Mandala and Keyhole Garden Beds for the Cold Climate Part 2 In the last newsletter we talked about how keyhole beds bring a new dynamic to garden beds: maximize growing space integrate functionally with the rest of your garden, sharing infrastructure, like windbreaks, fences, irrigation, mulch, and microclimate enable you to plant trees in the bed, which help the annual plants enable you to create a rotation with animals, which work the soil for you Now, let’s learn how to implement them....
9 days ago • 8 min read
Mandala and Keyhole Garden Beds for the Cold Climate Part 1 Does it really sound absurd to suggest that rectangular garden beds might not be the most efficient growing form? While they’re certainly not bad, there is a better option if you’re thinking about: Maximum efficiency in space utilization Combining beds to form a “super garden bed” that’s even more efficient by creating functional connections between beds and sharing resources and infrastructure Planting trees or other perennials...
16 days ago • 4 min read
The Essential Structure for Gardening Even in The Harshest Winters - Modular, and Adaptable Greenhouses Greenhouses are essential to gardening in temperate zones. That is one of our mantras for this climate. In the previous newsletter, we explained why that is and revealed that there are many sustainable, efficient, and self-sufficient greenhouse designs. We showed a design intended to attach to a farmhouse or a "bio-shelter" (as the creator of the design put it), as well as a 20 m²...
23 days ago • 5 min read
The Essential Structure for Gardening Even in The Harshest Winters - The Greenhouse for Inner-city and for the Countryside The single most important structure for gardening in cold climates is a well-insulated greenhouse. It offers the solution to the region’s biggest challenge: a lack of warmth and the threat of frost damage. You can use a greenhouse to extend the growing season in two ways: As a nursery: Start seedlings inside and transplant them outdoors as soon as they are mature enough....
30 days ago • 5 min read
Forested Home Garden in Cold Climate - Part 2 Execution, Timing, and Greenhouse Now that we understand the design of the forested home garden in cold climate (check the previous newsletter), we must address the unique constraints of the temperate climate. Between the tropics and the temperate zones, the same principles apply but in different ways. In this edition, in 4 minutes or less: #1 How to garden in cold climates #2 The single most important structure is a well insulated greenhouse How...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Forested Home Garden in Cold Climate - Part 1 The Design The cold climate forested home garden seems chaotic. But only at first sight, because there is an intelligent orchestration behind it. In cold climates the biggest challenge is frost, low temperatures, and the short growing season. You want to capture as much sunlight as possible when there is enough heat for plants to grow. For that reason, it is desirable to use not only the horizontal plane for growing plants, but also the vertical...
about 1 month ago • 5 min read
Humid Cool Climate Home Gardening -Efficient Permaculture Practices The current inefficient and destructive type of farming and gardening, which was exported as the ideal model to the rest of the world, came from humid cool climates. Cool climates were once “a mosaic of mixed forest, extensive hedgerows, small fields, permanent meadows or prairie, and relatively small vegetable plots,” reflecting a stable use of the land. Then, in the cool, humid regions of Europe and southwest Asia, the...
about 2 months ago • 6 min read
What is Permaculture? The Future of Human-Kind - Part 2 From that point on, Bill Mollison taught permaculture around the world, spreading good design principles and inspiring a global movement of people committed to restoring and protecting our home planet. In our last newsletter, we discussed how permaculture is an ethical design science that aims to create productive landscapes that provide everything people need while conserving and regenerating the environment. It has been tested...
about 2 months ago • 7 min read
What is Permaculture? The Future of Human-Kind Mankind has made scientific progress that altered the course of history forever. But in 1978, two Australians set out to answer a deeper question: how can human life be sustained on Earth, permanently? From an unexpected collaboration between Bill Mollison - a rugged professor from the University of Tasmania, almost an Australian Indiana Jones of agriculture - and his provocative young student David Holmgren, Permaculture was born. In this...
3 months ago • 5 min read