I can’t imagine not having a garden. From time to time, my life gets so busy that my garden gets neglected, or lack of water makes me scale right back. But I always go back to it. Life is such a miracle, such a lucky nexus of so many necessary conditions, and food is so much at the centre of it.
Food is the basis for our own life – the pleasure of it and the keeping of it. It is also the basis of our relationship with every other species on the planet, either directly in a forage or predator relationship, or indirectly as competitors for the finite planetary resources.
Honouring, respecting, enjoying, being responsible about food seems to me to be basic to loving life. Every witch’s kitchen needs a kitchen garden!
It does not, however, have to be a full permaculture system (fun though that is.) Herbs in pots make a huge difference to culinary style. Growing sprouts and salad greens in boxes and little doorstep beds is small effort for large reward. In season vegetables, once you are into the rhythm of it, don’t take a huge amount of time or space. Backyard fruit trees, well chosen, can earn their keep with side benefits before you even get to the gluttonous yields. Chooks make wonderful pets.
I have written about permaculture, on and off, for years. Here are some articles about the basics, and (more fun for me) my new blog diary of garden adventures.
Mum would remember the place I had in Brisbane while at uni, a tiny little unit with a 1m wide balcony overlooking a concrete courtyard/driveway. I had a row of little pots the whole length of the balcony with chillies, spring onions, lettuce’s, rosemary, thyme, several varieties of basil, oregano, Vietnamese mint, tomatoes, and whatever else would grow really. I don’t think my upbringing would have let me survive on the classic uni students pasta with bottled sauce diet every day but with the tiny little patch of pots with herbs was so easy to maintain and made it so easy to make something palatable on the tightest budget.
Hi Linda,
We’re really pleased to have just found your blog, as your book ‘The Permaculture Home Garden’ was so helpful for us in designing our permaculture garden in Wollongong. We’ve read just about every permaculture and food gardening book around, and yours stands out as one of the real winners! We look forward to exploring your site!
Happy gardening!
Ally and rich
http://www.happyearth.com.au
Linda! I wrote about your book just two days ago on my blog, and a friend directed me here. So excited to find you online – we’re halfway through your Permaculture Garden plan. The chickens have just started laying, there are 70 odd milk cartons with seedlings in them, and the backyard lawn has been converted into six round beds. Thank you so much, your book has been lifechanging!
Cheers, Celia
Thank you Celia! I’m glad it is useful for you. But if you read around the blog, you’ll see I don’t even follow my plan. It worked really well for me for about 15 years, then the wildlife recovered enough so I’ve had to change again. But then, change is constant, and it’s still evolving. I think the creative part of gardening – the inventing and designing and making imagination come true – is part of why I love it.
Linda, I did notice that and I’m not surprised – when you’re dealing with the environment, you have to be prepared to adapt. We aren’t following your plan exactly either, we’re adapting to suit our small suburban backyard, but it has given us a great blueprint to follow, so thank you again. What we’ve really appreciated is how well thought out it all was – I can’t tell you the number of times my husband will say… “Well…Linda says…” 🙂
Cheers, Celia