Permaculture is a design system based on ethics and principles which can be used to establish, design, manage and improve all efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future.

There is a growing buzz on the internet and social networking systems about a “different” kind of aid effort: a Permaculture relief corps. There is actually a listserve devoted to this discussion and articles are popping up all over engaging in this theme. Why Permaculture and what would a “permaculture relief” team look like? Here’s one article I found helpful on Maddy Harland’s blog Permaculture Magazine Editorial. She points out how the principles of permaculture design lend themselves so well to healing the Earth following natural disasters, and by extension, the people living there, as well.

Co-developed by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren back in the good ol’ days of the 1970’s, Permaculture deals with the basic issues of sustaining life wholistically by dealing with what is in front of you.  If you need water, look at where and how you can collect it, reclaim it, clean it, save it; don’t wait for the USAID truck to drive down your road with plastic bottles shipped in. (They may not come.) You don’t wait for heavy moving equipment, you create smaller versions of your system with your hands or invent simple tools. And you don’t let anything go to waste. (Something most Haitians have more experience with than I ever will.)

But why is there such poverty and lack of infrastructure and why has it continued for so long? The people and the island of Haiti have endured several centuries of interventionism by the United States and European nations under the guise of “stabilization.” In this interview by Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW!, journalist Kim Ives discusses how this has crippled the Haitians from recovering more rapidly from natural disasters.

People trained in Permaculture understand and honor systems for working together, by developing the best approach based upon the resources–human and otherwise–available. Rather than utilizing a cookie-cutter approach to any situation, PC’s carry in a value system, a way of looking at a situation and developing answers based on what they see and experience hand in hand with the local population.

And while a Permaculture Relief Corps couldn’t replace medical emergency personnel, its practitioners would be able to get other life-saving systems underway like composting toilets and rudimentary sanitation systems, water purification, solar ovens, and of course, survival gardens. Rather than watching the defunct systems continue to implode day by day, the PC relief workers could guide and empower the citizens on the ground to regain some of what they have lost. Here’s an article by Cory Brennan, one of the movers and shakers for this idea, that relates how Permaculture  can help to re-structure and revitalize an area after a disaster.

Permaculture systems create sustainable, long term solutions that incorporate the needs of the local population and its culture while training its citizens to replicate these systems when the PC workers are gone. Permaculture becomes a way to reconnect the various components or threads of community no matter how tattered they may be.

My blog on “outrageous gardens” is a direct result of my own permaculture training. I took one principle– “the problem is the solution” –to its limits and learned that you can create a growing space anywhere, anytime from whatever you have available and it’s probably more effective than what you had before.

So just thinking about all the possibilities related to a team of PC’s going to Haiti brightens my day, and there haven’t been too many bright days since Jan. 12th.

For more information about the Permaculture relief effort for Haiti, go to www.permaculturehaiti.org. There, you can also sign up to volunteer, request assistance or offer materials and supplies.

To participate in the on-line discussion and dissemination of information on this endeavor, sign up for the PC Relief listserve here.

To read more about some of the Permaculture work that was already in place in Haiti prior to the earthquake, check out: www.oursoil.org

And here you’ll find just about everything related to permaculture on the web.

This is an idea whose time has not only come but is fundamentally necessary for rebuilding Haiti from within. There are Permaculture relief workers on the ground in Haiti today and we’ll keep following their progress on my “Haiti” page. If you know of other PC Relief sites, please send them to me or add in the comments for this page!

“Permaculture is that art of the possible”

Graham Bell ‘The Permaculture Garden”

And then it was Tuesday evening at my computer, after a delicious meal with a good friend, that I received the first dispatch from Margaret Trost, founder and chairperson of the What If? Foundation:

Dear Friends of the What If? Foundation,

Earlier today there was a 7.0 earthquake off the cost of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (the capital city and location of the programs we support).  We are deeply concerned about the St. Clare’s community and all of Haiti.  We have not been able to get through by phone to find out any information about what’s happened at the food program or in the surrounding area.  As soon as we hear anything, we will email again.

