Permaculture | The Organic Sister

It’s not as if they’ve ever been uncommon in our yard. Or our kitchen for that matter. But it’s their impervious nature this season that has me so stressed.

They destroyed our corn. Did I mention that? Yes, with the help of their aphid butt-juice drinking habit our corn is nothing more than chicken feed and compost. And we’ve gotten all of 3 beans from our bush and pole beans. That’s right folks. The easiest thing to grow and we got nada. Right now they are working their way through our melons and into our raised beds.

But it’s the ants in the kitchen that have really killed my appetite.

Ants baited with boric acid and honey. They loved it. Wasn’t much help, though.

Justin removed our RO system when he found it leaking. A few days later he admitted the water damage would require removing the walls and bottoms of the cabinets under the kitchen sink. That’s when he found the nest in the wall. From there the ants travelled from houseplant to houseplant, burrowing their larvae into the soil of each plant. After removing every plant from the vicinity and sealing every nook and cranny possible, I THINK we may have protected our kitchen.

Now, I’m okay with ants outside. In fact, I want some ants. They aerate the soil, even pollinate some plants. And..erm..I’m sure they do more than that. My problem is they also fight off insects that threaten their turf. So although our ladybug population initially increased with the aphids, it quickly disappeared. (Again.)

We tried a few things to decrease (not eradicate) the outdoor ant population. Cornmeal, essential oils, boric acid in several mediums. I’ve even encouraged the chickens to have a go at it. Nothing has worked. And I certainly don’t want to resort to anything stronger or deadlier.

Outdoor ants baited with boric acid and yogurt. Usually works great but these ants aren’t affected. They circle around in droves, eat it all up and skip away merrily.

Permaculture principles say to allow these imbalances to correct themselves. My role should be to support a healthy ecology by adding organic amendments to unhealthy soil, establishing appropriate plants and facilitating their growth. All of this of course takes time, which is my biggest frustration.

So I suppose my mission this fall, when replanning and replanting our yard, is to find and establish plants to repel ants and/or attract insects that eat ants. Any suggestions? Please?

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When thinking about where to begin in reviewing Gaia’s Garden, Second Edition: A Guide To Home-Scale Permaculture, I’m overwhelmed. There is just so much to say! We picked it up at the urging of a friend, scoring the second edition just as it was released. I don’t buy new books very often, but this was an exception I was excited to make.

I had only caught small glimpses of the books contents and while I had a mild understanding of permaculture, the practice of it had been eluding me. As I’ve come to find out, permaculture is a theory and describing it is a little like describing color to a blind man. Until you see it, you don’t really get it. Or at least I didn’t.

Gaia’s Garden cleared up any confusion! Not only did it clearly and concisely explain the theory, it gave numerous examples and applications. This book is jam-packed and my mind is still absorbing it. One thing is for certain, it has completely changed both Justin and my outlooks on gardening.
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Theory and Practice

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To put it as simply as possible, the theory behind permaculture (a contraction of “permanent agriculture”) is to design our gardens to emulate and therefore work *with* nature, rather than against it. Toby Hemenway, the author of Gaia’s Garden, draws on several references to explain the symbiotic relationships found in the wild – from “invasive” plants (which he describes as merely ”opportunistic”) to tree guilds, animals and insects. What he describes in his book are techniques to closely imitate these relationships, thus creating a self-sustaining and low-maintenance oasis with multiple functions.

The book covers such things as stacking functions, assisting soil life, greywater systems, insects and animals, and the abundant use of perennials. The author discusses things such as wind barriers, swales, land surveying, the efficient use of space and edges, poly-cultures and a myriad of diverse plants and their uses. He describes input vs output, describing that if we take the careful time first in design and planning a sustainable system, our input of both energy, time and resources (fertilizers, mulch etc) will gradually decrease overtime, leaving us with a natural eco-system that much like our wild forests need little help from us to thrive. The color photos, diagrams, and tables make understanding the principles and applications that much easier.
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Our Highlights

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There were some points that stood out to Justin and I. Well, really the entire book! But here are the primary ideas we took away from the book:

Compost: Hemenway describes the biology of compost and the idea that the more it is turned, the less nitrogen is left. This really struck a cord with me after our sheet mulching/composting of the front yard left us baffled as we discovered so little nitrogen in our soil tests. We can now both see it was from our turning the matter in an effort to assist the breakdown. We’ve since stopped turning our compost pile as often and the breakdown has actually been more complete and gets much warmer.
Keyhole Gardens: The book describes keyhole gardens as a way to maximize growing space and offers several ideas for design. This really confirmed the design of our own raised beds and after discovering the difficulty of accessing some of our front garden areas, our idea is to implement the same technique in the front yard.
Perennial vs Annual: This is perhaps the biggest Ah-ha moment in the book for us. Hemenway describes the soil disruption caused by the removal of annual plants and the soil building properties of perennials. In our climate and soil conditions, I’m not sure that we could do away completely with raised beds but this has certainly changed our ideas of front yard usage. We now plan to redesign and replant the entire 645 sq ft area, based on the ideas in this book!
Tables: One of the biggest benefits of this book is the use of tables to list hundreds of nitrogen-building, nutrient-accumulating, multi-purpose plants. This has been a non-stop resource for us and one of the biggest benefits in the book.
Guilds: Many ideas and examples are given of ways to plant trees, shrubs and other plants together to assist the health and growth of each other. This is perhaps the most overwhelming part of the book for us, as we try to find our own climate-adapted plants with which to create guilds.
Zones, Home, Community and City Permaculture: Hemenway discusses the use of zones in and around the home and even out into the community; what to plant or place within each zone of the garden and how to apply this principle within city design. I found it to be incredibly interesting.

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There is so much more but these are the points that jumped out at us. I couldn’t begin to describe to you all the benefits and aspects covered in this book. I’m sure as time goes on, we’ll be referring back to Gaia’s Garden often and gaining even more insight in the months to come.
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Only One Complaint

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The only downside of Gaia’s Garden is the assumption of the reader’s climate. Most of his descriptions seemed to fit more temperate climates, nothing quite as cold as Michigan, nothing nearly as hot as our hometown. Although the book covered ideas of permaculture in the desert, the difference in climate and rainfall between New Mexico and Southern Nevada are vast. Many of the ideas he offered don’t apply to us (deer? what are those?) and the idea that the catchment of our four inches of annual rainfall in Las Vegas would suffice for much in temperatures above 110 F in the summer meant a bit of skimming the greywater chapter (we did however pull some inspiration for washer machine water). But then that’s a headache we Las Vegans have about any gardening books, isn’t it? ;)

Overall, this book is fantastic in laying out the principles behind permaculture and describing many effective and simple ways of implementation. We’re really looking forward to adapting the knowledge it gave us to our unique climate, as we learn more about the techniques and theories behind permaculture.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in green living, gardening, sustainability, self-sufficiency, urban homesteading or even just landscaping! It has ideas to offer everyone and may even change your entire outlook, much like it for did us. (In fact if you see an increased discussion and focus on permaculture on this blog, you can credit this book!)

If you are considering purchasing this book, would you consider purchasing it from the link above or the Amazon widget on my sidebar? All the proceeds we earn are going into our Five Year Plan fund and I’d love to say this book contributed both to purchasing and designing our new home someday!