Basecamp gardens plan - click for enlargement. As for my illustration skills, that's what happens when you spend your life on a laptop - you draw like a 12 year old... 

Planning, making and planting the gardens around Bascamp has become one of my favourite parts of the week, and we are finally starting to feast on the results! I really cannot believe that i didn't garden for the first 30 years of my mishappen (but oh-so very full) life... what was i thinking? This is great! And you can eat it! Yum.

I started planning the Basecamp Garden as a result of a kick up the bum, thanks to some Canadian friends who stayed here over winter, and who sort-of barged in and constructed a no-dig mainbed next to the caravan. As I've mentioned earlier, up until this point we were trying to keep the Milkwood Kitchen Garden going while living over the hill... and it just wasnt really working. Start at your front step, work from there. I should probably get that statement tatooed somewhere... 

So following the Canadians de-planting (from the Milkwood Kitchen Garden) and re-planting (in the Basecamp mainbed) all existing living vegetables, we had a starting point at the end of this winter past. And then we found out we were pregnant, and I had the standard pregnancy freak-out about shop-bought fruit and vegies (regardless of how pure their label says they are)... add to this we had always been planning to eat off Milkwood as much as possible, we just hand't gotten into the swing of that aspect of things yet... building somewhere to live and establishing hydrology will do that to you... but enough of the whys and wherefores... the point being that we have begun, and it's looking better every day.

I tried to design the Basecamp gardens with a couple of things in mind;

• These gardens are temporary... a one-year-only affair, so there's no point getting terribly advanced regarding their establishment, beyond what is needed for the next two seasons.
• They need to provide as much food as possible for two people plus extras, with surplus for preserving.
  
• The water supply is limited to greywater from the washing machine, water-tank overflow, and a bit of supplementary tank water.
• The site is quite exposed to the West (and to just about everywhere else, actually) so we need to use shelter, aspect and driplines from available structures to maximise growth.
• The caravan, being exposed to the west and therefore the afternoon sun, could do with some protection in the form of summer growth up and over its western end.
  
• It is very hot and dry here over Summer. eek.

And, in short, the above diagram (no comments on my illustration skills, please) is what I came up with. So far, this plan has been working out really well, due to basic attention to the above factors, particularly utilizing aspect, shelter and driplines. All beds are no-dig beds, which is a good quick method outlined here. Oh and of course, extra heavy mulching of all garden beds to guard against evaporation... no soil is visible anywhere in the Basecamp garden, it is all safely 20cm or more under a nice thick mulch of straw, which builds soil as the garden grows. Our yeild is currently such that we are eating out of the garden every day, even though all beds except the rip-roaring mainbed are yet to produce anything of edible size (due to the late frosts here - the growing season is, infact, only just this week starting to get going). There's a couple of features to this design worth noting:

Utilization of greywater + water tank overflow: on the western side of the caravan are two beds that have been build on contour with the slope of the site. Above each bed is a trench path about 30cm wide and 20cm deep, which runs the length of each bed on its up-slope side. Each trench is filled with sawdust. The trench of the upper bed gets a direct output from the washing machine in the Woolshed, and this weekly influx of moisture fills up the trench and proceeds to slowly filter downhill through the bed, and all the vegies in that bed go suddenly wild with delerious thanks for the extra moisture arriving directly at their root zone. If we do two washes, the moisture continues into the trench below it and into the next bed below that.

The second trench, directly up-slope from the mainbed, is lined up to receive the overflow from the water tank which collects off the Woolshed roof. Overflowing water tanks around these parts are an infrequent occurrence, true, but you gotta use whatever water you can, whenever it appears. On the rare occasions when the tank does overflow, the same thing happens - the trench fills up, and the moisture filters slowly down-slope through the mainbed, and all the vegies in that bed similarly go crazy. N.B. a system like this depends apon you using a very greywater-friendly washing agent in the smallest amount possible. Knowing you're going to consume the (filtered) outcome of your washing does wonders for your awareness of such things...

 
Aspect: This is making a big difference to what grows successfully where, given the unrelenting sun. For example, the bed which is against the woolshed is the most protected from the north, which means it is the most shaded. So this bed is primarily planted with greenstuffs - spinach, lettuces, the more tender herbs, and basically everything that will get petulant at being constantly bombarded by full sun. This bed is also down-slope from the washup area, and so gets a residual (again, small but significant) amount of moisture from the leaky pipe coming out of the sink, and the garden tap.

