Hayden and Mary-Kate moving the chicken tractors along.  Wherever this goes, a rich layer of chicken ‘compost’ is left in its wake for any young trees or shrubs to be planted behind it.

We have a few seats remaining in our upcoming Internship Sessions

During their first 8-days, our interns immersed themselves in:

• Spring gardening bed prep and harvested early perennials.
• Beehive inspections and maintenance
• Field trip to Univ. of Illinois Woody Ag Research Site
• Harvested wild edibles and used in community meal.
• Laying out and planting of the first linear food forest for the CSC permaculture design. (see below)
• …and today they learned how to ‘harvest’ chickens.

Mary-Kate (L) and Nancy – Interns for First Session

Planting of the First Linear Food Forest

Yesterday we all gathered to mark out the placement and plant the first trees for one of the linear food forests.  This food forest is being placed on the downhill side of the first swale which we dug over the last two years with the help of our PDC courses.  The trees and shrubs we purchased from Oikos Tree Crops, the Arbor Day Foundation and Raintree Nursery.  

Below is the basic sketch we created to use as a planting template. It’s not pretty but it communicates what it needs to.

 The above, simple, linear-food forest design was patterned from the ‘Fruit Tree Guild’ 
included in our free eBooklet (page 11) by Bryce Ruddock.

If you have not seen this before, below is the cross-section diagram of what we have created for the CSC Design. One note – this first swale does not have the wood buried in it to form a hugelkultur.  This is the ‘control’ swale to see how the hugelkultured swales compare as they mature over the years.

While the trees and shrubs are in the early stages of growing (small) we will use the open space surrounding them to grow some of our annual vegetables. We will also plant some nitrogen fixing ground covers and dynamic accumulators to help build the soil.

Everyone assisted with getting the plants into the ground.  The next step is to sheet mulch the entire area once the grass gets higher.  We will put down one or two layers of cardboard and cover that with 5 inches of wood-chips.  The grass will become a green manure crop as it breaks down under the cardboard.  

I think it is interesting to note that when one plants small trees like these, they are usually not doing it just for themselves.  It will probably take 10 years before this area really starts looking like a forest, and 20-30 years before it will feel like it has been in forest forever.  While the system is developing however, we will be growing annual vegetables and harvesting fast growing perennials like asparagus, rhubarb and currants which may eventually be shaded out.

Our hands-on internship team – Megan flanked by Ernest and Hayden.

Close-up view of the first trees and shrubs. They don’t look like much now but come back in 5-10 years!

We have a few seats remaining in our upcoming Internship Sessions

Consider joining us if you would like to
learn permaculture… 
by doing permaculture!

And you don’t have to be a young whipper snapper.  This internship training is for anyone, of any age, who will be applying a permaculture design to a piece of property including their own suburban yard.

What will one learn?  Go Here.

The post Permaculture Internship Program – Update 1, 2013 appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

In this hugelkultured swale, both the ditch and the wood in the berm are holding rain water.

The water we are holding back will eventually make it to our creeks and rivers anyway, but it will do so slowly… and over a long period of time… thus trickle-feeding our creeks and rivers all year round.  This is the way a normal hydrological cycle works.

The hugelkultured raised beds in the garden were designed to hold water in the pathways.  This gives the wood plenty of time to soak up water.  When the water recedes,  the paths have straw and wood chips that keep our gardeners out of the mud.

The Garden Beds were Designed and Installed by our 2013 Internship Team (L-R, Ernest Rando, Megan Krintz and Hayden Wilson). Here they are hamming it up for the camera while they construct one of the chicken tractors they will be using this year.  The foundations to a roacket stove can be seen to the right.

 Learn About our Internship Program Here

When the rain-gardens in our front yard overflow, the excess water is caught by the berm that holds our currants and gooseberries along our property line.  BTW…we do not have a basement.  If we did, we would not hold water this close to the house.  Click Here to see the picture summary of how we dug the rain gardens and built the berm. Those are transplanted lilac bushes in the foreground still waiting for warm weather to bloom.

 Considering that we were approaching drought conditions last summer, it feels incredibly good to be able to capture and store so much water in the soils around us.  All of the trees and perennial plants with deeper roots are now secure with ample water for another year.  We will only need to concern ourselves with watering our annual gardens throughout the year now.

