Several times at NEPC, reference was made to the book A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. When I got back to town I went straight to the library to get it. Sadly, it was out, but another book, The Timeless Way of Building was in, and I’m glad for this happy little accident [sic].

The Timeless Way of Building (Volume 1 in the series) lays out, methodically, the difference between a built environment that is alive and one that is dead, what makes it possible to create the living one, that is a shared pattern language, how it is possible that normal people like you and I can build these living environments, what a pattern is, how to recognize one, and how to build a shared language of patterns and combine them in specific methods of design. A Pattern Language (Volume 2 in the series) is then, one attempt to build such a language that has general applicability.

Since Permaculture is all about design and a lot about pattern, I am glad to have stumbled onto these books. Which is not to say that they weren’t explicitly recommended in my PDC, or even by Mollison in the DM- they probably were. But they are both critically important books, IMHO, for Permies everywhere.

Here’s Alexander’s definition of a pattern:

Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution.
The Timeless Way of Building, p. 247

I believe this is what Dave Jacke was referring to when he said a pattern is a way in which conflicting forces get resolved. This is also another way of restating the Permaculture principle: “the problem is the solution.”

Further, Alexander shows how we can discover these patterns.

1. Pick a kind of a place- entrance, window, garden, tree grove, sidewalk, path, hedge, whatever
2. Look around for good and bad examples of this type of place
3. Try to isolate the property the good ones have in common. This will not be a simple property, like a color or size, but will be a relationship
4. Look at the bad examples and define what the problem is with them
5. Expand the problem with any additional information you may have about it, generalize it. What does the space need to accomplish or solve?
6. Identify specifically the ways that the good patterns resolve this problem
7. Give this pattern a specific name which will clearly identify it

This is a very specific and detailed form of “protracted and thoughtful observation,” and is quite similar to the ways both Mollison and Toby Hemenway suggest to identify guilds. Zone and Sector analysis is very good at quickly locating components in an overall site, in a general way. Alexander’s method seems to me much more definitive when you get down to the details of where to place the actual greenhouse, swales, paths, compost bin, chicken coop and so on in relation to each other and to existing components, within or across any zone/sector analysis segment.

I watched Escape from Suburbia the other night. Phil and Tom are featured in the film, and I wanted learn more about what they are doing in NYC. The movie covers a number of efforts across North America to deal with and find solutions to Peak Oil, and secondarily Climate Change and poverty, mainly through local food production. At least local food production was a theme.

What was most moving to me was the segment on LA’s South Central Community farm, a 14 acre community project at ground zero of urban gardening. This farm had private plots for 350 local families who grew food, medicinals and ornamentals. They started a market because people there were growing things not available anywhere else in LA. Horrifyingly, the city took back the land and sold it to a “logistics” company to build a warehouse there, because “people in South Central need jobs.” Despite community action and protest, the site was bulldozed on camera while the urban farmers could only look on in despair.

Carolyn Baker points out in her review what this means. Relocalization is not currently threatening to the powers that be, but will be soon, and we can expect a very nasty backlash. This example is just a taste of that. I’m relating this to the Archdruid’s post a couple of days ago about the misconception that collapse will somehow mystically be okay, and not too violent. I doubt that. The image I have of collapse is not a bunch of spontaneously emerging ecovillages, but something like New Orleans, post-Katrina, times every major metropolitan area in the world. I see pain in our future.

The conclusion I’m coming to, inescapably, is that food, relocalization and gardening are political. The good news is that gardening also seems to be a great way of organizing people in a way that doesn’t overtly seem political. In other words, like me, it’s only after gardening for some years that one comes to understand that gardening is political.

There seem to be two approaches to fighting the Beast. One is to go head to head, like Gandhi, Mandela or MLK. Another is to go underground like the mycelium network and stay off the radar until there is enough strength or pain to stand and fight. The danger is that being underground can become comfortable and the standing up never happens, or it gets co-opted before the groundswell.

This afternoon I helped these young people:

build this herb spiral:

in less than an hour.

