff up good.  Don't lose any fingers.

Next, construct a meter-square compost pile.  Start with a layer of sticks on the bottom (good sized sticks, laid out in a grid to allow air to circulate at the bottom of the pile).  The add a layer of brown material (6 inches or so) and then green material (~3 inches). sprinkle some soil on top (or other compost) and water.  Mix the layers a bit and repeat until the pile is a meter tall.  Put a sturdy stick in the middle--this is used to test the temperature of the pile during its 3 month decomposition process--it should heat up if the bacteria are doing their job.  If not... redo the whole thing.  At the end, cover the pile with banana leaves or a tarp to keep the rain out.

Friendliest, largest grasshopper ever.

Then we started clearing the area for the garden.  First we marked off the size of the garden and hacked away all the plants.  This is good green material for the compost pile!

And we kept hacking away until it looked like this!  We constructed three beds.  They should be about a meter wide--you need to be able to straddle the bed.  See?  Then loosen the top soil (this is the first dig).  

After the first dig, you do a second dig.  Scrape away the top soil in a small portion and hack up the harder soil under neath.  Mix in some manure and charcoal then replace the top soil.  This provides structure as well as deeper/loose soil for roots to grow into.  When all the beds have been dug twice, mix some more manure and charcoal into the top soil

Then find someone who knows how to pick hooves to help you get the mud off your shoes.

I’m really looking forward to building one of these at my site.  Or, maybe making lots of friends who will help me build my garden.