yields are theoretically unlimited

Just been reading Bill mollison's ideas about yields being theoretically unlimited. That awesome idea suggests that we can for example grow food and however complex and productive the system, it can be developed to be more productive. In his permaculture bible he describes examples of these unlimited yield systems in all areas of life. Stunning... We will be discussing this at session 2 tomorrow.

Next session this Saturday and strawberries are planted!

Well I got the strawberries planted in the planter, very exciting! A few plants have been dotted around the garden. The rest have been planted up to sell on the Permaculture stall I am doing at the Steiner school's Easter Bazaar. So big thanks to Alice for the plants.

i actually got my 2010 copy of the biodynamic calender last week. I have a terrible habit of getting them in March when I start getting desperate to know whether or not it is a leaf or pruning day. I thought I might make session 3 a wacky one exploring dowsing, earth geometry and biodynamics. I will see what the team want!

I have drawn up the survey so now have a base plan to doodle all over and hopefully make all the design mistakes on paper!

I am getting ready for the next session on Saturday and have to say i am incredibly excited and a bit nervous. I love sharing Permaculture I think it is such an awesome idea. Designing for someone else seems easier. So i will introduce some design skills on Saturday with which we will hopefully uncover some of the design for this garden.

Strawberry plants are coming!

Alice on Stone Street has been invaded by hundreds of strawberry plants and is glad to release a few dozen! I will go and dig them up in the next couple of days.

I never realised how much I wanted one of these strawberry planters. You know the large pot with about 20 holes for plants to be popped in. Strawberry plants are so versatile. Of course you get the lovely fruit. They are a great ground cover. They are beautiful plants, and every year they make more and more plants. If I get really hungry I can eat the leaves too, bit tough. that would be one for the stock pot!

I never made it to the beach yesterday. I did make it to Thanet by total mistake so ran up a few unnecessary carbon miles and was late for my meeting. I did however find time to look at the list of vegetable and apart from cabbages, I want everything!

So a vegetable order will be winging its way on Thursday! I may restrain myself!

Getting weirdly excited about what veg to grow.

Phew... Just getting excited about deciding what I will grow in the way of annuals this year as it is time to start seedlings off. Definitely rip them off the plants peas! Tonnes of salad. Just that sounds great. The usuals too: courgettes, runner beans, chard, spinach, tomatoes. Is it weird to get so happy just thinking about yummy things I can go and scavenge from my own garden? I am off to a meeting at St Margarets so may sit by the beach for 10 minutes with my veg book.

The garden seems much clearer today. Not as messy as it seemed yesterday.

Session 1. What a great start!

Icy cold wind coming from the East. Brrhhh. There were 10 of us plus 5 children. Tea and food seemed to feature highly as a handful arrived early for lunch and most stayed for soup afterwards with cups of hot beverages in between.

The focus was very much on getting to know the garden. We explored the fundamental Permaculture skill of observation. We did a treasure hunt to find about 20 things round the garden. I think I made it too easy as everyone did it really quickly. We did some nature awareness games which included only a few eyes closed exercises. We walked the boundaries of the property, I found myself in places I had not been before. This was fascinating to me as I see lots of things that need doing and tidying I had stopped noticing. I have lived here a year now which has given me time to understand how the sunlight and winds really influence this place, As my place is sandwiched between conventionally worked fields, pesticide sprays are an issue especially as I (and my neighbour) do not use chemicals in the garden.

I really enjoyed the day and always love the way a group of people start bonding when working on a task together. I appreciated having my daughter around. The children were part of it all, free to come and go. They mainly played hard on their own games. My team worked hard. We got started on re glazing the greenhouse, created a log store, pruned a shrub, put a door knocker on my door, cleaned windows in the summer house, listed resources around the place and a measured survey was done to create a base plan. ..all in 1.5 hours! Plus the working into the dark of the two Andys to complete the log store! The summer house makes a great workshop space. this is the first time it has been clear enough to use in this way. It works really well. It can only get better now.

I was very excited. Now I am panicking a bit on the huge job ahead! It is important to have fun doing this so I will acknowledge the panic and the need to relax and enjoy the process. This is of course a design issue! I will first apply a KISS! Keep it Simple Sister. My garden is already pretty fab and everything that happens now on is making it better. My years of foraging means I can find food in the garden already and I have made an excellent start.

Next time we will start exploring Permaculture design techniques and start watching as a design unfolds. I already sketched out a design, shortly after moving here. Now I am spending time applying Permaculture design techniques and principles it will be interesting to see what evolves.

First session was great!

What a great time! It was bitterly cold as we practised observation skills. I will write more tomorrow with some photos.