They totally made my day and made me feel like I’d done something worthwhile and fun for the day. I was able to forget about the idiocy of work for a bit. I was able to explain about the different micro-climates we were making, from dry at the top to moist at the bottom, hot and light on the southwest and top sides and darker and cooler on the north and east edges, how the bricks and soil form a more stable structure- they totally got it and hopefully now they can do their own spirals and teach others.

Good bread makes me happy, especially good rosemary bread, especially if I baked it myself. This is super-tasty with brie, BTW. This is loaf number 10, about, and I feel like I’m finally getting it (hat tip to Russ!). The [corrected] recipe for basic bread is here. The whole house smelled good after baking this, not burnt like after the first few hockey puck loaves.

I’m digging the ability to start stuff from seed. One of the things I’ve learned from Andrew is to transplant seedlings to a richer mix before going directly into the garden. So I broke down and bought some -gulp- MiracleGro potting mix! I’m mixing this one third to one third of this really chunky cheap potting mix, and one third ProMix. I feel like these are my babies. There are roma tomato, lemon and middle east cukes, fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, rhubarb and golden chard, sunflowers and purple bell peppers.

This morning I finished sheet mulching the central hex garden. The path, as you can see, forms a spiral with keyholes radiating out from it. This is very efficient in terms of garden to path ratio, and I also like the design aspect. I can reach any spot (basically) from a path so I never have to walk on the beds themselves. Eventually the paths will be laid in gray stone like that you can see in the foreground.

The apples I planted last summer are producing. This one is called Liberty. I didn’t expect fruit for a couple of years, so this is a very nice surprise. Apples, pears and tomatoes are some of the things that most improve, in my estimation, when I don’t get them at a store.

I haven’t had much luck with iris over the years, but this year seems to have been a good year all over for them. I can’t claim to have done anything to improve these, other than to leave them alone. Next spring I think it will be time to separate them into several clumps. These could go around the base of the pears or apples, or around the drip line, to help keep the grass down.

Finally, we bought a trellis arbor to anchor the back of the garden and provide a gateway to the more open side-back yard. The swale on either side is now planted to forsythia and perennial sunflowers, which I come to find out are nearly invasive in that they re-seed like crazy. I was back behind the Pittsford Village maintenance buildings last Friday and they’re all over back there. Ultimately I want to grow the hardy kiwi on this trellis, and maybe hibiscus. That’s variegated dogwood in the foreground.

Here are some more details on swales. As I was working on them, I was struck by the sophistication of even the simplest of permaculture techniques.

Here’s a better diagram of how they work and how mine are constructed:

I had previously marked the paths out using a very simple contour-locating device I built ($5) from 2 x 2, a hinge, a cross piece of scrap wood, some fishing line and a weight. This forms a big “A” shape. Calibrate it by setting it up on a level surface and marking where the fishing wire and weight hangs crossing the cross piece. To use it, pick a starting point and then swing it around til the other leg hits the grass and the weight lines up, showing the legs to be level. Mark the new point with a stone and move on to the next point.
To actually dig the swales, first, I rented a rototiller ($39 for a half day) and loosened up the soil on the swale paths. Then I simply went along and dug with a shovel, flippiing the sod over onto the downslope side. After digging, I went along each swale and forked down and loosened a bit, just to put some depth for water to soak in.

Next I filled the swales with whatever drainage and organic matter I had handy. In this case, I had a bunch of gravel scraped onto my lawn from the next door neighbors winter plowing, so I put that in the base. Then I put in dead leaves which I had in profusion as I don’t rake them in the fall. Finally I put some ground bark mulch. This all went inside the swale.

I then scattered clover seed on both the ridge and the upslope side of the swale. The upslope side, being level, makes a nice path. Since the main path on the site runs downslope, across the swales, the swale paths are secondary cross paths. From these I run some keyhole garden paths upslope into the main garden beds defined by the swales and main path.

Finally, both the ridge and upslope side get a layer of straw mulch to keep them moist and deter weed and grass growth, while allowing the clover to sprout.

