Starting a permaculture design: surveying the resources
This morning I had a meeting with Bryn from Brighton Permaculture Trust about potentially planting some fruit trees in the garden. There is the possibility to get some local Sussex apple trees, get help with them planting, do a bit of community cookery, train people to look after the trees. Pretty amazing. I got really excited by going around the garden with Bryn. It was great to get some input from someone that is deeply passionate about fruit trees- whether planting, pruning or harvesting them. There are some old fruit trees that haven’t been well pruned, and it was great to get his advice about how to manage them over the next few years. He had lots of ideas about planting more trees in the space. It was also great to get positive feedback about the maintenance work that we have done so far, and some ideas about developing the garden into more of a forest garden in the future.
As if that wasn’t good enough, this afternoon I chatted to one of the local trainee teachers and diploma apprentices about getting involved in the design of the project. I would lead the project and she can get support and clarity about the design process, and then go on to design an aspect of the garden like the watering system, the kids’ involvement or a social hub like a clay oven. It would be fun to work on the project with someone else, especially in a mutually beneficial way like this.
So after all of this, I went to have a chat with the vicar about some of these options and to get some clarity about the garden: whose space was it legally, what were some of the ideas in the future, how much was it the community’s space… This was really useful. So my new deadline is to get the design done and the proposal done by the end of the month so that the church can make some decisions.
hedvig's permaculture adventures 