Day 82 (Merri-Bee Organic Farm)

The same as yesterday, I was up and into work by 7:00am. All I do is walk down the stairs, straight out the door and I already start. I had a pretty bad sleep last night, similar to my first night here, as the roosters keep roosting through out the night. In addition to this a bat flew into my room last night and went around in circles for about 25minutes. Fortunately he found his way back out the window. It's a shame as the windows have no fly wire and it gets quite stuffy in my bedroom, but from now on I'll be keeping it closed.

The activities today were similar to yesterday. In the afternoon we cut down some tagasate branches to feed the pigs. They grow tagasate around the property specifically for pig fodder. It's meant to be high in protein, nitrogen fixing and is a fast growing tree.

I noted the other day that the property appears disorderly from a conventional perspective. The reason I say this is due to the fact it looks messy - paper scattered around the chook hens, plants growing over fences, ducks walking all over the place, shrubs in all corners of the property. In any spot for plants to grow you will generally find something there. This is however cleverly structured and planned out to benefit its surroundings. The paper is to add carbon to the chooks compost, the plants growing over fences are put there for root support and the shrubs are scattered to reap nitrogen from the surrounding low lying legume plants. This is essentially permaculture, a productive system that utilises all natures supplies in a manner non damaging to the environment. Rather then using a toxic fertiliser for nitrogen, you plant intelligently and utilise nitrogen fixing plants. In doing companion planting you eliminate the need for dangerous fertilisers. This also benefits the bees, increasing pollination, and improves the quality of our food source.

The problem with this system is it is not efficient for the intensive type farming that allows for mass consumption of one particular food source- wheat, corn, soy or rice. For companies specialising on one produce, particularly mass scale mono-crops, permaculture is a waste of time. It's more profitable to use damaging pesticides or fertilisers that ward off any natural threat to a crop. As a result people often think it is not possible to eat organically on a mass scale. If one property in a street yielded as much supply as a productive permaculture property could, the whole street would have enough fresh produce to sustain themselves. In addition if one other house had a productive set up they could then trade and diversify their food source. This really shouldn't appear to be such a complex thing, it's been proven for thousands ands thousands of years, and we're meant to be the most advanced society in the world to date. Why can't we have fresh natural food?

During my apprenticeship in landscape gardening I viewed these types of gardens as messy, poorly maintained and constructed by some hack gardeners who have no skill in landscape construction. I believed you needed to bricklay, pave and concrete areas of your garden to make it an effective garden. I was taught through work and trade school that aesthetic features were the only things to consider in plant selection, and drought tolerance was what classified sustainable planting. When experiencing how productive a permaculture property can be it makes me realise how systematically flawed landscape construction is, how flawed societal perspectives are on what productive gardens should be and how oblivious we are to the efficiency we can achieve through simple natural processes. The best thing about this gardening, contrary to what we are told to believe, anyone can construct a productive garden and no special knowledge is required, nor special experience for that matter. If you search for a productive garden or get a book for companion planting you can make your first steps.

Some extra things for me to consider when finishing this trip.