Organic Landscape Design

 

Start the Collaboration

 

I often hear people wishing to relocate so they can live in a sustainable way. I don't know why the relocation is necessary. Sustainability is about changing the way we produce what we need . . . figuring out new ways to do that . . . in all locations.

 

I want to introduce you to a group of pioneers in that field. They call themselves the Urban Farming Guys. They are a group of 20 families that invested in the most blighted neighborhood in Kansas City. They are working at building the systems that will sustain them there. I have introduced them to the concept of Community Sufficiency Technologies and they are interested in a collaboration.

 

The gardening teams are a step toward developing the kinds of technologies we will need to live indefinitely on this planet. There can be any number of next steps, such as those being taken by the Urban Farming Guys. What I hope to do is start the collaboration between all the people taking steps . . . to inspire each other . . . to get new ideas . . . to get more people taking steps . . . to get the society moving toward sustainable systems of production . . .

 

The attached photos are my contribution. Anyone can have a garden like that using our No Weed, No Water, No Till, Deep Mulch, Drip Irrigated gardening system. Every neighborhood can have a gardening team practicing that method. Each step in that direction means a healthier environment and more control over the the way the things we need are produced.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you will join me in one of these discussions and be inspired to more steps.

 

Transition Colorado

Transition US

 

If we wait for someone else to fix the world we will be waiting forever.

 

genetic diversity or genetic engineering

 

If you want to make money in agriculture, then, you must discover something patentable and convince the rest of us that buying from you is better than just doing it the old way. The feed back loop is that, since that is were the money is, that is the option that gets advertised, and the rest of us come to believe that is the best alternative. The only problem is that it reduces genetic diversity in the system . . . making the system vulnerable to things like new plant diseases and pesticide resistance.

 

Our society as a whole is better off if we understand the value of genetic diversity. Sustainability will require it. The money in not buying into the chemical agricultural paradigm is the money you can save by letting nature perform those functions. But, more importantly, genetic diversity means that each element of the system has multiple ways to respond to any given change. Hopefully, some of those responses will be successful . . . or that element goes extinct . . . and that is what makes the system resilient.

 

One step that we can all take toward sustainability is to

 

STOP SPREADING POISONS

 

If you have any influence with people who still believe the marketing on pesticides, use it to explain that point. The creature eating your plants is not a pest. It is food for the creature who wants to protect your plants. You cannot have lady beetles unless you grow aphids for them to eat and, if you have lady beetles, the aphids will not be a problem for your plants. That is just the way it works. Poisons are never a good idea because they reduce the genetic diversity of a place.

 

seed saving

 

One of the most profitable marketing ploys ever made was the one promoting hybrid seeds. If you are buying your seeds every year anyway, then of course, you are going to buy the ones that give you the best chance at a bumper crop. It may be true that you can get marginally bigger crops as a result of “hybrid vigor”. The problem is that the advantage of the hybrid is limited to a fairly narrow set of soil and weather conditions.

 

If you save seed from year to year, you are cooperating with nature's plan to develop the best varieties for each combination of soil and weather conditions. After a few years of selecting the best performing plants from an open pollinated variety, you will have a variety specifically adapted to your precise conditions.

 

One of the things we like about the gardening teams is the opportunity to cooperate in saving seeds. First, it is time consuming to save seeds for all the plants you want to grow. With a team, each member can specialize in the type of seeds they want to save and then share all the seeds come planting time. The other problem with seed saving is cross pollination. If you grow multiple varieties of corn or squash in the same garden, for example, the varieties will cross and you cannot tell what the seed will produce next year. With a team, with gardens spread throughout the neighborhood, each garden can have a single variety while the team can still enjoy all the varieties.

 

 

 

back yard bee hives

 

My good friend, Don Studinski, keeps bees. He has three hives at my place right now, including one in one of our Top Bars that he filled with a swarm he got for free this last spring.

