Geoff Lawton's Permaculture - Greening the Desert (2009)
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:02 amSeems appropriate that my first post in the area be the very one that introduced me to Permaculture.
This past August, I followed Mr. Lawton's basic recipe outlined in this video but adapted it for growing tomatoes during a drought in South Mississippi.
I dug a scaled down countour swale, mulched the basin, the berm and an additional ~ two feet of soil downslope. Into the area just below the berm, seven tomatoes were planted. Cut worms destroyed all but two before protective barriers were put in place. Many other tomatoes were planted in all sorts of other situations to compare growth rates. The two tomatoes planted on the inferior aspect of the swale outperformed the next most aggressively growing specimens by a factor of 2-3 and, at a minimum, kept pace with tomatoes of the same variety my father planted and fertilized with 13-13-13.
I was duely impressed with this initial foray into the world of Permaculture and from that one success, much confidence was gained. Emboldened, I lunged into the world of Permaculture.