Should you have not seen this yet, here is a simple video that explains water storage in the landscape.  It is by Geoff Lawton of the Permaculture Research Institute (PRI).  Our CSC Permaculture Design Project is posted on the PRI Worldwide website as it has been modeled after their Master Plan program.  Thank you to Geoff and PRI for their vision and leadership.

The post Spring Rains Fill Our Earthworks Multiple Times appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

From the Forward

As Midwest Permaculture grew, so did the number of requests from people looking for information and recommendations concerning what plants to add or combine to an existing tree on their landscape to create a useful plant guild. We referred them to Midwest Permaculture’s “Official Plant Guy”, Bryce Ruddock, who chairs the discussions of Plant Guilds on our networking site.  Eventually, we asked Bryce to design some foundational guilds as every day examples that would help guide those who are new to permaculture.  After he completed these we asked a PDC student of ours, Jesse Tinges, to use his landscape architectural skills to create the sketches.

We have been sharing these plant guilds with the students in our Permaculture Design Certificate Courses and they found these guilds to be so helpful and informative that we decided to make them available to the wider public with Bryce and Jesse’s blessings. With the assistance of Milton Dixon’s editing skills they are now in a public format that is easy to share on the internet.  We hope that you find them practical, useful, and inspiring.

The team effort that emerged to create this booklet is actually a good example of how guilds, plant or human, really work together. The drawings and narratives seeped into the soil of our collective efforts and continued to germinate until they materialized in the form that you see here.

While the drawings in this booklet give a simple bird’s eye view, know that in three dimensions we are filling in all the spaces and niches from the overstory or canopy tree (generally what the guild is named after) down to the soil. In addition, the plant guilds have root systems that cover every depth –mimicking that which exists above the ground, below, and include the incredibly important functions of the fungi and mycelia.

A successful plant guild will naturally evolve over time and will have diversity, interdependence and good relationships, as is needed in our human relationships as well. Resilience naturally occurs in such systems, strengthening the whole community.

Please use, experiment and enjoy!

Becky Wilson
Cofounder – Midwest Permaculture
March 2013

 These are the 9 Plant Guilds Found in the eBooklet

The post Plant Guilds appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

Next Scheduled Workshop   —  Saturday, August 17th  –  9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 
Price:  $95.00  Includes Lunch and printed copy of the Plant Guilds eBooklet  ($20 value)
At Midwest Permaculture in Stelle, IL  (Limit 24 Students)

Register Online  -or-  Call 815-256-2215 (Voice Message or Text 815-782-2216)

Bryce will Cover the Essentials: What is a Plant Guild What are the Key Elements What are the Functions we are Designing For What, Where & When Should we Plant How Plant Guilds make up a Food Forest Locating Key Plant Databases and How to Access Them online Sources for Good Plant Stock Students Will Also: On Walk — Identity Naturally Formed Plant Guilds See Plant Guilds Created by Midwest Permaculture Help Design and Actually Plant a Guild with Bryce                         Bring Your Gloves…!!!   Private Consultations with Bryce… If you have a specific project and would like Bryce’s undivided attention and recommendations, we will set a few private, 1-hour appointments on Saturday evening and Sunday Morning.  Call ahead to reserve… or… seek out Bryce following the workshop should you feel you still need additional assistance. Price: $95.00/hr.

Hard Copy Included in Price of Seminar Plant Guilds eBooklet by Bryce Ruddock Guilds Included in eBooklet                     Free Download Here Ash Tree Guild Bee Guild Evergreen Guild Fruit Tree Guild Oak Tree Guild Service Tree Guild Tree Hazel Guild Walnut Guild Wet Meadow Guild

Pictures of Bryce and Debby Ruddock’s Home – South Milwaukee, WI

29 Years Ago	Today
Looking Over the Fence into the Yard – Over 300 Species of Plants	The Walkways Help Define Sections of the Yard and Allow Access to Densely Planted Guilds
The Garden Ponds Create a Micro-climate for a Wide Assortment of Additional Species of Plants	Bryce Harvesting a Rice Crop from his Pond

What is a Food Forest?  

A food forest is essentially a collection of plant guilds that make up a young forest environment which is rich is food and other plant resources that are useful to humans, wildlife and the soil.

During this workshop students will learn the basics of food foresting and will be able to see this hugelkultured swale where we will be location a linear food forest designed for the CSC land project.