 

Bees are also subject to professional genetic selection. The people who send out packets of bees in the mail stay in business because they can assert that their bees have superior genetics. That assertion is true in the sense of the characteristic for which the bees were selected within a particular range of climate and habitat conditions.

 

Nature has a different approach. Nature will produce genetic variations and test them against the particular climate and habitat conditions of each place. The way we could assist nature in her process of finding the best genetics for this place, considering the mites and viruses and the poisons being used, is to help her make a lot of tests. To do that, we would make the effort to find a place for every swarm that can be found and do what we can to get that swarm to the point of the next swarm.

 

The first part only takes having a simple hive in every back yard and people to gather the swarms who know where there are empty hives.  Getting the hive to the point of the next swarm will depend on the genetics of the bees and the quality of habitat we provide. Fortunately, bees like the same habitat we do . . . lots of flowering plants.

 

With enough swarms each spring, bee keepers could renew their hives, with bees with genetics proven to survive here, for free. That would ensure plenty of pollinators and honey in the system. We may not be able to accomplish that in our life time. But, if we start it, every generation to follow will thank us.

 

 

trees with seeds

 

If you go to the nursery to buy a tree, they will offer you seedless varieties. Those trees are either sterile or all male. People demand trees that don't produce anything but shade and leaves because they don't want to have to clean up the seeds or fruit. What that means is that the tree is not producing anything for the seed and fruit eating creatures. The squirrels will have nothing to eat but your garden. It is a lost opportunity to attract participation in your garden by the creatures who would eat those seeds.

 

My good friend Susan Bloomquist is passionate about trees. Susan particularly likes those locust trees that produce great big seed pods in the fall. The seeds in those pods can be used by all sorts of creatures like squirrels, horses and humans. The locust is also a legume so it fixes nitrogen in the soil. Any tree that produces seed will support an increase in the number of species that can live in your garden. There are probably some trees that would work great volunteering back in the fence row right now. You know that those volunteer trees are adapted to your climate and you don't have to buy them. They want to grow in your garden. Each new participant the tree can attract has a unique contribution to make to the whole cycle of nutrients in your garden system. Each new contribution opens the door for even more participation. We call that an upward spiral.

 

All you have to do to get those nutrients into your system is to plant the tree, and maybe give it some supplemental water. A tree with seeds will contribute to the system year after year with nothing further from you . . . probably past your life time.

 

 

whole soil ecosystems

 

If we just leave nature alone, she will build nutrients into the system. The way that happens is through a whole soil ecosystem. She uses a complete set of organisms to cycle nutrients through the entire growth, decay and regrowth process. Those organisms evolved together in a habitat that included a regular addition of new organic matter on top, creating layers of increasing decomposition. When we till the soil we destroy that habitat.

 

Like all habitats, the habitat for soil organisms is created by the organisms themselves. When we do the job of the worms, by tilling, we change the relationship between the worms and the other organisms. When we do the work of other creatures by composting, we take away their livelihood. Those creatures who would break down the organic matter can no longer participate in creation of the soil habitat. By taking away their job we create a situation where we have to replenish the nutrients in the system every year . . . when those creatures would gladly do the work for free.

 

What happens when you till in finished compost is that all the nutrients are available for your plants immediately. However, your plants don't need all those nutrients immediately and the unused nutrients start to leach from the system. Your plants evolved in a whole soil ecosystem that continuously produces nutrients through the work of the soil organisms. That is one reason that we use the sheet mulching technique and why we get the results we get.

 

The other reasons we use a sheet mulch are about the gardener's relationship with the garden. When all volunteer plants are mulch not weeds, when we automate the delivery of water where needed, when we accept the gift of the organisms that dedicate their lives to tilling and fertilizing our soil, you become a partner in the creation of your own habitat. That is a source of healing for yourself, your soil, and the earth. That is why we use a No Weed, No Water, No Till, Deep Mulch, Drip Irrigated gardening system.

 

Why would you go to any extra work when you get better production without it?

