Permaculture course, Kootenays, summer '09; work day

S'me, crouching to look at the various veggie beds in Gregoire's permaculture garden. In the background you can see all manners of trees.  Most of them are fruit or nut bearing. He has sheet mulched everything; first spreading cardboard in enough layers to suppress weeds, and in the veggie garden, topping with straw.  We side-dressed a lot of his vegetables this day with compost. Lookit that lovely lavendar!

We made seed balls in the shade (phew! it was hot in August!). Masanobu Fukuoka's revolutionary farming practices can be read about in "One Straw Revolution". One of his amazing practices is to make these seed balls by rolling the seeds into balls of clay and cast them about, allowing rain to break the clay down but protecting the seed from birds in the mean time.  

Casting the seed balls is exhilarating. Here, Shilough, myself and Rachel throw the seed balls into the garden area.