William's PDC: A Permaculture Design Course by William Ozier

Author:William Ozier [Ozier, William]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: William Ozier
Published: 2013-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

Food Systems

"A garden should feel like a walk in the woods."

- Dan Kiley, American Landscape Designer Fellow Permaculture teacher Andrew Millison, and former Agricultural Manager for the Arcosanti Project, once simultaneously scared and excited me by pointing something out. Look around your city, he said, you will see ornamental landscaping, and trees for miles around, all consuming water, fertilizer and labor, and among all of that not a speck of food in sight. Imagine the food abundance in your city, town or neighborhood, if all of the trees and shrubs were food producers of some sort, and all of the lawn space was used for gardens. Theoretically this could be accomplished since we are already devoting the resources to keep those plants alive. As you can then see there is MORE than abundant space for food security within every city, town and neighborhood.

Lost Valley Summer '09 class with their student garden, photo used with permission of Inger-Lise Burns In this section we will talk about the role of food systems in Permaculture Design. Gardens, that is putting crops in the ground is one strategy for food systems, however food systems can include so much more. Food systems include gardens, food forests, orchards and a host of other strategies. There are many other ways to incorporate food production into any Permaculture system. Gardens and orchards can be grown in swales on contour to help reduce erosion. They can be implanted in 'rain gardens' to help retain water on your site.

Interior of a hoop house at the Lost Valley Educational center, photo used with permission of Inger-Lise Burns Food systems should intertwine throughout any Permaculture system, from the furthest edges of your site, right up to, on and inside of any buildings!

Of course the ultimate goal of any food system is to provide multiple sources of balanced nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, and don't forget proteins! Food systems can include medicinals. So before you design any food system you will need to do some research on the needs of human nutrition.

When most people think of food systems the first thing they think of is gardens. Here in America we have massive space for untapped gardening potential. In America we use about 10,000 square miles of land for agricultural production, and we use about 40,000 square miles of land for lawns and ornamental landscaping. As a culture we are no where near using our maximum capacity for food production! In most urban landscape we use just as many resources to grow ornamental plants as it would take to grow edible plants. Next time you go for a walk imagine if all the lawns you passed were replaced with gardens producing food. Imagine if your city municipal landscaping was filled with fruit trees, berry bushes and edible ground crops. My point here is that ornamental landscaping and edible food production can and should be one in the same.

Mountain Meadows Permaculture greenhouse in Flagstaff, Arizona. Photo by William WR Ozier Gardening is a very deep science and it takes years to become a good gardener.

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