All entries for Saturday 09 May 2009

Diary of a Permaculturalist 12: Poet in an Allotment

Follow-up to Diary of a Permaculturalist 10: Save Keresley Greenbelt from George Ttoouli, Warwick Writing Programme

I was really delighted to see Jay Bernard's latest blog over at My Place or Yours. As part of a mentoring scheme getting new poetry voices out in the community on unusual residencies, Jay was dropped into an allotment back in November and has been drawing inspiration from the garden and residents and various aspects of nature. Also this little bit of information:

I spoke to a woman who is a don at Oxford and who encouraged me to try and make changes within the university. ‘The food is crap, highly subsidised, unhealthy,’ she said. ‘I really think organising something around food would be a good move as there are so many implications. You could start with a garden, start with something small, and let it grow. The thing is, you don’t want to have the chefs and the university administration against you. There’s nothing worse. But you can really show them that changes can be made, things can be done.’

I had an email exchange with Liz Dowler at Warwick about a similar project, at the recommendation of the VC, last summer. The loose idea was to try and create a teaching space that was also a communal garden, producing food that went directly into student & staff stomachs. The idea is a bit of a pipe dream, from my perspective. Someone will need to take responsibility for managing a space like this throughout the year, so it  doesn't help to have teaching falling between October and March. It makes you wonder if there shouldn't be agricultural qualifications offered that run from March to September, during the main growing seasons, with the ground left fallow, or sown with clover, to enrich the topsoil again, during the colder months.

That said, I'm still interested in geographically specific permaculture systems. Where The Land Institute in the US has been researching harvestable prairie, or parts of northern Asia now have rice growing in permaculture systems ('doing nothing' farming), I've never been quite sure if there are any geographically dominant systems that the UK can adopt, though orchard farming combined with small-scale husbandry has cropped up in a few places I've looked.

Really, the idea of a taxonomic, abstract model is a bit pointless, though that always seems to be the way to get widespread interest. By all accounts, you have to look at what you've got, first of all, then see how to go about creating a self-sustaining ecosystem within it, which can provide resources. Still, a part of me can't help thinking that what's missing for the amateur enthusiast like me is a book that tells you how to set up a low maintenance system in your back garden, but I'd be the first to confess that I'm coming at this as a poet and, like Jay, I'm more taken by the bizarre little details about potatoes "conditioning the soil". Personally, I'm less taken by the urge to pick up a spade and get muddy.

You can read more of Jay's blogging here.

George Ttoouli : 09 May 2009 11:00 |  Tags: Allotments Jay Bernard Permaculture |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem