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Thread: Permaculture Greening the Desert

  1. #16
    Retired Member United States
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    Bumping the thread because I am musing that if a Corporation Character (documentary describing the character of Corps as psychopathic is here https://youtu.be/KMNZXV7jOG0) is a problem, IMO the character of the Permaculture movement is CURATIVE.

    If we use the analogy of narcissism, the corporation depends on constant feeding by us as consumers of their products. In a metaphor, WE are the narcissistic supply. But we could stop if we have a motivation. We are in a low point...It's a swale IMO

    We may have reached it via the low, long, narrow depression dug in a ditch (hehe permaculture inference)
    Maybe we find the tipping point by appreciating the swale ‎(plural swales)

    A low tract of moist or marshy land.
    A long narrow and shallow trough between ridges on a beach, running parallel to the coastline.
    A shallow troughlike depression that's created to carry water during rainstorms or snow melts; a drainage ditch.
    A shallow, usually grassy depression sloping downward from a plains upland meadow or level vegetated ridgetop.  [quotations ▼]
    A shallow trough dug into the land on contour (horizontally with no slope). Its purpose being to allow water time to percolate into the soil.


    What is the tipping point for the Perma-cure?


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1la9ik-MscM


    The FACT that planting a forest will live on its own once planted and will change its surrounding biosphere is Power.

    Ancient Morocco


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKIgqa49rMc


    300 years in Vietnam


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZO0Nco2t5g


    Here is an example from the near present

    AMERICA’S FORGOTTEN FOOD FOREST SUBURB REDISCOVERED!

    Years ago, Permaculture founder, Bill Mollison made a TV series called Global Gardener. In a 10-minute segment of that series he visited a particular 60-acre intentional community called Village Homes, located at Davis, California.

    Mollison visited this estate many times. The reason he kept returning there was the way it was constructed. Passive Solar designed homes, water harvesting swales and a forest of fruit trees that were planted in the late 1970s by architect Michael Corbett. It was meant to be a stunning example of a new version of the utopian dream. If America was heading for an energy crisis in the 70s then this was the place to shield the inhabitants from famine. Village Homes impressed Mollison greatly because it anticipated many of the design ideas Mollison was working on. You can still see the original video clip, shot in 1991, via the YouTube video below, where Mollison explains the intricate features of the estate.

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSsCvpDbMW8


    It was into this scenario that Geoff Lawton ventured whilst delivering a talk at Sacramento in the summer of 2013. Lawton had watched the Mollison video clip a number of times and was keen to visit this place and see if it had fallen into disrepair and neglect and if any of the trees were still alive. After all, it was 38 years since it was constructed and over 20 years since Bill Mollison had featured it in his TV series. Village Homes had fallen off the Permaculture radar. The fruit trees could possibly still be alive even if the estate had been redeveloped and changed to fit in with a different age.

    Geoff figured it was still worth a visit to see.

    What we saw when we arrived, made our jaws drop.

    Geoff walked over to a spreading Jujube tree. Red shriveled fruit was laying on the ground. Geoff knew immediately what he was looking at and picked it up, examined the fruit and popped it into his mouth saying, “That’s a good one!” It was a statement of homage to Bill Mollison who uttered the same thing, with this same fruit in his mouth, in the old TV series. It could very well have been the very same tree. Who knows.

    We left the video camera in the car and for two hours just walked through the estate marveling at the sight in a state of shock and bewilderment. The trees were covered in heavy fruit. Plums, figs, apples, grapes, pomegranates. Nothing had changed. The system had grown to maturity. It was self-cycling its nutrients. We were walking in an abundant paradise — an exciting display of a mature Permaculture Food Forest. This was the endgame. The Eldorado. The climax of why you are interested in permaculture. The placed looked in show-room condition. The architecture, the orchards, the green space, the forest of food trees were breathtaking. It was beautiful. The closest thing to a dry lands Garden of Eden you could imagine. Geoff Lawton talks about abundance and here it was. It was no mythical place, no lofty over-reached dream. It was made manifest thanks to the vision of Michael Corbett who thought that the world would be in peril by now.

    I said to Geoff, “Have you ever seen anything like this?” He shook his head. "No".

    “This is everything I teach.” he said, “It’s all here. It’s living proof that it works.”

    “Why hasn’t anyone documented this in detail?” I asked.

    Geoff had no idea. Perhaps people have forgotten about it, or they don’t realise what they are looking at.

    What you kept noticing was the amount of fruit laying uneaten on the ground. Someone’s timber deck was covered in a carpet of fallen figs. In another part of the estate a carpet of plums lay dotted in the green grass. It was all freshly mowed and tidy looking. Very neat backyards. Actually, there were no backyards. No fences. You could walk through a network of paths that passed by private lawn and chickens in clean coops. People even had tiny plots of vegetable gardens adjacent to the homes. Bees were buzzing from their hives. A neat chicken coop with six hens looked very tidy and clean. Nothing unsightly could be seen.

    All this is featured in a 15-minute video called “How to Make a Food Forest Suburb” that you can view with an exclusive interview with Michael Corbett, the reclusive architect sharing his vision with Geoff Lawton. It’s worth seeing these two chat under a fruit tree about why the world hasn’t caught up with Corbett’s vision.

    Corbett says he only managed to get part of his vision approved by the local government authorities. He wanted to make the whole estate be self-sufficient filtering its waste water, grey and black water to be used through a series of reed-bed tanks to feed his food forest system, the same way nature does, but it was too much for the local government officials in the 1970s to handle. Things haven’t changed that much it seems.

    Corbett says the estate is probably about 70% self-sufficient. You could ramp it up with rabbits and chickens but the only downside is – no carbohydrates. No corn or wheat field to grow cereal crops. Corbett did try to achieve his goal. He wanted to buy land to grow cereal crops but the idea never went anywhere with the committee running the place. It’s a pity. As Geoff Lawton says in the video, Village Homes is an icon. It should be world heritage listed. One of the best things ever done in America and should be celebrated and visited by anyone who has ever taken a Permaculture Course. Book your tickets and visit it. It needs to be seen and praised widely.
    And 80 years ago DISCOVERING AN OASIS IN THE AMERICAN DESERT:





    Now in NZ

    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jh1481J6qw
    Last edited by Maggie, 26th July 2016 at 16:57.

  2. The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Maggie For This Useful Post:

    Aianawa (26th July 2016), bsbray (26th July 2016), Cearna (27th July 2016), Dreamtimer (26th July 2016), Elen (26th July 2016), Greenbarry (28th July 2016), modwiz (26th July 2016)

  3. #17
    Retired Member Norway
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    Well done Maggie, I love that! Shows you what it is all about. Thanks...

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  5. #18
    Senior Member Aianawa's Avatar
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    Have watched a few vids above and been inspired and learnt lots, enjoying getting interested in something that will produce results down the road for myself, I feel.

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  7. #19
    Retired Member Norway
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    Masanobu Fukuoka Makes Seed Balls

    www.seedballs.us shows Natural Farmer Masanobu Fukuoka as he conducts a workshop for making seed balls at his natural farm and forest in Japan. for more information and options see www.seedballs.us

    I can imagine that seedballs are to deter birds from eating the seeds before they make it to soil, so it's a great idea if you can't watch them all the time.


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