Living on a smaller confined yard, I don’t have much to work with as far as land for a massive garden. A little less than a tenth of an acre to be exact, which is a little under 4,000 square feet. Obviously, I couldn’t have cattle or chickens to help make fertilizers and other food products, but a whole sustainable back yard that produces enough yield for my daily fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and proteins would be more than enough. Between my mother and I, there would easily be an abundance of fresh, wholesome food to enjoy. Gifford provides an example to a homestead that is self-sustaining on just a fifth of an acre and they produce plenty of food for their family of four and make $60,000 a year on the crops they sell alone (Gifford 2017). This family also has a website where they show their success in living sustainably called Urban Homestead. Along with bio-intensive gardening techniques, which specifically focuses on achieving maximum yields out of your crops, this seems like a real possibility for me.
So how am I going to create my 10th of an acre mini farm? Well they say the first step to any building project is to start at the foundation, or in this case, the soil. The soil quality of my yard looks very poor. The land its self has a lot of scattered plots of sand and some very small portions of grass. I could always make garden beds, but what if I wanted to use up all my land resource? How can I ensure my soil is at its full nutrient level? Well, I think my first step would be to get my soil tested to see what the soil is lacking in nutrients so intern I can get my soil to its full growing potential “Bio-intensive gardens require a lot of soil preparation work up front...But for all your efforts in preparation, your gardens will become extremely drought and weed resistant, and very easy to maintain for years to come’ – Gifford, 2017, so it will be highly important to make the soil my first priority.
Next, when referring to Gifford’s ideas of incorporating Permaculture in my garden, there are a set of twelve principles that can help you create the best designs to ensure a quality permaculture system. The first principle is to observe and interact with your environment. Observe the land as it is, such as what plants are already growing there and what animals use your land as their habitat. After getting all the information, I would finally need to design my garden. Drawing your design is key, it gives you visual representation of how your system will work. Inconclusion to my plan, if I incorporate bio-intensive gardening and Permaculture I could, over time and studying the land more, have a high functioning garden that ensures the most yield out of every crop.
Permaculture has been an interest of mine for quite some time now. After high school, struggling to find a career path that I would always be curious about, was challenging. To me, if you lose the curiosity you lose the passion. As an artist, design is hardwired into my brain. Just about anything I see, in the world around me, I obverse as everything being connected to each other through what caused it.
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