The fact that all of this works as an integrated whole where each part plays multiple roles was kind of impressive in a quiet sort of way. The clover helps seed the ridge, and will grow a good root system to keep it locked in place. It also adds nitrogen to the soil. The gravel and leaves were readily available and relatively easy to move. I would have had to scrape up the gravel anyway, so no big deal just putting it in the base of the swale. I mentioned that I use the upslope side for paths. I also noticed that laying the swales in broke up the garden space in a very interesting and useful way. The slope is now visible in the landscape, and it’s really obvious where the moisture is and isn’t in the ground, and where it flows. Little pockets and odd accute angles suggest places for anchor plants and shrubs. The garden starts to design itself.

Greenerminds is now officially a community project, thanks to Outback Brad who joined and posted for the first time this weekend. I’m looking forward to the details of his project, and what he’s going to share here.

For my part, I promised pictures, so here they are. These are a few weeks old- I dug the swales in mid-April, and did the sheet mulching the next weekend.

Here’s an overview shot of the main garden area, delimited by the swale in the foreground and the straw bales along the back. This area is about 40′ by 60′.

Now here’s a detail of one of the swales. I’ve overlaid a rough section drawing showing the water flow downslope and soaking into the lower side of the swale.

Here’s an overview shot of starting to do the sheet mulching. With the materials all collected this process goes very quickly.

I did an area about 20′ x 30′ (25% of the garden) in an afternoon. For the whole garden area I now figure I’d need 5 cubic yards of manure, 1 cubic yard of compost, and 36 straw bales. The sheet mulch will break down over a winter into excellent garden soil, thanks to worms and microorganisms that do all the hard work. However, you can plant directly into them by creating little pockets of topsoil in the straw. I’ll show this in a later post.

Here’s the detail on how the layers go.

Historically, I haven’t been very good at aesthetic design of gardens, and I have to say that putting in the swales and the pathways really helped to frame the areas. I have a main path running through the middle of the garden that will eventually include a patio area, then smaller paths extending off this along the upper sides of the swales. Keyhole garden paths then extend of these secondary branches.

This design framing was an added benefit I hadn’t anticipated. It also helps with plant placement, especially for larger anchor shrubs and trees by limiting the number of appropriate sites.

Here’s a quick status update on what’s going on in the garden. Well, maybe not so quick. There’s a lot going on this time of year! I’ll get some pictures up later this week. Mind you, I’m doing this all in my spare time while working full time, taking the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) one weekend a month, raising a family and so on. It can be done.

I got the swales dug, the paths laid out in straw, and about 30-40% of the garden plot (about 40′ x 60′) sheet mulched over the last month. I planted the paths and swales in white clover, but haven’t seen any evidence that the seed is sprouting.

I redeemed my “Christmas Cash” at the local nursery for a quince, a clethra and a variegated dogwood. The dogwood goes between the apple trees as a calcium recycler and “sweetener” to the fruit. Then I popped over to another fabulous nursery specializing in Japanese garden stock and materials for some clumping bamboo (fargesia rufa).

I also picked up a flowering dogwood down in Deposit this past weekend, but it was with a group that was devastated by the fungus now affecting many dogwoods in the northeast. So I’m a little nervous having it in the garden, but I’m going to try and keep it at least spatially isolated from the other dogwoods. I’ll also plant it with some lupines and poppies, which I believe have anti-fungal properties.

When down there I also obtained some free blueberries from one of my co-students in the PDC. My 9-year old and I planted these Tuesday night. I’ve been very into scrounging plant material, which is outrageously easy. I want a forsythia hedge (a “fedge”) along the back of the garden to keep the deer out, or at least discourage them. On my drive into work I saw that someone had cut back their forsythia, so I stopped and gathered up the free plant material. Later that night I cut the branches in small sections and stuck them directly into the ridge of the lowest swale. Hopefully this will be enough to get them to root.

