Gardening with the flow

Permaculture, in it’s simplest form, is about working with the flow of nature. If you think about the flow of energy across a landscape, you can see patterns. Water flows downhill and carries nutrients with it. The practice of permaculture can be thought of in terms of mimicking what nature has already taught us. 

Last winter, there was no garden next to the chicken coop. Last autumn, we gave the chickens what was left of a couple of Jack-O-Lanterns. They love the pulp and the seeds (natural dewormers, by the way.) By early spring, a couple of pumpkin plants volunteered to sprout just outside the coop from seeds that had been over looked and had washed out. These seeds sprouted in plain red clay, but they were thriving because they were getting a steady supply of chicken manure tea as the spring rains passed through the coop. 

I took some advice from Mother Nature and planted some more things there, added some compost, mulch and a natural border to keep it all in. 

There is good advice everywhere in nature, if you only know how to listen to the land, and sometimes, just bloom where you are planted.