 

 

places of many uses

 

This process that I have been talking about . . . life creating habitat through a diversity of interactions . . . applies at all scales. It applies in the soil and it applies to the set of interactions that you experience every day. We each have the power to enhance that process, but we generally do not see those opportunities.

 

In our market oriented culture, each transaction is evaluated independently based upon the monetary value involved. Money is a measure of relative scarcity*. That measure of value is not useful for measuring the value of things that are abundant. When we begin to see the value of other things that are impacted by a transaction, and begin to measure the value in whole cycles of transactions, we create better choices.

*[Some of what we create can flow out through the market . . . it has exchange value because it is relatively scarce to someone else. That is no limit on what we might create to improve our own habitat for its own value.]

 

My good friend Tim Watson, an architect, practices a discipline he calls eco-restorative design.

 

By looking at values other than the monetary cost of the structure, we can include the value of the beauty and services of a whole ecosystem. It can include the value of eliminating the cost of heating and cooling. It can include the value of reducing pollutants. It is an investment in the health and well being of the residents of that place, both the humans and rest of life there. Our health in the context of a healthy system is the ultimate value . . . and the value of health cannot be measured in money.

 

My good friend Rose Ann Bennett wrote with links to some DIY projects that interest her.

Window Solar Heaters, Flexible Solar Panels, Window Box Room Heaters, DIY Solar Air Conditioners 

 

When you do the work yourself, or as a group of neighbors, you eliminate the money cost of labor and the need for a profit. In that way you change the calculation of the monetary value as far as return on investment. But more than that, every dollar you save producing something, like energy, for your self, that you would otherwise purchase in the market, is a dollar you can invest in more capacity to provide for your self. You are building self-reliance and improving your ability to respond to fluctuations in the market. Self-reliance gives you peace of mind . . . and the value of peace of mind cannot be measured in money.

 

My good friend David Olivero and I have been talking about a greenhouse that can be attached to the south side of any structure, that does not require supplemental heating in the winter. That kind of greenhouse could serve multiple purposes, including a year round supply of fresh food . . . an investment in both health and peace of mind.

 

I use the term 'integrated systems of production' to describe the process of designing for whole cycles of value. 

 

It requires awareness of the value inherent in a complex set of relationships and thinking about the transactions that create that kind of value.

 

 

garden tours

 

My good friends Sidnie O'Connell, Dave Wann and I got together the other day to talk about Sidnie's idea of setting up garden tours. Dave is an author of such books as 'Afluenza' that explore the idea of what is really valuable. He recently sent me a link to his latest work on how those of us who live in the suburbs can actively create our habitat.

 

I particularly like Dave's idea about garden tours for gardeners based on sharing techniques. Following up on a comment by my good friend Larry Victor, each of us has a limited capacity to understand all of the relationships that are necessary for a whole thriving system in upward spiral. We still need people to dig into the details of the needs of each potential participant in our habitat and the potential uses of each contribution they might make.

 

I don't think that it has to be limited to gardens either. If you think of all the skills that are necessary to produce what a neighborhood would need to thrive . . . food, clothing, shelter, education and health care . . . even a renaissance man has less than all that is required. But I would bet that within the average neighborhood that there are skills to accomplish almost anything. If you have not looked at it in awhile, it may help to understand the way I see it to review Community Sufficiency Technologies.

 

We cannot change the world from the top down because it includes all of the bridges on which people rely for their survival and every person, including all of us, will do what is necessary to preserve those bridges on which they rely. When we work together to apply the best information available to understanding how our choices affect the people, plants and creatures around us, we stand at the edge of a whole new world of possibilities for creating value. We can begin to change the world from the bottom up by creating new bridges that create new value and in that way change the pattern of flows.

 

We are not talking about sacrifice for good of the earth. Every contribution we can make to a healthier habitat enriches us as individuals, enriches those who participate in that habitat with us, and enriches the whole system itself.