Saturday night at the PDC we foraged for garlic mustard, dandelions and chives for a salad. We also boiled up some Japanese Knotweed (invasive relative of rhubarb and asparagus) to put in the desert. I wanted to go after the garlic mustard growing on my own lot this week, but sadly the guy who mows what’s left of the lawn cut them down. At least it looks better.

Another night I went exploring the old railroad tracks south of town and found a bunch of old apples, cherries and plums back there. Having brought along my clippers, I made a few cuttings, stuffed them in my pockets and headed home. I cut them at a bud or branch, on a diagonal, dipped them in rotenone to stimulate rooting, and put them in pots with about half garden soil and half potting soil.

Perennials and re-seeding annuals are coming up and out all over the garden: baptisia, yarrow, comfrey, lupine, bleeding heart, hosta, peony, hydrangea, rue, jacob’s ladder, bee balm, lungwort and pyrethrum. A number of these I dug up and made root separations, a great way to propagate many perennials.

This morning I started another biggish group of seeds for summer planting- tomato, tomatillo, fennel, stevia, purple bell pepper, ancho poblano, cayenne, jalapeno, perennial and annual sunflowers. I’ve been transplanting lettuces, tai sai, brassicas, cilantro, parsley, spinach and sorrel into the raised beds.

Theoretically, you can put pockets of soil directly on top of a sheet mulched bed and plant into these. I haven’t tried this yet, so this is my next test, as I am running out of established bed space.

Structurally, I moved the compost bin much closer to the back door, and started a compost bucket under the sink. I got some Aspen wood shavings from a pet store and I’m dropping a sprinkling of these into the bucket. The carbon is supposed to balance out the nitrogen and kill the ammonia smell that sometimes comes from kitchen scraps left too long. So far, no smell and no fruit flies.

Tuesday night I knocked the concrete off the iron pipes I dug up last summer. These were set as clothes line poles, sometime in the golden age of heavy industry. They were set about 3 feet deep with about 150 lbs. of concrete on each. These were not fun to dig out! Anyway, they’ve been lying there next to the garage with these big chunks of concrete on the end, until this week. The pipe is probably useful for something so I’m not getting rid of that yet. The concrete I’ll use as the base for a small berm which I’ll plant with shrubs like witch hazel and honeysuckle as a screen near the sidewalk and spruce tree.

I discovered a couple of cool videos on the Guardian UK about Guerilla Gardeners (here, and here). Then I found another on YouTube that really introduces the concept with some humor. I think this guy deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.

I’ve been seeing a number of comments on other blogs from readers who are concerned about Peak Oil, climate change and hunger and want to start a garden, but don’t know where to begin. As someone who once knew nothing about gardening, but now have some experience, I wanted to share some tips. It is said of game development that a good game is easy to learn and difficult to master. Gardening is the same. What you want is to start with something fast and easy- instant gratification, or as close as we can come in the gardening world. Quick wins build confidence and enthusiasm.

Start with Herbs
Thyme, oregano, chives and sage are fairly easy perennials (meaning they survive the winter underground and produce new growth in the spring from the existing plant). They need sun and that’s about it. They don’t need much water or particularly good soil. Go down to the local nursery and buy some starts, transplant them into your garden close to the kitchen or back door, or containers on a sunny porch or patio, or a pot in the kitchen. Now you have a good supply of basic cooking herbs.

While nothing is fool proof these herbs are as close as I’ve ever come to fast, simple and enjoyable. Once you have this base of herbs you can expand into annuals (that need to be grown from seed each season) like parsley and cilantro. Both of these do pretty well at reseeding themselves, so again, go down to the nursery and get starts and let a few plants go to seed and you should have a perpetual supply.

Starting from Seed
Nothing is quite as exciting for me as seeing a new sprout from a seed I planted last week. In general, the bigger the seed, the easier it is to sprout. The best things for first timers to start from seed are sunflowers, beans and peas. These are all fast sprouters and growers.