Later that same night, Margaret was interviewed on KCBS 740 AM in Berkeley about the situation:

View Full Clip

By 8 pm, my world view changed completely.

No longer focused on the elation of all my good fortune, my eyes, ears and heart are only on Haiti. I was supposed to travel there this month. I was going to volunteer at the food program supported by What If? and get to know the community and see if, when, and how I could be of service and support them in creating more food growing systems and gardens in their area.  As my mom would often say, “there but for the grace of God” would I have been in Haiti last Tuesday.

As it turned out, the program wasn’t ready for me and a dear friend (and extremely talented astrologer) told me in no uncertain terms that I shouldn’t travel especially abroad during December and January. End of story.

I’m here. I’m safe. And I justify my good fortune this way: the Goddess had other plans for me, plans to be part of the next generation of assistance.  After all the emergency services have gone, and the great wave of eager hands and hearts must return home to rest and recover, when the people of Haiti are left once again to determine how to proceed, I will be ready and willing to go.

I wait now for each of Margaret’s almost daily emails to all the supporters, as we live vicariously through the tedious and onerous process undertaken by the organization’s amazing on-the-ground Haitian coordinator to move supplies from the Dominican Republic across Haiti.  In the short term, emergency food rations must meet the need. In the not-so-distant future, perhaps small gardens could lead the way out of hunger.

Margaret Trost of What If? Foundation with children of St. Clare's -- in better times.

For the moment, we can ask for financial assistance. Please consider the following organizations that have extensive in-country networks, run by local groups if you are still unsure where to place your donations:

What If? Foundation – www.whatiffoundation.org

Partners in Health

Doctors Without Borders

Much lies ahead but I put my money on the hearts and souls of the Haitian people.  I close this post with a Creole quote Margaret often repeats: piti piti na rive– little by little we arrive.

PS: Regarding that glorious $100 million dollars in aid promised by President Obama?

Of the twenty-two industrial nations of the world, the United States is last on per-capita giving to the poor peoples of the world. For every dollar that America gives to the world, the people of Norway give seventy.(2009 State of the Future report, Exec Summary pdf, p. 5)

“It is important for people to realize that we can make progress against world hunger, that world hunger is not hopeless. The worst enemy is apathy.”
– Reverend David Beckmann

And sealed within apathy is the feeling of helplessness with a smattering of “it will always be this way” thrown at us on a daily basis.

Sunflowers shouldn’t grow in a sidewalk grate but they can and do. If I believed it would always be this way, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do which is teach people to garden, collect simple, sustainable methods for gardening, or plant even one seed. Gardening teaches me that nothing is impossible or unchangeable.

Life in general IS change. Without change we could not grow, heal from illness, bake bread, fall in love, have children. All those and more demand that something changes. And true to the life energy itself, my personal career path has meandered onto a completely different territory since August, one that is allowing me more time to write on the book that set this blog in motion.

The purpose for this blog and the book remain–seeking ways to end hunger and poverty at the most basic and empowering level by growing our own food.

Over the past year, the human species surpassed one billion people living in poverty and malnutrition. Yet, we continue to grow more than enough food to feed every person on this planet. How can that disparity occur? Part of it may be that we as a species don’t yet BELIEVE we can end hunger and poverty. But there are voices that continue to stir the winds of doubt and point toward an ending of this most vile of human ills. One such document is the Millennium Development Goals.

In September 2000, 189 world leaders adopted the Millenium Development Goals (or MDGs) as part of the Millennium Declaration, agreed to at the United Nations Millennium Summit.

The MDG’s set an unprecedented global framework for development that is a crucial step towards ending poverty and inequality by 2015.

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

To learn more and to participate in an action today, go to www.standagainstpoverty.org and be counted.

