Practicing Permaculture

What does 5 acres of land, 8 mouths to feed, and a dedication to conscious living sound like to you? Potential. Heather Wyatt and her 7 housemates are bringing living things together to work and live at their highest potential while benefiting from their interaction. It all started with the desire to eat local, organic food. You can get a lot of local, organic food, but not everything, all the time. Also, buying organic can become expensive and on a budget it’s hard to grab the $1.99 pepper that’s sitting next to the $0.99 pepper.

Permaculture is defined as an ecological design system for sustainability in all aspects of human endeavor by the Permaculture Institute. That’s what Heather and her housemates have tried to instill on their land. Through seminars and week-long classes, permaculture has started to rule the decision
making at their house.

After recognizing that four 36’ raised beds and 20 earth boxes of tomatoes wasn’t supplying enough food in the short growing season they started researching other options and ended with a decision of an aquaponic system or a grow dome. After researching the benefits and challenges of both, they decided to go with a 36’ diameter grow dome. Installed May 2010, with considerable initial effort and consistent upkeep, most all the vegetables are being produced 20 yards from our front door. They have fresh vegetables year round, including peppers, carrots, Italian fennel, lettuce, collards, Swiss chard, kale, broccoli, beets, cabbage, peas, parsley, basil, and more. They also have a fig tree that is growing quite well.

Local, organic vegetables year round – Check. Next was adding some variety into their protein diet. Week after week of organic chicken, local beef, and pork in a balanced schedule was getting boring. Not that they were complaining at all, they were just ready for some variety.

One of the housemates had raised rabbits before and suggested a rabbitry. After looking into it, and finding out 2011 is the year of the rabbit, it was a no brainer. They bought 3 female and 3 male Californian rabbits. Breeding started immediately, and they currently have 26 rabbits, after harvesting 13. The coolest part of the rabbits is the whole cycle that takes place. The rabbit poop supplies garden beds with fertilizer, the gardens provide fresh greens for the rabbits, the rabbits provide food for them. Seeing how the land, animal, and human can all fit together so nicely is amazing.

While all of this was happening, they noticed their unused land wasn’t thriving like it could. The soil was dry and dusty and didn’t hold water very well. In permaculture classes, they learned how to help our soil; digging swales and creating berms. To do this, they had to take an inventory of the land, notice the lay of the land, and watch where the water moved. Once they got a better feel water movement, the digging began.

They dug down 12-18”, about 12” across and put that dirt on the opposite side from where the water runs, so when it rains, the water is held, stopping erosion, and creating moist, fertile soil. They also dug some wider swales in our front yard, from 1’-5’ depending on the land. They layered in cardboard (to keep the weeds out, but it will also compost itself with help from the worms), manure, compost and raw food scraps, with a top layer of hay. These beds were left over winter and are just now being planted in and the soil is beautiful and dark. These beds are being used as kitchen gardens.

In the midst of these things, they joined the local Durango bee club and bought 20,000 bees, which are now in two hives on their porch, along with earth boxed tomatoes. Last year they had to manually pollinate some of our plants because they never saw any bees.

Don’t forget the 14 chickens, 2 roosters and 12 laying hens, which are currently about 11 weeks old. They also have two red-waddle pigs coming in July and plan to breed these pigs not only for eating, but for possible sale to local restaurants. Lastly, a guard dog with a mix of Anatolian Shepherd, Akbash and Great Pyrenees to protect their animals will join them this summer.

Why do all of this? Because they’re excited about the brilliance in how everything works together. The bees will help gardens grow, the chickens eat leftovers, keep weeds and bugs away and provide fresh, beautiful eggs; the rabbits are feeding them and eating garden scraps; the pigs will eat the majority of leftovers while feeding them; and the gardens will benefit from the poop of all the animals and continuously provide more food. Fresh, organic, local foods that they grow will keep producing as long as they want it to- what could be better?

About the Author:

Heather recently received her Bachelor's Degree from Fort Lewis College in Psychology. She thoroughly enjoys people and is excited to see all the different ways the Weatherization Program will help others.  She has experience in managing small businesses and working with people from different backgrounds.  She enjoys watching movies and working in the yard on weekends.