Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Herein lies the rub...permaculture possibility?

Superman and I have been talking about our last piece of garden. This is an area of lawn with a border of trees. It is the part of the garden where Big White Dog romps widly as he chases cars that come around our corner (even if he can't see them, silly thing!)

We have tried very hard to get lawn to grow here, even buying two sets of roll on lawn over 2 years. Last year we sowed a special type of lawn seed which was doing OK until BWD flattened it and compacted the soil.

This is looking at the area towards the gate.



It is in full sun in Winter until about 3pm when the house shadows it. In summer it is half in shade from the towering Stinkwood in the front yard.

This is the area from the gate to where the previous photo was taken.



Superman wants to pull up the lawn and plant corn and potatoes. I had another plan in mind. I thought of building a raised bed around the wall where I could plant my fruit trees. I would then plant the asparagus in between the trees.

But my brain has been working over this area for quite sometime and I am wondering whether a circular "permaculture" garden wouldn't be better. I am thinking that the fence which you can see on the left of BWD could be completely closed off with a gate and we could make a chook dome and circular beds for our veggies.

This way I can have the raised bed along the wall and we can have more harmonious round pathways wandering through the garden.

The only other problem I have is my clinging to this silly colonial "must-have-lawn" thing in my head. My children are bigger now and don't really play in the garden and the dogs (and children) have ample place to run on the paths and with walks out.

So, here I am thinking aloud....if any of the readers on my little blog have experience with permaculture gardens, then please leave me your comments.

So far I have found these two resources to read through:

Small Farm Permaculture

Permaculture Principals

5 comments:

Paige said...

Go for it... ditch the lawn

Anonymous said...

Yes! I can picture your section filled with variety ...
a great opportunity just waiting ... :)

Carol Neelands said...

I find that even kids find paths a lot more interesting than grass, and circular gardens can be so beautiful. I had beans, tomatoes, potatoes and sweet potatoes in one with only a few well placed flowers, and everyone loved my beautiful, flower garden.

Chris said...

We love our chook dome, Wendy. The only thing is - you'll need to decide whether your girls will stay in their permanently or travel to the dome in the day, roosting back in their pen at night. They do a marvellous job improving the soil, and comparing our two gardens - traditional rectangular beds and the chook area, the chook area wins hands down in regards to harvests and size of veggies. I say go for it! You can only give it a go to see, it's a lot of fun gardening this way. Let us know what you decide!! :)

PS - If you are interested in reading more about this style of gardening, try and get a hold of "The Permaculture Home Garden" by Linda Woodrow, this book will tell you everything you need to know to get started.

Urban Homestead South Africa said...

Thank you for the encuoragement!

Christine, I saw that book yesterday! Should have bought it...will try and get it today!