Yes, we still have a ways to go but the first step is seeing a better way, a solution even if it hasn’t happened yet. We need to inform ourselves of what hasn’t worked in the past by deviating from old ruts like some of these recent news stories point out:

• According to the new report from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO), global trade in the past 20 years has neither improved working conditions or  living standards in many developing countries.
• The World Health Organization estimates that, at any given moment, 20 million children are suffering from severe forms of food deprivation as a consequence of various crises and food aid needs to be of a quality that will provide nourishment quickly. An article in Foreign Policy magazine questions how healthy fortified, blended wheat, corn, or soy flours are to counteract malnutrition even though they are the mainstay of many emergency food programs. Critics point out a more nutritious supplement should be routinely provided as well as the need to utilize local markets for staple items.
• A World Summit on Food Security will be held in November of this year in Rome. The goals? Not so different from the MDG’s.

FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who proposed the World Summit on Food Security, hopes the participants will agree on key actions to tackle this crisis.  According to Diouf:

This Lammas I had much to celebrate. My personal “harvest” included a transition to new type of position living alongside a house full of women on the University of New Mexico campus. This allows me to use many of the skills I’ve acquired over this lifetime (including patience which I know will be tested many times) and provides time to continue to write and support all the new gardens cropping up (no pun intended) all over the city.

While re-reading the most recent edition of Cosmic Time ezine from astrologer, Allison Rae, I couldn’t help but see myself and this new position reflected in her column. Her Star Priestess website and blog are pure poetry and her insights are uplifting and positive while keeping us well-grounded: in the movements of the planets and the constellations, and in this amazing Universe where our exquisite blue planet is suspended. Here are her thoughts on the power of the ancient celebration of Lammas (traditionally August 1-2) and its late summer dance in the wheel of the year:

“Lammas celebrates the first fruits of the harvest. The masculine and feminine energies have combined to fertilize the crops that are beginning to yield fruits, vegetables and grains. The Earth and the Sun share with us. We, in turn, share with each other…How are we prepared, and not prepared, to live a simpler way, cooperatively, in harmony with our brothers and sisters around the world? How are we taking care of ourselves, each other, and the Earth?” (www.starpriestess.com)

My goal this year, is to be a model for my charges, and to remind them of their responsibility to this planet. There is much to do, for I’m noticing we have not prepared our children well, to quote an old song.

To help readers answer Allison’s insightful question I’m honored to be giving away a copy of the soon-to-be released, The Call of the Land by Santa Fe author and friend, Steve McFadden.  Here’s the rules:  send me an email with the word “Steve” in the subject line by midnight Sept. 5th to be entered. We’ll announce the winner a few days later. Thanks, Steve, for giving our readers the opportunity to read your newest and deeply provocative book even before the ink had dried.

The Call of the Land
An Agrarian Primer for the 21^st Century

• A sourcebook exploring positive pathways for food security, economic stability, environmental health, and cultural renewal

The land calls out to us urgently. Our food and security are on the line. Impending matters of finance, transport, water, oil, climate and diet compel us to respond immediately and wholeheartedly.

We have commenced a transition the likes of which few are prepared for, but to which we all can respond with intelligence. Now is the time to establish a renewed agrarian foundation that is rooted in experience, adapted to the specific needs of our land, oriented to the future, and capable of integrating high-tech, sustainable practices. This is the profound vision skillfully articulated in The Call of the Land.

While no single remedy meets the many challenges to our land and food, hundreds of positive, creative options are already in place for families, neighborhoods, suburbs, and cities. The Call of the Land illuminates the paths forward, revealing a range of models to establish a sustainable agrarian foundation for the fragile high-tech, digital-wave culture emerging so dynamically in our world.

Veteran journalist Steven McFadden is co-author of Farms of Tomorrow, Farms of Tomorrow Revisited, and the author of Profiles in Wisdom, Legend of the Rainbow Warriors, and Odyssey of the 8^th Fire.

