Permaculture invades west Edmonton
Megan and Jordan Wilson of Roots and Wings Permaculture relaxing after a day's worth of permaculture workshopping on April 2, 2011 in west Edmonton. Photograph by Tyler Grant
By Tyler Grant
Britannia Youngstown — As fuel prices soar, the cost of transporting food is on the rise. But, there is a solution that will only cost you some of your time, sweat and a bit of your patience. It’s gardening with a twist. Permaculture is a way of utilizing your yard for your culinary benefit, and maximizing the return on your investment of energy spent maintaining it.
Megan and Jordan Wilson of Roots and Wings Permaculture have taken to teaching workshops about the benefits of creating a permaculture in your own yard. Their most recent workshop was held at the Britannia Youngstown community hall on April 2.
What is permaculture?
“Permaculture is a system of designing a sustainable human habitat,” says Megan.
For the layperson, Megan says this means, “permaculture designs systems that produce as much energy for you as they consume over their lifetime.”
The best explanation Megan has for this involves the everyday lawn. Around our city, the majority of lawns are covered in grass the owner must cut, but gets nothing in return. Therefore, the person maintaining the lawn expends more energy than is returned to him or her.
“Using permaculture design,” says Megan, “you would want to meet as many of your own needs as possible, as close as possible to your door.”
What’s different from my regular garden?
Marigold seedlings sprouting out of the soil under a fluorescent light at the Britannia Youngstown Community Hall on April 2, 2011. Photograph by Tyler Grant
Brothers Mark and David Duke, attendees at the permaculture workshop, say they learned how to better last year’s unsuccessful garden.
“The techniques learned were probably something to the effect of: how to arrange your garden, how to arrange the environment, and how to grow certain plants and vegetation,” says David.
It’s not just in the layout of your yard, it’s also in how you manage your soil.
Another participant of the workshop, Wendy Fletcher, says she “learned a lot about lasagne gardening.”
As scrumptious as it might sound to have lasagne growing in your back yard, Wendy espouses her newfound knowledge that lasagne gardening is something you do, “if you’ve got crappy soil, you start off with newspaper, and then you do your compost, then topsoil. And, if you do it in layers, it’s supposed to help your plants grow better.”
What can you grow?
In Alberta, the options are plentiful.
Seeing as it’s April in Edmonton and there’s still snow on the ground, Megan described what she had in last year’s garden.
“I had corn growing in the back, because it would be tallest. I had tomatoes in the front. I had squash, I had onions, I had herbs, I had some flowers — some of them edible, some of them not — all growing in a polyculture.”
The Duke brothers have opted for vegetables in their 2011 garden.
“Looks like we’re going to do some more course vegetables this year,” says David. “I’d also like to try to grow more tomatoes. We’ve got broccoli seeds here. Last year we grew Romaine lettuce, but we might try something different this year.”
“Maybe we should try iceberg lettuce this year,” says David’s brother, Mark.
One of the other workshoppers, Karen Chennery, says she plans to grow Saskatoon berries in her yard.
“I learned they can be a bush or a hedge,” she says.
This is advantageous because for those who prefer plants over fences. Not only can a Saskatoon bush act naturally as a bush, it can also be a trimmed as a hedge.
Karen’s got an ulterior motive for growing Saskatoons though .
“If you can get fruit off it, why not?”
The other benefit to the permaculture workshop
Wendy Fletcher standing out front of the Britannia Youngstown Community Hall on April 2, 2011 just after the permaculture workshop. Photograph by Tyler Grant
Wendy Fletcher wasn’t just at the workshop to hone her gardening skills, she happens to work for the Stony Plain Road and Area Business Association, which received the proceeds from Saturday’s events.
“The money that people paid for their registration fee — for the workshop — is being paid to the Holistic Urban Market (HUM) that they are planning on putting in on Stony Plain Road,” says Wendy.
Jordan Wilson says they raised roughly $600 for the market.
The Holistic Urban Market is an initiative set up to rejuvenate the Stony Plain Road area through bringing together people from the surrounding community, who wish to make their neighbourhoods safer and more attractive.
Permaculture podcast with Megan Wilson
