Alex Ojeda in Jacksonville, Florida, gives us a tour of the techniques, philosophies, and plantings in his back yard permaculture garden.
“The thing that makes permaculture so amazing to me is that it’s sort of an encyclopedia heading of everything that all of our indigenous ancestors ever learned, updated to be a little bit more focused and modern. We take what our ancestors learned and we try to use that in new and different ways and / or focus them by putting them all together. Focus them on one piece of property, to, and this is important, to holistically manage a piece of property.”
Tour: Part 2
“The point of permaculture is not to dig or till or anything like that. You never do that except maybe when you first walk into a very compacted piece of property. And then what we want to do is dig it up, loosen it up and infuse it with some kind of organic material. Now you have to have a proper balance of minerals in order for the subterranean life to get a foothold and turn that into really amazing life-giving vibrant soil.”
Tour: Part 3
“I believe that using permaculture design sciences, the understanding of how we interact and how we hook into the natural systems of the earth, that we can live with all the same luxuries that we have, with an abundance, with more than we have today, freer than we have today, and I do believe we can do that while also returning the earth to a healthier state than when we began.
Permaculture to me is how I can have more following nature’s rules with less work on my own part and without me having to figure out every little aspect and detail of what makes it works, because nature already has that plan figured out for us. It’s just a matter of understanding it and playing by the rules.”
