Shalom from your sweet compost queen! My green thumb is growing greener by the day (my red corn and sunflower seeds have begun to sprout!) and I've become dear friends with all the local worms and cows. To be honest, I agreed to participate in all these kibbutz shenanigans before I knew what I was getting myself into. I got on my plane without a clue as to what the next month would hold. Well now I'm here and it turns out we're focusing on this rockin philosophy called permaculture. (What the heck is permaculture? You may ask). Permaculture is a method of gardening or farming based on the ethics and goals of sustainable agriculture. The whole idea is to get rid of commercial monocultures (where only one crop is grown across hundreds of acres of land, like corn or soy in the Midwest) and make small "forest gardens" that mimic Earth's natural ecosystems. Monocultures are bad because such ginormous pieces of land with only one crop can make soil vulnerable to a lot of diseases and pests, hence the need for pesticides and genetic modification. Permaculture gardens and farms, on the other hand, plant all sorts of seeds close to each other because the more biodiversity in an area, the more stable and fertile the soil, which of course means no hormones or pesticides are needed. And what's wild is that scientists have proven that these smaller permaculture style farms are producing more food than the huge monocultures. Where as small scale farms can grow a variety of fruits, vegetables, and even animals, the large scale farms only grow inedible corn that ends up as hydrogenated corn syrup or sitting in storage tanks because there's nothing to do with it. You would think with so much extra corn laying around the farmers would stop growing it, but the US government pays them insane subsidies to just keep growing! It all seems a little crazy, especially compared to permaculture which feels like common sense. Now I'm no farmer (yet) but anyone can become a permaculturist, no matter their gardening experience or lack there of, because it's all about interfering with nature as little as possible, aka being lazy. No need to continuously till the soil or prune this and that, you just let nature do the work!
One of our many permaculture projects this week was building a "sheet mulch" garden. Sheet mulch gardens are a really amazing tool because you can build a gardening bed when the soil in an area is bad (or has no soil at all) without having to buy loads of new soil! (And I'm sure that every household has at least a majority of the following ingredients). You start it off with a layer of cardboard about 3 pieces thick, this gives your new garden a good foundation to kill off weeds and absorb liquids so that no water is wasted seeping into the original bad soil. Once the cardboard was down we heeped on the food scraps and I earned the title of compost queen. It was some of the most disgusting stuff I have ever smelled but why in the world just throw it out when you can turn it into the most rich and fertile soil! After the food scraps came straw and alternating layers of green garden waste and straw up until the 10th layer. So now our sheet mulch garden is quite tall but while the layers begin to decompose we can sow all sorts of seeds. (To my Mom- get ready because I'm doing this in the dried out planter by the pool when I get home). I think this project is so damn brilliant because you can do it anywhere you could imagine! And it utilizes compost which is a huge part of permaculture. Composting is the collection and decomposition of food waste, paper waste, green garden waste, straw, really any organic products, to produce the most unbelievable fertilizer. Of course it doesn't happen overnight but why send it all to the landfill when you can use it! The kibbutz dining hall separates compostable items from trash and in our eco neighborhood of mud domes we have composting toilets which make "humanure." To be a good permaculturist you don't have to compost your own poop, but with the help of a few worms it's so easy to create healthy compost soil. You don't even have to turn it or monitor it, and you're using your waste in a productive way! (Mom- I'm also going to make a compost pile).
This last week was cloudy and full of rain (once a year kinda thing for the desert) so we didn't get to continue our mud bench construction but hopefully this week will be clear again. Cheers to a sunny week in the desert and a sunny week wherever you are!
One of our many permaculture projects this week was building a "sheet mulch" garden. Sheet mulch gardens are a really amazing tool because you can build a gardening bed when the soil in an area is bad (or has no soil at all) without having to buy loads of new soil! (And I'm sure that every household has at least a majority of the following ingredients). You start it off with a layer of cardboard about 3 pieces thick, this gives your new garden a good foundation to kill off weeds and absorb liquids so that no water is wasted seeping into the original bad soil. Once the cardboard was down we heeped on the food scraps and I earned the title of compost queen. It was some of the most disgusting stuff I have ever smelled but why in the world just throw it out when you can turn it into the most rich and fertile soil! After the food scraps came straw and alternating layers of green garden waste and straw up until the 10th layer. So now our sheet mulch garden is quite tall but while the layers begin to decompose we can sow all sorts of seeds. (To my Mom- get ready because I'm doing this in the dried out planter by the pool when I get home). I think this project is so damn brilliant because you can do it anywhere you could imagine! And it utilizes compost which is a huge part of permaculture. Composting is the collection and decomposition of food waste, paper waste, green garden waste, straw, really any organic products, to produce the most unbelievable fertilizer. Of course it doesn't happen overnight but why send it all to the landfill when you can use it! The kibbutz dining hall separates compostable items from trash and in our eco neighborhood of mud domes we have composting toilets which make "humanure." To be a good permaculturist you don't have to compost your own poop, but with the help of a few worms it's so easy to create healthy compost soil. You don't even have to turn it or monitor it, and you're using your waste in a productive way! (Mom- I'm also going to make a compost pile).
This last week was cloudy and full of rain (once a year kinda thing for the desert) so we didn't get to continue our mud bench construction but hopefully this week will be clear again. Cheers to a sunny week in the desert and a sunny week wherever you are!
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