While the tress and shrubs are in the early stages of growing (small) we will use the open space to grow some of our annual vegetables. We will also plant some nitrogen fixing ground covers and dynamic accumulators to help build the soil.

The post Plant Guild Workshop appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

Students will Build and Fire-up a Thermal Mass Rocket Stove in a Single Day -

See our current  list of Rocket Stove Workshops for additional courses

Standard wood stoves waste much of the heat and wood energy when they burn, with much of it going up the chimney as hot smoke. A rocket stove burns more efficiently – converting nearly all of the fuel into CO2 and water, including the smoke. It also stores it’s thermal energy in a “battery”,  a bench that stores the heat from the fire and releases it slowly over the course of the day.  The stove can burn both logs and scrap wood and the best part is, it can heat the same space as a regular wood stove with 1/4 of the wood!

Students Being Warmed by the Malchow’s Thermal Mass Rocket Stove

How the Stove was Made

Stove made from scrap steel barrels, stovepipe, bricks and cob.  Total price: $250

What students gain from this one day workshop:

• An understanding of  the principles of a rocket stove and rocket stove mass heater (or thermal mass rocket stove)
• Poke around and fire-up the Malchow’s stove (seen in the pictures above)
• Learn to make cob from digging to application
• Experiment with making and firing-up one’s own model as seen on right
• As a group, we will assemble a thermal mass rocket stove, and fire it up…!!!

  Schedule for the Day

 About the Instructor

Click to Download .PDF Flyer to Print, Copy and Share

Milton Dixon holds a PDC and earned his Permaculture Teaching Certificate from David Jacke, author of the books, Edible Forest Gardens.  Besides being Midwest Permaculture’s tech support he is an avid urban permaculturist and organizes the Chicagoland Permaculture Meetup.  He has always had a fascination for fire and has built many rocket stoves, some successfully and some not, always learning how to do it better the next time.

Join us and learn how you can make one of these stoves for yourself!

Register online or Call Becky at 815-256-2215, voice message or text us at 815-782-2216.

Pictures from our last workshop:

Demonstrating a Kelly Kettle

Making cob

One of the students dry brick stoves

Rocket Stove Group Discussion

Discussing the connection between the barrel and the exhaust

The finished demonstration mass heater

The post Rocket Stove Workshop appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

Students will Build and Fire-up a Thermal Mass Rocket Stove in a Single Day -

See our current  list of Rocket Stove Workshops for additional courses

Standard wood stoves waste much of the heat and wood energy when they burn, with much of it going up the chimney as hot smoke. A rocket stove burns more efficiently – converting nearly all of the fuel into CO2 and water, including the smoke. It also stores it’s thermal energy in a “battery”,  a bench that stores the heat from the fire and releases it slowly over the course of the day.  The stove can burn both logs and scrap wood and the best part is, it can heat the same space as a regular wood stove with 1/4 of the wood!

Students Being Warmed by the Malchow’s Thermal Mass Rocket Stove

How the Stove was Made

Stove made from scrap steel barrels, stovepipe, bricks and cob.  Total price: $250

What students gain from this one day workshop:

• An understanding of  the principles of a rocket stove and rocket stove mass heater (or thermal mass rocket stove)
• Poke around and fire-up the Malchow’s stove (seen in the pictures above)
• Learn to make cob from digging to application
• Experiment with making and firing-up one’s own model as seen on right
• As a group, we will assemble a thermal mass rocket stove, and fire it up…!!!

  Schedule for the Day

 About the Instructor

Click to Download .PDF Flyer to Print, Copy and Share

Milton Dixon holds a PDC and earned his Permaculture Teaching Certificate from David Jacke, author of the two volume set, Edible Forest Gardens.  Besides being Midwest Permaculture’s tech support he is an avid urban permaculturist and organizes the Chicagoland Permaculture Meetup.  He has always had a fascination for fire and has built many rocket stoves, some successfully and some not, always learning how to do it better the next time.

Join us and learn how you can make one of these stoves for yourself!

Register online or Call Becky at 815-256-2215, voice message or text us at 815-782-2216.

The post Rocket Stove Workshop appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

 We are in talks with the staff at the Institute here and are looking at the possibility of co-hosting an annual PDC course on this site.  I would like to do it as much for our own education (Midwest Permaculture teachers) as that of our students for there is no better way to learn about the tropics then to be there.  