Driplines:  This is one of those highly residual factors that Permaculture emphasizes so much - the collation of a heap of 1% advantages that coalesce to form a sizable advantage... in this case, the advantage of better plant growth due to that itty bit of extra moisture in the form of driplines. In this context, a 'dripline' is the perimeter around a structure where the dew drips off the roof or the eave or just the wall and hits the ground below it. On a farm, (or in a city for that matter) you can see these everywhere if you look closely - it's usually signified by a slight spike in plant growth... either in the height of a line of grass, a different species popping up in a very confined area, mossy patches, etc etc. If you see one of these near a structure, look up. And you'll usually see that there's something for a drip to descend from. At Basecamp, there's a dripline all the way around the caravan, and a particualrly good one off a certain corner of the Woolshed roof. I've made all the beds around the caravan extend under the van, past the dripline. This way, that line of moisture passes into the bed. As for the Woolshed drip, that's where I'm planting my sugarbaby watermelon, which loves all the extra water it can get (apparently, according to its packet).

Other than that, I'm watering everything every second sunset (never in the daytime) and planting twice a week...  and it all seems to be working! Stay tuned for recepies on 61 things to do with silverbeet...  

 
The herb garden, slowly beginning to gather steam after being planted 2 months ago... note that garden bed extends under caravan to pick up that dripline...

How good are these? You probably don't know, so I'll tell you - they're great! Oh and though this looks like a shameless plug saying, basically, *buy stuff*, I'm afraid I have to mention it because they really are splendid. And really, how many other 2009 diaries will you find that contain the gruff but pertinent quote:

"there are two sorts of people in this world - those who poo in drinking water, and those who don't..."

Ok, a little background... the 2009 Permaculture Diary + Calendar have been put together by Michele Margolis + David Arnold over the last 6 months or so. During this time, they invited contributions from people + groups all over to contribute projects and images for the two publications.  I recently bought one of each to see how they turned out, and they are really, really good.

The Calendar has come out as your standard glossy calendar with lovely pictures of people and projects, with all the usual calendar stuff in it. Everything a wall calendar should be. The Diary is a tour-de-force of people, projects, community initiatives and images of permaculture projects, community gardens and all things sustainable. It really is a good read in itself, and then ontop of that it's, like, a diary... the diary also has squeezed in helpful stuff like sowing guides for vegies, a planner section, tips, quotes and all the usuals like phases of the moon, school holidays, and of course the week-to-an-opening actual diary bit.

So yes. That is my rave. Both publications have been independantly and ethically produced, resonably priced, you can do wholesale deals if you want to sell them as fundraisers for your school or community organisation, and they both constitute worthy educational tools and a heartwarming read, all at once. Oh and they'd make good gifts for the upcoming season of gifting that will soon be apon us. So if you must buy stuff, subject your relatives and workmates to recieving something actually useful (that is not a hanky or socks). Who knows - they might just bring you in some of their first crop of tomatoes this time next year as a result...

Here's where you get 'em: PermaculturePrinciples.com are selling both the Diary and the Calendar online with free shipping... hooray for people making their own earth!

About a year ago I mentioned here about the small but significant gesture that is Feral Fruit Mapping... and now it's that time of year again (southside of this planet, anyways)... things are blossoming left, right and centre, and it is therfore a most excellent time to get your Feral Fruit Map going and map out where fruit is overhanging fences and growing roadside in your area, in preperation for the potential harvest to come...

Since I posted about this subject last year, I've discovered a bunch of folks both in Oz and abroad who are collating and sharing knowledge on this sorta subject in a variety of formats, which is great! However, I cannot help but be a little amazed that it isn't happening more visibly, more often... ah well - perhaps one of the potential upsides to the recent economic downturn is that more people look to their back lanes and roadsides for some old-fashioned sustenance, rather than doing their hunting and gathering gathering only from their supermarket shelves...

At anyrate, here's what I've stumbled across so far in the last year - please let me know if you know of other examples...

FallenFruit.org - LA based fruit mappers/artists: "Using fruit as our lens, Fallen Fruit investigates urban space, ideas of neighborhood and new forms of located citizenship and community. From protests to proposals for new urban green spaces, we aim to reconfigure the relation between those who have resources and those who do not, to examine the nature of & in the city, and to investigate new, shared forms of land use and property." Go Kids. The site includes simple 'how tos' on mapping etc. Here they are on Facebook and even at Ars Electronica.

Urban Orchard projects - Loose but wonderful affiliations of residents who share and swap surplus fruit and produce once a month... sorta Feral-Fruit-Comes-to-U... You show up with lotsa lemons and you swap for apricots and some beans. Obviously the majority of the participants have their own tree of some type in their yard, but who's to complain if you show up with a load of fejoas that you gathered from that abandonded house next to the railway line? There seems to be a Melbourne contingent hosted by Ceres, and the Sydney one is starting up via Alfalfa House. Also, a How-to guide for setting an Urban Orchard up in your community...

Weedy Connection - Diego is a Sydney based artist who had created a damn fine 'useful + edible weed' database and regularly holds weed workshops around Sydney and beyond... he's apparently keen to start on a Sydney Feral Food map so I'm hopeful that mentioning it here will give him a proverbial poke. Remembering that a weed is, by definition, only a plant out of place, there's alot more to be gleaned in your local park than you might think...

