One-acre garden provides fruit, veggies and eggs for 50 families with very little labor
More and more people are learning growing food doesn’t have to be hard work. When you work with nature instead of against it, it does much of the work for you.
It’s called permaculture. While permaculture gardens require a year or two of work up front — mostly restoring land laid waste by agriculture — once they are set up, they almost tend themselves.
Limestone Permaculture Farm in New South Wales, Australia, is a shining example of how permaculture is not only the easiest way to grow food, it’s also the most productive, in the long run.
The one-acre farm supplies fruits, veggies and eggs for 50 families by using practices that regenerate soil rather than strip it of its nutrients.
One of the first principles of permaculture is not tilling the soil, which kills all the microorganisms that keep it alive.
Limestone uses raised “no-dig” or “no-till” garden beds for his annual crops in conjunction with “swales” — ditches full of perrenial plants around the beds that hold water like a sponge.
The edible ground cover plants are self-seeding, and the only “tilling” that needs to be done is done by chickens, whose manure also fertilizes the soil.
After a couple years of work, Limestone’s co-owner Brett Cooper says his super-productive farm is almost taking care of itself:
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Comments
11 responses to “One-Acre Permaculture Garden Feeds 50 Families”
That is absolutely wonderful
I am so impressed. It really is beautiful. Look forward to something similar.
very impresive,can you share more i intend to start a chilren home of 25. i intend to use permaculture for its sustainability,my email bensonmakovo@gmail.com
Great vision
Slow life local food
Be the voice of Nature
Am interested. Have been living off grid for 12 years. Been farming in work exchange here on Big Island Hawaii for 6 years. I need to live in nature. Nature works through me so, I’ve seen the magic. What’s it like to live there?
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Great article…
I will be discussing this on my GMO Tuesday podcast.
How to control pests like deer,rabbits and raccoons?
The article should state that this farm “supplements” diets. There is absolutely no way that 50 people are living solely on the food produced by this farm, much less 50 families.
Maybe the deer and rabbits make up the bulk.
A year or two of work is well worth what you will receive in the years to come.
Great writing style in this. Easy to understand.