Let us know if you might consider joining us for a PDC course here at the Island School on Eleuthera.  We would of course schedule it for sometime in February, when the next snow storm blows across the northern states.

I want to thank the Cape Eleuthera Island School Staff for their generous hospitality and more importantly, for doing the work of demonstrating an ethical path toward the future.

Bill Wilson – Midwest Permaculture

The post Cal-Earth and Permaculture in the Bahamas appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

Our Suburban Front Yard with Rain Gardens and 50 Edible/Useful Species of Plants

Last night a group of our local permie family drove to Chicago to hear inspiring storyteller Warren Brush from Quail Springs Permaculture. The local Amma Center invited him. He mentioned that Amma said that since we have an uncertain and ever changing future ahead of us, the best assurance we have for a stable resilient future is to have a garden and grow food.

And that’s just what our Essential Permaculture weekend is about. Growing food, capturing energy and water, getting started in looking at your world from a Permaculture perspective while transforming your relationships and community. And it all starts with simple steps.

Join us if you can in Omaha.  

Here’s the info:  http://midwestpermaculture.com/courses-training/about-2-day-essential/

The post Essential Permaculture Weekend in Nebraska appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

For a second year we co-delivered with the Cal-Earth teaching staff a combined Superadobe Earth Building and Permaculture Design Certificate Course.  At the close of our training we were pleased to host Geoff and Nadia Lawton of PRI-Australia who shared their work in desert environments with us while they were in the USA for a brief visit.  This workshop was also opened to the general public seen here at the end of a really great day of learning.  

Our 2012 Cal-Earth PDC on Guest Day with Geoff and Nadia Lawton – Picture taken on one of the Cal-Earth buildings.

Cal-Earth Site Director Ian Lodge (L) with Geoff, Latifa and Nadia Lawton, and Becky, Hayden and me (Bill Wilson)

Let’s continue this picture summary from the Beginning of the Training….
 Or… go directly to the pictures of the Geoff & Nadia Lawton day

These combined Superadobe and PDC Courses take place in Hesperia, CA, at the Cal-Earth campus. Class might be held anyplace on site including here outside of Earth One, Cal-Earth’s flagship building.

Another Outdoor Classroom Space made with Superadobe

Much of the instruction happens in this circular classroom. Here Becky teaches a segment of the training on financial permaculture.

The Circular Classroom made from Strawbales and Superadobe

Another key building at Cal-Earth is the Eco-dome. Becky and I stayed in the home for a few nights and loved it.

Being a dome, it is circular on the inside, beautiful, and very solid.

We slept in one of the attached mini-domes.

Also on the campus is a small area called ‘international village’ where a variety of shaped superadobe structures can be closely studied. These are the spaces that some of our students stayed in at no additional charge while taking the training over the 2-week period.

Having learned about thermal mass rocket stoves during last year’s permaculture training, the Cal-Earth teaching team has since built two such stoves to test them out in superadobe structures. A hand-in-glove fit. They work incredibly well and look great too.

Cal-Earth Instructor Marco Cervantes

Cal-Earth Instructor Dave Walker making his point.

Cal-Earth Designer, Builder and Instructor, Hooman Fazly

Students blocking the wind by holding up a tarp allow for an accurate reading on the A-frame.   Xavier, from France, is working with the frame.

There were 7 students from other countries joining us at this training giving it an international feeling. Just in this picture there are students from 4 different parts of the world.

Ghassan learning to use a hand-held site level used for locating swales, terraces and keylines which all must be on contour.

Lilly and Rayan build a self-standing arch with no mortar…! Only bricks and pebbles.

This batch of superadobe begins in a wheelbarrow consisting of the earth (this earth has a lot of sand), water and a touch of Portland cement.

The mixture is poured into the bags… worked into position… and then tamped down to push out the air and create a good bond.

For arches, a form is made, superadobe applied by hand, and then screeded-off for uniformity….all done by students at this training so that they have the practical hands-on experience.

During a plant walk we begin to understand the types of plants that can survive and even thrive in this desert environment.

As part of the permaculture training, students are divided up into design teams for different exercises.

Students working on their final design project.

