By lambert strether of Corrente.
Readers may be interested to know that there is a permaculture installation on Cyprus at Agia Skepi Theraputic Community in Nicosia (map). Here’s a video about it:
Here’s an interview with Dr. Emily Markides (her site) who initiated the project:
Ground-hugging shrubs, aromatic plants and new trees fill the garden, some already bearing mature, scented peaches, a fruit common in the area. Along a recently laid path, there are several deep ponds, home to a chorus of frogs hidden among the water lilies. Designed on land adjacent to Agia Skepi, a drug rehabilitation centre for young men, the garden crackles with life yet has an air of extraordinary peace. The special guest on his way is Father Athanassios, Bishop of Limassol, who initiated and sourced financing for the rehabilitation centre, a personal dream now realised and immediately visible from the garden.
“Gardening is therapy,” she insists. “[‘The boys’ at the center] are beginning to really appreciate the garden. I don’t think it was the case at first – they were moaning. But now after coming out and seeing the results… the garden smiles back at them.”
The results are astounding. A ragged, wild piece of land has grown into a thing of aesthetic beauty and environmental practicality.
This is Markides’ second visit in two years and the garden has come a long way. “What we didn’t expect was to find worms this year, the soil is rich and ready.”
In the video, watch for the description of sheet mulch layering starting at 9:35, in subtitles: Manure on the bottom, then newspaper, topped with straw — although when straw became too expensive, they used seaweed! The newspaper prevents light from reaching the soil, so weeds do not grow, the newspaper and the straw together capture and hold water, and the entire system rots and enriches the soil. Last summer I didn’t weed, and I didn’t water at all, except seedlings, very early in the season. And I don’t even need to turn the soil; I just add another layer, year after year. I don’t like work. Sheet mulch is the best!
If Cyprus was covered with permaculture installations, Cypriots could pluck fruit from the trees, year round, even if they couldn’t get money from their ATMs. Stress relief, no?
NOTE I wonder if we have any Cypriots reading Naked Capitalism. If so, this video is from 2007. Has the installation survived?
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Great that you are keeping the Permaculture meme alive on NC. It represents the only way of reversing the destruction of life on Earth and actually making it a better place to live.
Whats she doing with that little circle of stones at 8.40?
I guess it’s for water retention, but how does it work?
Pray tell.
It just creates a shaded microclimate. Shade slows evaporation and encourages microbial activity.
If I understand Emily correctly, Katia uses the small stones as a marker, to show to the boys that the plant in the circle needs to be watered.
Permaculture can work miracles for small island economies battered by larger regional or global forces.
Cuba provides the perfect example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj_DV5ltdes&feature=youtu.be
Just finished watching the Cuba video, thanks for that, fromMexico. I always said that the US’s embargo of Cuba was the best thing that could happen to them. US ‘support’ of Haiti has caused nothing but misery for the average Haitian.
I read once ( though not in detail and can’t remember sources) that President Clinton added to Haiti’s misery by forcing Free Trade in rice upon Haiti. Petro-subsidized low-priced rice from America destroyed the domestic rice market in Haiti and drove Haitian rice farmers off their farms and into the urban slums like Cite’ d’Soleil (spelling?).
More recently Clinton oh-so-sincerely “mea culpafied” over that, after the damage was safely too permanent to ever reverse.
I say again that there should be a Topic called Permaculture where all these articles should be stored for easy look-back. But it means nothing if just only me is saying it over and over.
Does anyone else want to see a Permaculture Topic Area created and archived here? So they can go back and see all these posts in a building mass? If enough people say they want a Permaculture Topic for all these permaculture posts, our blog-hosts might well create the Permaculture Topic. But only if enough other people say so. I’ve said so enough myself. More broken-recording on my part just gets boring. So its up to others now. If you-all want it, you-all need to ask for it.
Yes, I’d like to see a Topic called Permaculture here.
I would too.
Permaculture is cool.
Agreed, it’d be handy to have them all sorted for easy reference.
Lambert, when I get time to watch these videos, I find that they provide additional ‘antidote’ power!
where is the water going to come from? In some cases, improved methods of water purification can play a role to upgrade existing water save and recycl, but, who finances or funds new product technologies anymore? There have been a few water technology start ups, but, they are either way under valued, or way over valued,indicative that the financing in this field is clueless. Easy to throw billions away on a facebook. Difficult to do the things that we all need for a real economy.
Part of the Permaculture concept is capturing and retaining on the targeted landscape the skywater that falls free from the sky. (I haven’t watched these videos so if this particular project is dependent on piped system-water then that observation of mine is irrelevant in this case).
But in general, part of Permaculture is groundscaping and earthworking to retain water. Retained water in the soil supports greater plant growth. Some of that growth is underground fine-roots and root-hairs which eventually decay into humus. Humus is hydrophilic and retains any water that touches it. That humus-held water allows yet more plant growth which supports yet more humus formation which retains yet more water which supports yet more plant growth . . . a Spiral Stairway to the Stars.
Here is a little blurb about a pioneer of water-retention landscape management on a huge scale.
http://www.keyline.com.au/
Could micro-keylining be done in a micro-sized place like Cyprus? ( I bet Cyprus is smaller than some of the hugest Sheep Stations in Australia).
Watched the video. In this case, they clearly already have the water, and they note it would go unused otherwise.
So why not use it?
In places without a water piping infrastructure, people would have to manage the groundform and landscape to capture and retain all falling water or dewfall.
I do not see how to do “permaculture” when we can’t predict how the climate will change due to global warming.
And if it isn’t permanent, then it’s just “agriculture”. Perhaps “temporarily sustainable agriculture”.
It can be a bridge and a learning tool if nothing else. And as the climate in any one place changes to the detriment of permacultures in that place, perhaps the changes will affect some species-members of the permaculture sooner than others. Perhaps the Permaculturist
would have time to swap in and plant homologous species from other climates into the spaces left by dropping-out species in that one place.
For example, if a cold-dry place where Siberian Pea Shrub (Caragana arborescens) works becomes too hot-dry for Siberian Pea Shrub, perhaps it will end up hot-dry enough for Mesquite (Prosopis whatever) to work instead.
Re: Permaculture on Cyprus at Agia Skepia, a far-flung correspondent writes:
I think that was the takeaway for this Geoff Lawton site as well. I suppose we go from there to funding models. Or caretaking models…
Again, if Cyprus was covered in edible forest (and why not) the banking crisis would have much less bite. If you can’t pluck money from an ATM slot, at least you can pluck fruit or nuts from a tree!