Permaculture: Growing Food Sustainably
Sunday, May 01, 2016
Jamie and 4 of our staff members recently took part in a 5-day regenerative agriculture training at the Himalayan Permaculture Center in Surkhet. The training blended permaculture theory with lots of local knowledge and practical demonstrations. They learned about holistic property design, agroforestry, forest management, earthworking to capture rainwater, cutting/grafting to propagate new fruit trees, composting, and much more.
This training comes at a great time, as we're gearing up for a very, very busy monsoon planting season. We look forward to sharing photos and updates as we begin to regenerate our soil and build a resilient, beautiful, ecologically-inspired food system for our kids and our community.
During the session, trainees formed a circle to represent different parts of the local economy, from bees, cows, and earthworms to roads and a bank. They first built up the web through connections, and then saw how one wrong decision can bring the whole web down. Understanding these connections helps to build resilience in the local economy and makes individuals aware of how their personal choices can impact more than just themselves.
One piece of bamboo can have ten or more "nodes," each being able to grow a whole new bamboo plant. Learning this technique allows us to transplant dozens of bamboo on our new property.
We were lucky to enjoy a classroom with a view! Our HPC trainer closed out the week with a lesson on agroforestry. This technique, which combines fruit and nut tree planting with traditional vegetable gardening, will allow us to enhance the productivity of our land while protecting our soils from the intense Surkhet sun.