The story goes that a wise hermit residing near the top of a mountain would share his wisdom with any seeker making the long, dangerous trek up to his cave. A seeker decided to accept this challenge and prepared for the arduous trip for months in advance. Finally he embarked, and having surmounted great difficulties, finally found himself prostrated at the feet of this wise man.
“Oh, Guru!” he pleaded, trembling with excitement and exhaustion. “I have climbed all this way through dangerous passages for one reason only. Life seems overwhelming with the vastly different choices and directions one can take. Each of the many spiritual paths advise a man to do something different. You alone seem to be content and at peace with yourself. Please share with me the secret to happiness! What must I do transform my life?”
The wise hermit sat in silence for sometime. “Only two rules,” he finally replied.
“Rule Number One: BEGIN.”
“Rule Number Two: CONTINUE.”
“When you find yourself confused, uncertain what to do next, go back to Rule Number One.”
What sage advice for my husband and I as we contemplated the huge task of transforming our property — and thereby ourselves — from an abused dumping ground to a Garden of Eden and Paradise for our family! Where do you begin when your to-do list is entirely comprised of major projects? How do you prioritize projects when all of them need to be tackled simultaneously and completed immediately? How do you make plans when there are so many unknowns and so much research remains to fill in the information gaps? Will any of these permaculture techniques we are reading about — but have never tried — really work for our situation and our site?
“BEGIN.”
Garden Plan on graphing paper
Oh! So simple! What can I do RIGHT NOW? I know we will have at least one intensive garden space, for sure. My mind jumps to the need for a deer fence. Yes, the garden will need to be fenced someday; maybe a living fence, maybe a post and wire mesh fence, maybe both. But that’s way in the future. I need to start further back: I can choose the garden site. I can map the future garden on paper so I have a working plan. I can prepare the future beds for planting next spring before the snows fly!
“CONTINUE.”
Alrighty, then! To plan my site, I’ll need to consider the sun, wind, and rain patterns and the interrelationships of elements already there, such as trees and outbuildings and neighboring properties. Permaculture delineates a site into 5 zones, where zone 1 is closest to the home and zone 5 is wilderness (whether that takes the form of a small patch or several acres). Permaculture design advises placing elements into zone 1 that are used the most frequently to encourage and enable intensive use. I can focus on zone 1 and leave the rest for later. I know that zone 1 needs to be defensible from wildfire, and therefore clear of fuels and kept green and moist near the home — a perfect siting for intensive gardens.
Garden perimeter in yellow plastic tape
My husband offered the use of his roll of “caution” yellow tape to delineate the new garden perimeter. Together we staked out the boundaries, avoiding the utility pole by 15 feet, avoiding the acid soil beneath the giant pine trees in front of the house, and leaving space for future compost bins just outside.
But how to markup the future beds and paths? I don’t want to use plastic tape for that, too wasteful. Too bad this property doesn’t have any stones – all sandy soil as a former riverbank. As I cast about the grounds for a suitable natural resource, my eye fell upon the many large pine cones scattered under the pines. The cones are a nuisance, a tripping hazard as I walk around the site. Suddenly I realize that they would work great to temporarily markup the garden paths and beds! Then I can compost them along with the sheet mulching, a permaculture technique I plan to use to smother the weeds growing there now and to add organic nutrients to the soil. Perfect!
In the back of my mind, a worry began to form as to where I would find suitable mulching materials. I would need cardboard (plain brown, no plastic tape) to smother the weeds. I wanted to create a deterrent for underground critters digging up to the roots of my future garden plants; maybe hardware cloth? I’ve never seen a permaculture technique for discouraging these underground critters, but I knew from previous experience that I had to create some form of barrier or just kiss my crops good-bye. I would also need tons of organic material that will decompose within 6 months so that I could begin planting next spring. Where would I get that and how could I afford it? Then I’d need clean straw to layer on top… Stop! I was allowing my mind to create anxious confusion again.
Garden layout using pine cones
“BEGIN. “ What can I do now? I can purchase hardware cloth, scrounge for cardboard at the big-box stores, and start asking my neighbors if they knew of anyone with rotting hay they wanted to get rid of. I can trust the Universe to connect me up with the resources I need if I just take the next step.
“CONTINUE.” All summer long I followed this simple outline of a plan and — surprise! — everything came together in a beautiful way. My husband found the cardboard at Costco, where he typically shops for supplies anyway. The hardware cloth was a bit spendy, so we bought what we could and decided to forgo the rest of the beds for now. They can always be moved or improved later. Sure enough, neighbors knew about plenty of sources for rotting hay — though a roaming herd of elk beat us to one of the stockpiles of alfalfa and devoured the whole stack. The neighboring ranchers were only too happy to have us haul away their rotted hay for free, since they were just going to burn it all anyway in the fall. That was a win-win-win: for us, the rancher and the environment — fewer smoke particulates released into the atmosphere.
I was able to get one third of the garden prepared before snowfall. This turned out to be quite all right, because over the winter months I have been reading The Winter Harvest Handbook by Eliot Coleman. He has created an innovative system of moveable greenhouses that first protect spring crops, and then are moved to protect overwintering crops, yielding fresh produce all year long.
Load Of Wheat Straw
I will need to change my garden layout in the spring to accommodate the moveable greenhouses. I also changed the shape of the beds, as I realized that the shapes on paper didn’t work well with amorphous masses of organic matter, nor were the sharp curving paths practical with the limited maneuverability of my wheelbarrow.
Now I know from my own experience that I don’t have to have all the “answers” beforehand. I can simply BEGIN and trust that each step will reveal more about what is required when I arrive. I can enjoy this marvelous journey undeterred by the niggling anxiety habits picked up over the years. Paradise is first and foremost an “inside job”.
CONTINUE!
