Gardening the Permaculture Way: How to Create an Abundant Perennial Garden

02/29/20 • 66 min

Sustainable World Radio- Ecology and Permaculture Podcast

Episode 153: Put down that shovel and start a no-till perennial garden! In this fun and informative interview, Permaculture Designer and Teacher Morag Gamble shares her tips about how to create an abundant and thriving organic oasis.

Morag's garden in Queensland, Australia has more than 200 plants. In this episode she shares some of her favorites with us including Sweet Potato and Pumpkin. Did you know that you can eat the leaves of both?

We focus on soil health and how to build fertility through feeding the soil, why multifunctional perennial plants are a good choice for any garden, how to grow living mulches, and why it's important to eat root to shoot.

We delve into Morag's in situ composting methods that enliven the soil onsite and learn how to brew Comfrey Tea that is beneficial for plants and a potent soil activator. We also talk about what makes plants "Permaculture plants" and why they are good bets for your new or existing garden.

Working with the principles found in nature, you can start and maintain a beautiful and healthy organic garden that benefits not only you and your family, but also the wildlife in your yard.

More about Morag: Morag Gamble is the founding director of the Permaculture Education Institute. You can watch her videos online at her YouTube Channel and read her articles at Our Permaculture Life.

Morag offers many courses, including a Permaculture Gardening Course called The Incredible Edible Garden.

Morag lives at Crystal Waters. You can learn more about this award-winning eco village here.

Note: Our interview was recorded before the devastating fires in Australia. I spoke with Morag recently about the fires and will be posting that conversation as an episode soon. Until then, here's a link to the Ethos Foundation that will support communities in need, by offering free permaculture education once the fires settle. Through the program, participants will work on connecting with their community, creating collective projects like community gardens and focus on regenerating and rebuilding – creating resilient food gardens and wildlife gardens, creating bushfire-safe landscapes and homes with a permaculture design approach. They will also activate teams to help build gardens where needed – permablitz in bushfire communities.

Working with the principles found in nature, you can start and maintain a beautiful and healthy organic garden that benefits not only you and your family, but also the wildlife in your yard.

More about Morag: Morag Gamble is the founding director of the Permaculture Education Institute. You can watch her videos online at her YouTube Channel and read her articles at Our Permaculture Life.

Morag offers many courses, including a Permaculture Gardening Course called The Incredible Edible Garden.

Morag lives at Crystal Waters. You can learn more about this award-winning eco village here.

Previous Episode

Fantastic Fungi

Episode 152: Famed cinematographer Louie Schwartzberg talks about his new film Fantastic Fungi that highlights the fascinating and often hidden world of the fungi beneath our feet.

Renowned for his time lapse work with flowers, Louie has now turned his lens toward the fungal kingdom with astonishing and beautiful results. In this episode, we do a deep dive into Fungi and the many solutions that they offer us at this critical time, including:

Carbon sequestration: Fungi are a climate change solution.
Mycoremediation: Fungi are the grand decomposers of nature and can be used to clean up environmental toxins, including oil spills.
Health: Medicinal mushrooms support our health and boost our immunity.
Water filtration: Fungi can clean contaminated water.
Therapy: Psilocybin mushrooms are being used therapeutically and mindfully to for consciousness raising.
Example of Sharing Economy: Fungi are a model and metaphor of a successful sharing economy, based on cooperation, that allows ecosystems to flourish.

Louie also talks about what he's learned from his forty years of filming flowers, how pollination is the love story that feeds the earth, and why it's time to change our narrative about nature- from survival and competition to partnership, cooperation, and interconnectedness.

Louie Schwartzberg is a voice for nature, plants, animals, and now fungi. An award winning cinematographer, director, and producer, Louie is the only filmmaker to be inducted into the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A visual artist who tells stories that celebrate life and reveal the mysteries and wisdom of nature, Louie Schwartzberg is a true environmental advocate.

Learn about Louie's new film Fantastic Fungi at FantasticFungi.com and look for a showing near you here.

Visit Louie's website at MovingArt.com.

Next Episode

Saving Medicinal Plants

Episode 154: When medicinal at risk plants need help, United Plant Savers (UPS) comes to the rescue! Known as the "consciousness of the herbal products industry" because of their work with at risk medicinals, UPS staff and members have their feet on the ground and their hands in the soil protecting and growing these healing plants.

The former site of a contour mine, the 379 acre UPS Botanical Sanctuary in South Eastern Ohio is now home to nearly 400 plant species. In this interview with John Stock, Outreach Coordinator and Sanctuary Manager for United Plant Savers, we learn why we should be concerned about where our herbal medicine comes from, how medicinal plants are being affected by the $8 billion a year herbal products industry, and how we can get involved with UPS by becoming a member or a grower in their Botanical Sanctuary or Sacred Seeds Networks. There are over 140 botanical sanctuaries across the US and Canada and there's still room for more!

John and I discuss why medicinal plants need our attention and conservation efforts right now, some of the twenty plants that UPS has earmarked as being at risk, and what the biggest impacts on these plants are- think habitat loss, growing demand, over-harvesting, and little accountability in the herbal products supply chain. We learn what we can do to support the continued health and abundance of medicinal plants and how preserving them has the added benefit of increasing biodiversity and sustaining healthy forests.

You can learn more about UPS here: United Plant Savers.org.

Take a look at their Species At Risk and To Watch List here.

Become a member by clicking here: I Want to be a Member!

Thanks for listening!