 

 

life rules

 

My newest good friend, Ellen LaConte, asked me to review her book, Life Rules. Ellen discusses 9 aspects of “Life's Economic Survival Protocol” that continuously puts life into upward spiral in spite of the geologic history of crises that life has faced. Her analysis is insightful and fascinating. For our purposes, I particularly like:

 

“Life's basic units of economic activity are locally self-reliant, interdependent, mixed species communities.” (For the other 8 rules you'll have to get the book :-).

 

Life is built up from individual interactions that produce the flows that constitute the system. Every living thing needs every thing it needs to survive within the range of its ability to interact with the system. It is that set of interactions, within each locality, that constitutes the habitat that we experience. Humans have expanded our 'ability to interact with the system' to include the entire planet. However, certain aspects of that expansion leave human systems vulnerable, such as the need for money to have that kind of range, the reliance on cheap fossil fuels to achieve that range, reliance on a market system that has no use for nearly half of the human population, and the loss of an understanding of the importance of local interactions (or the interactions in a hand full of soil).

 

Lest we forget, humans are also animals with a genetic make up. We are social animals who evolved in relatively small groups. We are capable of participating in large organizations but, beyond a certain size, organizational decision making becomes inefficient whether we use a top down hierarchy or a democratic process. Research on the genetic basis for the efficiency of small groups has been done by Dunbar, and others, resulting a concept called Dunbar's number.

 

That research indicates that there is a limit to the number of people for whom we can feel empathy. Within a group that does not exceed that number, there is no need for a lot of rules because we are genetically disposed to work together for the common good. That number appears to be somewhere between 100 and 230 . . . the size of a neighborhood. It is also within this local sphere where we can come to understand our relationship to the plants and creatures that participate in the creation of our habitat . . . who do not have planetary range. It is my thought that, if we focus on building new bridges within the context of that 'locality', we begin to change the world from the bottom up.

 

For the purposes of the rules humans need at the neighborhood level I have proposed these three simple rules:

 

1. Everyone gets to make their own decisions,

2. What ever we do is open to all residents, and

3. We measure progress by the diversity of the people, plants and creatures participating.

 

 

start the collaboration

 

There is a scientific field exploring the characteristics of what are called complex adaptive systems. The system in which we find ourselves . . . the earth and the living systems on it . . . including the systems humans have built . . . is the most complex adaptive system of which we know. I think we are agreed that human actions have created a downward spiral in the ecosystems on which we rely. I don't think we can depend on science to help us decide how to reverse the downward spiral. That is because science is based on a reductionist methodology in which no findings can be made without testable hypotheses. In this most complex of adaptive systems, there are too many variables to conduct a meaningful experiment. Each action produces reactions throughout the system and an experiment must account for all results.

 

Fortunately for us, it is an adaptive system. It functions by testing multiple responses to stimuli and selecting the response that best fits with the rest of the process. So far, it has evolved 'unconsciously'. The consciousness we humans possess has, so far, been used only to further the goals of individuals and groups . . . unconscious of the effect those choices had on the habitat. I am suggesting that each of us has the power to follow the example of the Urban Farming Guys and begin working at improving the habitat in the locality where we find ourselves. You will know if your actions are creating positive change when you attract the participation of the people, plants and creatures around you . . . each new interaction is a new flow of value.

 

The way we change the world is for each of us, as individuals, to choose a life of abundance. It is about understanding what we need to thrive and choosing how we will produce it. We do not have to convince anyone else of anything . . . if we demonstrate abundance others will want to know how we do it. None of us have the whole answer. The first step is to understand that it can be done . . . that it is a cooperation between the people, plants and creatures within a locality. With that understanding we can begin to consciously design the future. It is the great adventure of our time.

 

I have now brought this series of posts full circle. We build sustainability into our systems by changing the way we produce what we need. I have tried to share with you some of the framework I use to understand these complex issues . . . a framework that points in the direction of how we can begin to address the systemic deficiencies humans have created because we did not understand how the system functions.

 

I have posted this series of e-mails on the Organic Landscape Design website and hope that you will share it with people you know who are searching for answers. I also hope to hear from each of you as you experiment with these ideas.

 

Let's start the collaboration.