There are still good planting days for the late fall and even winter garden if you plan to use a cold frame of some sort. In fact some of the best planting days are coming up with this Full Moon in Pisces on Sept. 4. So get ready to plant above-ground annuals (greens, peas, etc.) from 9/3 – 9/4.

Plant or transplant for root growth: 9/5 and again 9/8 – 9/10.

The 12th to the 14th of September is a good time to prune, fertilize, compost and water deeply.

PLEASE REMEMBER: Your food banks, churches and food pantries need your contribution of fresh vegetables and fruits. Don’t let any of your garden excess go to waste.  To learn more about the Plant A Row for the Hungry program, visit Road Runner Food Bank’s website at:  http://www.rrfb.org/.

“There must be new contact between men and the earth; the earth must be newly seen and heard and felt and smelled and tasted; there must be a renewal of the wisdom that comes with knowing clearly the pain and the pleasure and the risk and the responsibility of being alive in this world.” — Wendell Berry

My evening at the Wayside Community Gardens workshop in Normandy on the north side of St. Louis, could not have been more perfect. The folks who came to learn and participate on July 14, were excited at the prospect of using sheet mulching to cut down on their mowing while at the same time contributing to building up the fertility in the soil.

Wayside Community Gardens, Normandy, MO

We created one lasagna bed for the Girls, Inc. area which my daughter, Mariella Funk, guides and oversees as part of her responsibilities with Operation Food Search.

Laying out the new bed with newspaper.

Adding the organic layers to the new bed.

Adding the finishing touches of topsoil to the new bed.

We also set up a wading pool garden with two very accomplished young assistants who believed you just can’t be too safe when working in the garden!

My best assistants wearing their protective garden gear!

Yvonne helping the group visualize greens and peas for the fall!

Planting carrots and beets.

Thanks to Dan Linck, Jane Reise and all the Wayside gardeners for all the assistance. A special thanks to my daughter, Mariella Funk, for organizing this opportunity to be “outrageous” in Missouri!

One question that came up from the group was about just what organic materials are best to use in a lasagna or raised bed. The list is virtually endless. (More about that next time.) But here’s an example of ingenuity in utilizing whatever you have available to grow food in or on:

And here’s the list of BEST PLANTING DATES for the remainder of July according to the Moon signs (I’m certain Neil Armstrong would approve!)

July 20-21–great for planting (21st is better than the 20th)

July 24-25–Good for all planting/gardening activities plus planning your Fall garden!

July 26-27–Excellent for planting ornamentals or anything for beauty or color.

July 30-31–Another great time for all planting.

(Source: www.starpathways.com)

Next time:  planning your fall garden.

Mohandas K. Gandhi: To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.

So what’s the “secret?”

The title of this blog may be a bit deceiving to some yet I am quite certain that what we call gardens are simply energetic relationships that manifest through the intention of soil, seeds, water, air and sunlight brought together all in one place.  People at our workshops watch us throw together some newspaper, dried leaves, spoiled hay or grass clippings, some not quite decomposed compost, maybe some pumice stones or even cola cans, toss them into a tire or wading pool or a rectangle of straw bales– VOILA! –they see a garden. I see the Universe. But that’s another blog.

There is a teeny bit more to forming a useful, nutritious and fairly all-purpose, growing medium.  So perhaps the real “secret” is in the way all those items are placed in a growing container or piled on top of a piece of ground. I have a system that I like to use but you can design your own based around the materials you have available in your area and following a basic procedure of layering.

When you have collected all your organic matter together and are ready to put together the growing area, this is what you’ll do:

Stack each of the various layers of material one on top the next after creating a weed barrier of thick layers of newspaper or cardboard.  Next is a base or bottom layer to provide water absorption; next is an aeration (breathing space) layer; then a slow-release organic nutrients layer; and finally a topping of finished compost and topsoil with a dusting of bone meal, rock phosphate or wood ashes, where the seedlings and seeds will get started.

Cross-section of the various layers in straw bale garden.