Some of the sessions were hosted inside of Earth-One.  Wesley Roe and Margie Bushman of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network came over and did a great segment of the training on what is called ‘invisible structures.’  These have to do with all of those things that we rarely think about in our culture but rely on heavily… like money, community services, and relationships with others.

Here Margie and Wes relax a bit  on our newly constructed earth-bag raised garden beds with Becky and Candace Vanderhoff.  Candace is our grey-water designer for the training and a fellow permaculture teacher who lives in San Diego.

Here, Candace Vanderhoff is ready to throw the valve on the newly installed ‘laundry to landscape’ greywater system that all of our students assisted in constructing.

This is a simple sketch that Candace drew to explain the elements in the system to our students.  Since the intern house at Cal-Earth almost always has people living in it, and occasionally doing their laundry, the garden beds will now have all of the water they will need even in this desert environment.

Below is a great 4 min. video on how this simple ‘Laundry to Landscape’ system works produced by Art Ludwig of Oasis Designs.

While some students started on the greywater system, others worked on the superadobe earth bags that would build the raised garden beds.  We know that gaining the hands-on experience is vital for really understanding how to build by this method.

Tamping down the bags to remove air and enhance the bond in the superadobe.

Students collecting the earth that will be used in the superadobe mixture.

The first ring of bag is filled, laid and tamped. The small cement mixer was used for this larger project.

Everyone helped in this project including Ian Lodge who is the Cal-Earth Site Director.  He is one of those teachers who leads by doing.

To direct rain water from the roof gutter to the french drain (which flows to the garden beds) a rain-chain was handmade by Rizia.

Mattress springs used as lattice by the climbing plants in the greywater bed.

Students Jade, Sarafina, Shirin, Saji and Caitlin stop for a moment to take this quick picture. Good friendships are made at most all PDC courses as it is deeply inspiring to be with others who care about the planet, people and the future.

We worked late into the afternoon and some evenings. Hayden and Hooman are putting on some finishing touches to the second layer.  It was warm, especially for October.

One of the raised beds with the greywater system neatly in place is just about ready to be back-filled with soil.

Candace and Morganne with the filled bed and plants already added.

The beds were done and ready for showing on the last day when a large group of people from the public came to visit Cal-Earth and meet Geoff and Nadia Lawton.

All of the complete beds on the final day. They still need to be plastered for a finished look. Check back and I will post a finished picture following our next permaculture training at Cal-Earth.  The gravel trench in the foreground is a french drain that carries the rainwater from the rain chain to the garden bed.

A second line is pulled off of the washing machine toward the other side of the house where students constructed a hugelkultur bed and swale.

Once the line was properly installed, the trench was back-filled.

The hugelkultur bed was dug fairly deep and then back-filled with woody material, clay, compost and soil.

This short video of ours will explain how a hugelkultured bed with a swale works.

The greywater line was run up to the top of the finished hugelkultur bed where it was dumped into a perforated drain tile.  (Note the swale or ditch to the left of the bed which is designed to capture and hold rainwater during the few times per year when there are torrential rains.  Captured rainwater slowly soaks into the bed and the wood within it.)

Now, every time someone does the laundry and turns the handle toward the hugelkultur bed, it will get a good drink of water, and the wood underneath will soak much of that water up and hold it for longer periods of time than the sandy soil can. This bed will be an oasis of water and nutrients for every plant placed on or near this bed.

Here are most of our design course students following the completion of the hugelkultur bed.  Proud Workers.

 Geoff Lawton Workshop Day – Oct.20, 2012

On the last day of our PDC training we invited Geoff and Nadia Lawton to join us. This was not Geoff’s first visit to Cal-Earth.

Here is Geoff (R) in the summer of 2006 with Cal-Earth’s founder Nader Khalili, two years before Nader’s passing when Wesley Roe of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network (mentioned above) brought Geoff over so that these two world-class humanitarians could meet face to face.

So it was heartening that Nader’s daughter, Sheefteh Khalili, was able to open the day by telling us all a bit about her father’s work and his dreams for Cal-Earth while also introducing Geoff and Nadia to a room of over 70 people.

While in the domed classroom, Geoff spoke throughout the day of how he and others have been able to turn desert environments into bountiful gardens using creative yet fundamental permaculture design strategies which are all taught in every Permaculture Design Certificate Course.