And then there's folks like Leda who commented on the last Feral Fruit post with; I've been using the Google maps function on my iPhone to map the fruit trees here in Brooklyn, NY. I just bookmark each tree with a description and a pin on the map. Works beautifully! I also include a note about the date that particular fruit was ripe.

I've also hear rumours of State-based initiatives to map the feral food of a community for that communities use... especially in Melbourne - but as yet I have no proof that I can pass on. Oh and lastly there's the National Post of Canada, who decided to do an article on this subject and quoted us... 

But surely that's not it? Anyone got any other leads? Or maps? Or community initiatives? Perhaps, as my own mother pointed out (who is a feral fruitier from way back) some folks keep the location of their secret peach trees to themselves... but I say that resource shared is a resource expanded so... any other leads on like-minded projects?

As a kid growing up on the seaside at Kiama (a pretty bit of the south coast of NSW) there was what would now be called a nature reserve between our house and the beach. When I was small it was just a bit of grassy space with a swamp at the end of it, and was where all the newly built households along that stretch came to dig out vast quantities of sand, to cart it back to their quarter-acre blocks for their kid's sandpits... despite the fact that there was are rather larger sandpit (ie a BEACH) right there for their kids to use whenever they liked... ever noticed how private pools figure largely in the backyards of beach-side houses? Same psychology, i think...

Anyway. My Dad decided that we would plant a costal forest on this sorry little strip of grass at the bottom of the hill, and endless sticky summer days were spent carting buckets of water to resuscitate all manner of seedlings that our family planted all up and down this open space - Norfolk Island Pines, Ti-trees, Coral trees, Banksias, more Banksias, more Ti-trees and later on a couple of Morton Bay Figs and even a costal Quince or two. This planting and watering cycle went on for most of my childhood, interjected with Dad rushing down the hill every now and then to intercept marauding kids who meandered up from the car-park at the other end of the beach  and attempted to trash the plantings. Good, clean fun.

I remember Dad telling me once that the avenue of Ti-trees we had planted that day would one day reach far above my head and create a tunnel that I could walk through, down to the waves. And I remember thinking that there was NO WAY that could ever happen, as I looked at those pathetic little seedlings already half lost in the long grass - yeah sure Dad - and I moped off feeling both resentful and tired after a day of hauling water from the little swamp on my fat little 5-year-old legs.

Now whenever I go back to my parent's house I wander though this place, my favorite forest... the ground is deep in topsoil after 30 years of leaf litter mulching it, the trees stretch tall and there are many tunnels through which I can walk down to the waves. Under one of the special trees are the ashes of my Grandmother and also my Great-Aunt, with a legion of family dogs, goldfish and other little critters laid to rest here and there in the many groves. This little forest is a privilege and a pleasure to be in, and now that the ecology has found a kind of balance, all manner of native species are popping up, both plant and animal, that would have never, ever stood a chance here 30 years past, when it was just that little windswept strip at the bottom of the hill.

So lately what we have been mulling over is this: what is a suitable inheritance? What things can you bequeath to your children that will actually enrich the environment and deeply connect the child to country at the same time? The above example is one way. But here at Milkwood, we're planning for another.

I've been gathering a collection of flying rumors about trees as inheritance. Not the plant-a-tree-and-save-the-world type thing, nor the offset-your-guilt-about-X-by-planting-Yx100-trees type thing, though both those concepts have their merits. Im talking planting specific trees for a specific purpose, specifically for that particular child. For example, I've heard that in Poland there is an old tradition of planting a grove of trees apon the birth of a child. The species of tree is chosen for its superior qualities of structural timber. When the child 'comes of age', that grove of trees is used to build their house with. Or there is the Chinese tradition of planting a grove of trees for every daughter (on certain islands of the Yangtze), the timber from which will become her dowry. Or the tradition in the south of France, where a line of Lombardy Poplars are planted for every girl-child, for the same reason...

The reason I like this idea of trees as inheritance (not dowry, mind you, just inheritance) so much is that it ties the kid to the land and to the country in specific way. You grow, you watch your trees grow. You can sit in the middle of your own grove. You have stewardship of something and you have responsibility for something. The actual outcome and the implications of what having a grove means might not resonate with a 6 year old, but that's fine. They are just your trees. And one day when you need them, they can be turned into high-value timber; for you to build something, or for you to secure something else, depending on your needs and wants.

And when it is time to turn your grove into a resource, it's not just a matter of cashing in that long-term deposit. It's a process which is real and actually happening in front of you, and contains all the emotions of transformation from one state to another. You can see it happening, smell it happening, and most likely you'll be deeply involved in the whole process of taking this resource from tall tree to dressed timber. And though this concept implies a different sort of 'worth' from the usual forms of inheritance, but I thinks it's the one that we're going for...