But wait a minute, you say. Is that all there is to it?  Well, yes and no.  There are some general guidelines about the way each layer works as part of the whole.  What will be a bit different depending on your area, climate, time of year, are the organic materials you will have available.

We’ve gotten so many requests for a handout on this,  that I created a guide with photos and diagrams so folks at workshops would no longer have to scribble furiously on notebooks or the back of envelopes while we demonstrated.  You will be able to order a copy of  The Secret of Outrageous Gardens right here soon [has to wait until after my family reunion.] The document is in PDF form and will be easy to download and very inexpensive.

[Please know that proceeds are used to support the work of several organizations uprooting hunger in various parts of the world. See my Resources page and thanks for helping out.]

Backyard at the Zemach residence.

If you’re still not convinced that thick layers of organic mulch, water harvesting as opposed to irrigation, and a wide diversity of interplanted herbs, edibles and perennials can’t possibly happen in high desert, enjoy these photos taken June 27 at Mary Zemach’s annual permaculture tour of her residence in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Her home was the cover photo for Toby Hemenway’s first edition of Gaia’s Garden, a must-read for anyone feeling the urging to restore their particular section of the planet to health while claiming all the moisture we’re gifted in the form of rain.

Mary Zemach with some very happy horseradish.

Thank you, Miss Mary, for your willingness to share your experience, your wisdom, your wit and joy, and your commitment to the Earth with so many people over the years.

UPCOMING EVENTS:  If you’re in the St. Louis area next week, I’ll be doing a workshop on Bastille Day — July 14th– at Wayside Community Gardens in Normandy, MO,  about outrageous ways to create a garden as well as 3-season gardening. Wayside Gardens is located just north of the city of St. Louis.

Since I’m driving east from Albuquerque and taking my sweet time, I have committed myself to eating only locally produced food hopefully from Farmers Markets and food coops. I’m creating an itinerary around certain locations and days and times the markets are open. It is a challenge since so many markets are open only on Friday or Saturday. I’ll let you know how this challenge unfolds along with pictures wherever I manage to pull over and load up the cooler with local produce.

On Saturday evening, July 25th, I’ll be joining my dear friend Charlie Z better known as Mr. HotLix at KUNM-FM radio here in Albuquerque. While Charlie rolls out the best late night listening music, he and I will be conversing about the current situation in New Mexico regarding food insecurity, hunger, and some easy solutions we can all believe in! Hot Lix is broadcast on Saturdays from 8:30-10:00 pm. See ya on the radio!

[Artwork by Christina Bouajila www.crewnewmexico.com/creativeartist]

Since I can’t upload photos or videos at this moment, help me out by envisioning these glitches floating away so you can see the color and vibrancy of all the gardens we’ve worked with this year.  They are a testimony to the effectiveness of this type of garden as well as how small gardens, created where we live, keep us connected, interested, loving tenders of our food source.  Hope to be able to provide photos and more info very soon! Until then, check out the website of my friend, Steve McFadden and learn more about his new book, The Call of The Land, which will be available later this summer and, hopefully, on this website as well.

Oh and don’t forget to start thinking about your late summer planting for fall. It’s never too early to get ready for great fall and winter crops. Check you frost free dates at Arbor Day as well as your local County Extension website.  You want to get plants up and maturing before the light changes in late summer and early fall. Once plants are thriving, it’s a matter of cold-hardiness which can be created with cold frames, frost covers and other methods. So don’t think you’re finished because the tomatoes are starting to ripen. It should be just the beginning of your gardening for this year!

NEXT BEST PLANTING DATES:  today and tomorrow for ornamentals (waxing moon in Libra) and then July 1-2 (waxing moon in Scorpio) GREAT planting days for everything.  After the holiday, get ready to plant root crops on July 6-7.

At the end of each month, I intend to offer a drawing for a book I believe can change our view of the world we live on or support our efforts to become more connected to it.  To be certain you know when the drawing will be, sign up for email updates to this site in the box on the right column.

Next up? What so many have asked for:  the “secret” of these outrageous gardens!