I use egg cartons and special seed starting mix, but you can also use potting soil in styrofoam cups, milk cartons with the top cut off, yoghurt cartons or other recycleable containers. In any case you need to poke or cut a hole in the bottom, so water can drain out. This means you’ll also need a plastic tray or bin. The nice thing about styrofoam egg containers is that you can separate the top lid, turn it over and you have a perfectly fitted tray to catch the water.

Sprouting requires warmth and water, so make sure your starting pots are full of moist starter mix. The bane of seed starters is something called “damping off” where suddenly, after two weeks, the leaves fall off and you’re left with a pathetic, dying stalk of a seedling. This is caused by fungi or microorganisms in garden soil, which is why it is best to start in a clean container with sterile potting mix. That said, I’ve rarely had this problem with beans, peas and sunflowers. And for some reason, damping off almost never happens when you plant directly into the garden bed, which you can also do with the seeds I’ve recommended here.

Tomatoes
There is no greater, more immediate sensation than the taste of the first home-grown tomato, compared to the mealy, hard, tasteless red things you get in the supermarket. Many, many home gardeners start with tomatoes- they’re the obvious choice, and not difficult to grow. They do have a few quirks though, and maybe the hardest thing is figuring out which variety to grow. I suspect most newbies go for beefsteaks or early girl varieties, which are not so tasty, or picky hybrid cherry tomatoes. My personal, starting-out favorite is the humble roma.

Tomatoes need sun and warmth. Don’t plant til well after the last frost. Here in Western New York (Zone 6) don’t plant tomatoes before Memorial Day. I put mine in last July and had a fine crop in September. Tomatoes need to be staked up or they fall over and rot. I typically use metal wire basket-like contraptions that you simply push into the ground around the tomato when it is small. Any respectable nursery or big hardware store will have these, but you can often get them cheap at garage sales. Finally, when the fruit start to appear and get ripe, cut back as much of the non-flowering leaf stalks as possible. This feels weird to a new gardener, but it channels the plant’s energy into the fruit rather than new growth, and lets in more sun in for ripening.

Humility

The lesson I keep receiving from my gardening practice is that I know only a little. One Permaculture precept is that human knowledge is only ever a small portion of the total information stored and flowing in a natural system. It has been very helpful to me to approach the garden as a child or a scientist, asking “I wonder what’s going on with that?” when I see something I don’t expect. I was surprised one day last year when I lifted a stone from the stone pile and a fat toad jumped up at me. Turns out toads like the warm stone caves to hide out in at night, and it also turns out that toads are great for the garden. So I put some little stone piles in various parts of the garden. Humility means litterally “a state of being close to the earth (humus)” and even after many years of this I don’t pretend to know everything.

Find out what works and stick with it. What doesn’t work, try something different.

One of the threads here at Greenerminds is to record the transformation of my garden this year. Many gardeners keep a garden journal, and this is mine. I want to be able to come back next year and see where I was in development at various points in time.

With that said, I want to indicate what I believe the final frost date for 2008 here in the Rochester, NY area was Wednesday, April 16. Actually I’m a bit south, but not yet in the higher elevations that start about 10 miles south. Officially we’re all in Zone 6 but there are many microclimates and miniclimates. I got some frost on parts of my site yesterday, and it was very light, with a low temperature overnight of around 32° F.

Which meant also that I was able to put out the first seedlings last night, which I’ve been hardening off (taking out during the day, back in at night) for the last two weeks. I put these seedlings in two raised beds I built last summer using a sheet mulch, and the dirt is nice! There were tons of earthworms and other soil activity. Anyway, I put out parsley, cilantro, mesclun, arrugula, tai sai, broccoli raab, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, snap and sugar peas.

I also rented a rototiller for half a day Saturday. I’m only rototilling the swale / paths and where the pond will go, just to make it easier to dig. I’ll do another post in a few days on how the swales and paths go together. I need to get some red or white clover for the paths, and may need to scrounge some mulch for the swales. Fortunately, tons of free organic material is available on the local sides-of-the-road as people do their spring yard “cleaning.”