Ecoburbia

Lawn Replacement Therapy







Also, here is the document in the infobox for the neighbors to read when they're out walking their dogs or picking their kids up from school:

[FONT=&quot]Food Forestry 101[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]This landscape is a food forest in progress. A food forest is a human-designed forest, which mimics a natural forest by creating the same level of stability of a natural forest, yet simultaneously provides functional services for human settlement. Our goal with a food forest is to design a system, which will not only take care of itself, but will also take care of us. It is a design-intensive system, which plans the obsolescence of busy work. A properly designed food forest is the Garden of Eden for the lazy gardener.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]To create stability within this man-made forest, it is necessary to first examine the structure of a natural forest, and why this structure has allowed the natural forest to sustain itself indefinitely. We can divide a natural forest into six layers: [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]1) Canopy trees[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]2) Understory trees[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]3) Shrubs[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]4) Small, herbaceous plants [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]5) Groundcovers[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]6) Climbers[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]If these six niches can be filled with bio-regionally appropriate plants, then the stability of the system from pest outbreaks and other such threats will be greatly enhanced. Nature protects itself by diversifying itself. Therefore, we must use nature as our design model.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot] Nature does not favor certain species. Instead it continuously strives for equilibrium. Using this natural order as our model, we must stop thinking in terms of getting the most fruit off of one tree, and instead, think more along the lines of creating stability. If we can start to leave behind the trophy hunter mentality of getting the biggest fruit or the most perfect salad leaves, then we can start to adopt the mentality of creating a system which favors its own permanence; which will ultimately provide more food in the long run.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]This landscape used to be a 32 x 44’ lawn, and now features two, laundry to landscape greywater-fed banana circles, the support species: Tipuana tipu and Ceanothus (these have been inoculated with Nitrogen fixing bacteria and are fixing atmospheric nitrogen into the soil – they will be continuously pruned to add nitrogen-rich mulch to other nearby plants), a Chilean Wine Palm. Also, the following rainwater-harvesting earthworks will help decrease runoff and infiltrate more water into the landscape, increasing the available water to plant roots throughout our long, dry season: a combination diversion/contour swale, an infiltration basin, and two diversion basins to keep water from pooling against key areas of the house. Also, 10 cubic yards of county mulch were brought in, and raised, backfill clay pathways will help rainwater soak off the paths and into the forested area. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]This system will be over stacked (planted densely) at the beginning of the rainy season with inoculated cover crop, and a plethora of other drought tolerant perennial edibles that have been propagated from seed, so that they have the entire rainy season to establish themselves. [/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]Other existing features include groundcovers of Sweet Potato and Okinawan Spinach, two seed-grown Banana Passion Fruit vines climbing on two Loquat trees, a Dragon Fruit cactus climbing up the trunk of one of the loquats, and a Jelly Bean Palm with an Aloe vera understory.[/FONT]​

[FONT=&quot]The remaining plants to be planted will be highly experimental plants, which have likely never been planted before in Santa Barbara. These plants have been selected based on their native habitats’ climatic similarities with coastal southern California.[/FONT]​

 

Great job Insipidtoast! And it's really good to have a before shot to remind you of how far you have come.

 

That is an excellent write up Insipid! What is the info box? Is it a sign people read?

 

Sign is a great idea. I was thinking of doing something similar with any excess produce by putting an informational sign and 'FREE FOOD' on it.

Anyone worked on nice generic permaculture signage before?

 

This is an infobox https://www.infotube.net/catalog/index.php?cPath=21

 

Update from today. My friend and I planted some of the nursery stock. I might only a add a couple more ground cover plants...other than that, all the plantings are done.