 About Greening the Desert

 Many of us were introduced to Geoff through the very popular 6-minute film Greening the Desert.  It is the story of a reclamation project in one of the hottest and driest environments in the world — the Desert Jordan, just above the Dead Sea in the Middle East. 

Geoff and Nadia have worked on many projects around the world including this garden at a girls school, also in Jordan.

BEFORE

2 YEARS AFTER

 You can follow Geoff and Nadia’s work by visiting the website of the Permaculture Research Institute-Australia.

Newcomers to Cal-Earth were also toured around the site by Ian Lodge to learn more about Nader’s work.  Both Ian and Hooman Fazly hand worked closely with Nader Khalili.

While the students were touring the grounds, Hooman Fazly, myself, and Geoff were able to converse on the work of Cal-Earth, Midwest Permaculture, and PRI-Australia.  Though the specifics differ, and our locations are thousands of miles apart, the work is the same:  Care of People – Care of Planet – Fair Share

Becky and Nadia were able to get acquainted and learn from each other’s work as well.

Knowing how busy Geoff always is, it was a pleasure to see him enjoying some ‘daddy’ time with his young daughter Latifa inside of one of the small earth domes.

Besides the day of instruction, on the following morning our students were treated to some down-time with Geoff and Nadia so that they could get to know them personally.

We end where we began with the group shot on the Geoff and Nadia Lawton day. The combined trainings that we are doing with Cal-Earth are quite life-changing for most students. We invite you to consider joining us at a future training.

 Our Next Scheduled Cal-Earth Combined Training is Oct. 7-18, 2013

See our Full Schedule

The post Our Cal-Earth Permaculture Course 2012 – Picture Summary appeared first on Midwest Permaculture.

Why Chinampas Gardens are part of This Permaculture Design

Chinampas Gardens are artificial islands or peninsulas created by scooping nutrient-rich lake, swamp or pond muck into a woven cage so that crops can be grown above the waterline in a wet environment. Within this simple design, several unique functions are accomplished at once: a micro-climate that prevents early frost damage; an extremely productive soil that is mostly self-sustaining; a self-watering system created by water wicking in from the sides as moisture evaporates from the surface of the beds; and the growing of plants and fish within the same area.

In Particular we want to: 

• Test the efficacy of Chinampas in our northerly-temperate climate
• Assess their productivity and labor requirements compared to regular garden beds
• Try something very different and creative.

