Working WITH Nature
Permaculture observes and mimicks nature’s way of organizing collaborative systems and cycles. In nature nothing is wasted – everything is constantly moving towards a new form that participates in the cycle in new ways :o) Beautiful and extremely efficient at the same time. Life and Death in one interconnected cycle without waste.
In the temperate climate a piece of land would – if left to itself – slowly become a forest. This is the basic moment in nature here. Permaculture works with this movement, but seeks with intelligent design to optimize and ”manipulate” this so that the forest growing is established much faster and contains a huge variety of trees and plants that are beneficial and useful for humans, animals, insects and for the system itself.
A forest garden – or a food forest – is a design optimizing the use of an area by stacking crops in a growing system imitating a young forest. Trees, bushes, nitrogen fixers, accumulator plants, perennial vegetables, herbs etc. are stacked in layers according to different needs for soil, sunlight, water and nutrients – thereby creating a connected and cooperating system with an enormous biodiversity producing both food for humans and animals while feeding itself too, building soil, storing carbon in trees, soil and plants.
When a forest garden has been established it demands very little input beyond small adjustments, pruning and harvesting. In that way the forest garden is a way of producing food that is not dependent on fossil fuels to work.
The planting of Inspiratoriet’s food forest started in 2013, so it is still a very young system – and there is a lot of work in this phase :o) But we are already beginning to sense how the area is finding it’s own power and we have tasted a lot of new fruits, berries, herbs and perennial vegetables. It is both delicious and very exciting!