Best planting dates astrologically this year:  June 22-23. Get ready so you don’t miss them!!!

For more information on planting by moon phases, go to www.starpathways.com and The Old Farmer’s Almanac for best planting dates and moon phases.

Need some uplifting music while you crawl around this weekend poking into Mother Earth? Try this from www.playingforchange.org.

This very personal and candid story is rich and vibrant in spite of the desperate situation Trost encounters. And for those not familiar with the politics of the region, you will come away with a much clearer understanding of how history has brutalized this tiny island almost since the first days it was settled by Europeans.

It’s a fascinating read and and you can support the Foundation’s work by purchasing more copies right on this website to share with your family, schools and book clubs.

To enter the drawing, simply send an email to outrageousgardener [at] yahoo.com with “Haiti” in the subject line.

Happy gardeners at 4th Street in Albuquerque, NM!

All emails must be received before midnight June 12th and the winner will be announced on Monday, 6/15.

 So Happy Birthday to all my fellow Geminis, Metal Tigers and Cancer risings. It’s been an amazing run, so far at least. 

Ah, so many gardens still left to grow, and so many gardeners yet to know!

 [Next time: The "Secret" of Outrageous Gardens]

On May 28, Father Gerard Jean-Juste allowed himself the privilege of resting after unceasingly working for more than three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the poorest of the poor in Haiti, seeking justice and basic human rights for his fellow Haitians.  He was a most remarkable human being and one of the primary influences for initiating this website.

No, we never met. We never even spoke. I’ve only seen him in photos. I learned so much of him and his love for his people and his commitment to ending all this unnecessary hunger and poverty in Haiti through someone else I have never met yet, Margaret Trost. In emails with Margaret, I felt more and more the urgency to do something to counteract the unrelenting and unnecessary scourge of hunger visited on those who already had nothing to eat. And I began writing this blog, promoting simple ways to grow food, educating myself primarily to learn how to teach this information for that ’some day’ when I hoped I would have the privilege of traveling to Haiti and working with her and Fr. Gerry, as he was known.

I don’t recall now exactly how I found her on this amazing networking apparatus called the internet–some story about feeding hungry children in Haiti and how she found solace from the grief of losing her husband by working with a certain priest in one of the poorest parishes in Haiti. She saw the unrelenting hunger and heard Fr. Gerry’s idea of a soup kitchen or a “cantine” at the parish center. Margaret took all this in during her first visit,  turning over in her mind what she personally could do to help him feed all these children whose one constant companion was an empty belly. She was, according to Fr. Jean-Juste, the miracle he prayed for.

She returned to the United States and started asking herself and family and friends “what if” we could make a difference and thus was born her foundation, now in its ninth year of feeding thousands of nutritious meals each week to the children of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. You can read the story of the What If? Foundation and order Margaret’s book On This Day Everyone Ate through my Amazon link on this website. (Any commissions earned revert to What If? Foundation.)

The Haitian Lawyers Association said of Father Jean-Juste: “This man has devoted all his life to the cause of the poor, the powerless, and the voiceless. He strived to do good, seek justice, and foster change in a world where injustice, poverty, racial discrimination, and inequality dominate many governments and institutions around the globe. Now that he is no longer with us, may his legacy serve as a moral compass to us all as we continue our journey in this world.”

Father Gerry: Your faith in your God brought Margaret to you to carry on. And her work with you ignited in me the desire to learn more, to do more, and I am not alone. You have inspired generations of the most neglected citizens of our hemisphere. You gave them hope. You helped them regain dignity. No, the work is far from over, but as you said “pitti pitti na rive” — little by little we will arrive.

Merci, ‘Pere’ Jean-Juste, for being among us, not only for the children of Haiti, but for the hungry child that lives in all of us. For as long as one child goes to bed hungry tonight, we are all hungry–for justice, for compassion, for morality and for love.

READERS: I thank you for taking the time today to donate to What If? Foundation.