Chinampas Gardens Explained There is plenty of room across the south shore of our pond and we plan to build three to five Chinampas extending out into the water like peninsulas for about 25 feet. They are located close to Earthcamp Village so that students, interns and/or guests camping in the cabins can quickly and easily access the chinampas gardens for food, fishing and enjoyment.     About the Stelle Pond When our community of Stelle was built, a small pond just outside of town was dug so that residents might have some sort of wetland close by.  Over the years we have watched it mature and recent testing has revealed that the water is amazingly clean and free of agricultural chemicals.  The watershed that feeds this pond is all on the Stelle community property. But as with most ponds, with time there has been some silt buildup close to shore which creates an ideal environment for cattail and other shore loving plants.     View from Intern Village Area   History of Chinampas A thousand years before the term “Permaculture” was coined the Mayans began developing a unique form of ‘permanent-agriculture’ to feed their growing populations which was further perfected over the following centuries by the Aztecs. With little tillable land remaining, the peoples of what is now central Mexico started to farm in their swamps, ponds, lakes and lowlands by creating raised beds called chinampas (from the Nahuatt word for “square made of cane”). How and Why they were so Productive As in good permaculture design, Chinampas work by turning wastes into resources while stacking functions to maximize yields and minimizing work. After a plot is staked out into low ground or shallow ponds and lakes, a fence was woven between the stakes to create a cage or large basket that the farmers could then fill with the surrounding sediment and various forms of vegetation.  The beds would be built high enough to become permanently above the high water mark and willows would be planted on the edges to protect the banks from erosion over the long term for when the posts rotted. Channels were maintained between the Chinampas for canoe access and for the growing of fish and water fowl.  The genius of this system?   Since water is always available to the bed, as water evaporates from the surface it is replaced by capillary action from below. A chinampas never has to be watered once a plants root systems are down.  The grower never has to worry about drought or watering again. And because the ground is permanently moist by the capillary action of water being pulled upwards by ground evaporation, soluble nutrients stay suspended and available to the plant roots.  What is created is a perfect root zone environment…all the time!  Historians tell us that it is likely that the chinampas may have been the most productive agricultural design ever developed by humans. Growers were able to get up to 7 harvests per year from a single bed.  And that is just the plants.  What about the fish and water foul also harvested? The Edge Effect In a good permaculture design we take advantage of the areas where one system comes into contact with another (the edge zone) as this tends to be an area of greater activity and productivity.  For example, where the water meets the banks there will be plenty of plants that could grow right along the bank or just into the water that would provide a unique species for food (humans, fish, ducks) or simply biomass for increased garden fertility.  Insects attracted to the edge plants become food for fish.  Ducks eat the plants at the shore.  Their droppings becomes food for the fish.  All remaining residue and the fish poo sinks to the bottom to become fertile detritus that can be scooped up annual and added to the garden beds.   And because the fish are raised in channels they are easy to harvest with nets.  Because ducks and geese are part of the system they are trained to help with keeping the banks weeded as well as working in the garden beds.  They are great slug and weed eaters. Trellis over the Channels In some areas, arching trellises were extended over the narrow channels and vining plants such as squash, cucumber and beans were planted so that their yielding crop could be harvested directly into a canoe, paddled to shore for unloading, and then return for more. An Amazing Microclimate Trellises Extending Over Channels for Easy Harvesting of vining crops from Canoes Combining the beneficial effects of surrounding water and trees to a growing environment is also a brilliant strategy.  The water in the channels maintains a more constant temperature than soil, so the entire chinampas area establishes a micro-climate that greatly ameliorates the effects of frost damage — a simple method of season extension that does not require expensive row covers or greenhouses.  Trees not only held the banks in place and provided shade and some fruit for growers, they also protected the chinampas gardens from high winds on gusty days while holding in warmer air underneath the canopy on cold days. Together, these created a higher temperature and humidity level than the surrounding farmland which greatly mitigated frost damage.   “Creating channels of warmer air, the morphology of raised fields and associated canals can raise air temperatures as much as 6.3° C (11° F) above that of dry fields.” (Crossley 1999: 280)    Maintaining the Soil Caring for the fertility of the soil in this design is almost self-sustaining.  Simply scraping up the detritus on the bottom of the waterway and adding it to the soil is all that needs to be done.  Detritus is the organic matter (leaves from garden plants, weeds, duck and fish poo) that falls to the bottom of a pond and breaks down.  One could make the analogy that it is simply another way of composting waste materials into soil. Benefits of Chinampas Gardening Increased nutrient uptake Less susceptibility to drought, frosts, and other weather calamities Ability to grow more food (vegetables, fish and water foul). Converting “unusable” low-ground into a productive food system Dramatically reducing the need to water a garden. (Still need to water seedlings) A more perfect example of stacking functions in a permaculture system can rarely be found.  Fish, fowl, and water plants could be harvested from the water channel and vegetables, fruit, and lattice-grown vines from the bed itself. So….how can you apply chinampas design into your own system at your home?  Let us know how it goes and share your stories on the Midwest Permaculture networking site.   This Article Co-Written by Bri Wrench and Bill Wilson

Bri Wrench earned her Permaculture Design Course Certificate from Midwest Permaculture in the fall of 2012 and currently homesteads on a small, rented farm in central Ohio.  She and her husband Kenny are looking to buy property to start a permaculture demonstration farm. You can catch her early chronicling of this journey on her new blog site, Thin Air Permaculture.

Bill Wilson is a permaculture teacher, designer, and the co-founder of Midwest Permaculture.

Directory of Design Elements
The hyperlinked items below lead to more detailed explanations of each element in the CSC permaculture design. The others will be posted and linked as we complete them over the coming weeks and months. You can follow our RSS feed or subscribe to our blog by email to receive automatic announcements when each new element is posted.

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Permaculture Design for CSC in Stelle, IL	CSC Vision for Property	Design Overview	Linear Food Forests	& Hugelkultured Swales
Year Round Greenhouse	Conversion of Orchard to a Food Forest	Wood Gasification	Chinampas Gardens	Earthcamp Village
Seasonal Hoop House	Integrated Gardening Techniques	Coppicing/Pollarding	Thermal Mass Rocket Stove	Chickens and Ducks
Moldering  (composting) Toilet	Hedgerows	Keyline Plowing

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