Backyard Food Forest

From lawn to backyard food forest...

Our Permaculture transition workshop has been a great success!  

 We met, we planned, we dug!...hauled, cleared, measured, leveled, and mulched!

About 25 people participated in major earthworks last Saturday, digging and installing a rainwater irrigation system, and transforming this lawn into fertile garden beds, in preparation for planting next spring.

Lots of laughs and inspiration, new friends, and great design concepts were shared.

Swales - in ground trenches designed for rainwater collection, were dug and leveled throughout the future garden, allowing collected water to seep slowly into the adjacent garden beds, watering the plants from the bottom up in a low-maintenance, low-tech, natural irrigation system.

Next we laid sheet mulch consisting of  layers of cardboard,  coffee grounds, fallen leaves, grass clippings, fish emulsion, horse manure and the top soil that had been dug out of the swales.  This "lasagna layering" of carbon and nitrogen components will slowly decompose over the fall and spring to build up our garden's soil, as well as smothering out the grass that once covered the ground.

But the work is not done yet! 

Join us this Sunday, October 10th for another permaculture work party in conjunction with the 350.org global climate change event!

We will be filling our swales with gravel turning them into pathways as well as a water catchment system, laying more sheet mulch, installing our rain barrels, seeding cover crop and planting our perennial food forest!  Saskatoon berries, currants, blueberries and strawberries...mmmm...!