The Garden Earth Project

Regenerative Subsistence Land
#1

I am director of The Garden Earth project. You can learn more about it at http://gardenearth.be I found this site because I was preparing to write a blog on the site titled “ReWilding Suburbia”. Before I made the strong claim that this was a new concept I was introducing, I did a google search to discover whether or not anyone else had already thought of this, and Voila! I found Urban Scout, and the ReWilding forum.

I immediately registered here because I feel ReGardening, the method of relating to the land that is taught through the Garden Earth project is very compatible with ReWilding. In fact, I believe it is a powerful way anyone can begin ReWilding immediately, no matter where they live - Urban, Suburban, Rural or Range.

ReGardening is a method of food production, habitat restoration and species regeneration that is based upon non-interference with the Earths natural growth and regeneration processes. It is very related to indigenous horticultural practices, yet adapted to our current “civilized” circumstances.

Anyone, living anywhere in the world, under any conditions can begin ReGardening immediately. All they need is access to any piece of land - even a small planter or stretch of roadside in the middle of a city.

Within a years time, through the practice of ReGardening, it is possible to produce more than enough food to feed yourself, your family, many of your neighbors and whatever wild creatures share your habitat. This requires very little work, few simple hand tools, and no expense.

Within a short 3 to 5 years, entire communities who practice ReGardening can be growing their own food supply with zero need to import food from outside the local region.

The primary objective of ReGardening is for every human being on the planet to be able to meet all their basic survival needs free - that means for no cost - withing walking distance of their home.

Just imagine - when this goal is actually realized - how your life and the world as a whole will be different!

#2

As you might have read already, a lot of us here are interested in permaculture methods. For reference, could you elaborate in which ways ReGardening is similar to permaculture, and in which ways it is different?

I’m always happy to incorporate new techniques into my land management. :slight_smile:

#3

Happy to elaborate, Dan!

While the original intent of Permaculture is very similar to ReGardening:

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and perennial agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in the natural ecologies.

The actual expression of ReGardening is much wilder than what has grown to be “modern permaculture”.

I think the best way to address this is to describe the difference in approaches towards a common garden task:

Planting Melons:
Permaculture - A melon would be planted by seed, most likely in rows in the late spring after frost is passed. This is an agricultural practice, and is not the way Nature plants melons.

ReGardening - No soil tilling - period. Melons are planted in the mid to late summer when they would naturally go to seed. When planting a melon in a first season ReGarden, one would take a ripe melon, place it where you want it to grow, and simply leave it there. Birds will peck it. Other creatures will take a bite out of it. The melon will dehydrate, with seeds still encased within the meat and rind, then will become covered with leaves and dry grass as the season progresses into fall.

Over the winter, through the frost and snow, the seeds are protected by this encasing and the covering of leaves and grasses. This creates a natural composting/greenhouse effect. As this organic matter breaks down through the winter, it creates heat that protects the seeds into the early spring as they germinate and sprout.

One would harvest only a portion of the fruit produced by this melon plant, leaving several melons in place to grow for the next year, through the same process as described above. The next year there is an exponential increase, that, when repeated increases again year after year. The result is a continuous, self seeding melon patch that perpetuates itself year after year with absolutely no human effort other than to harvest, leaving enough melons on the vine to continue the re-seeding cycle for the following year.

#4

This is perfectly in tune with my ideas! But how would you relate to a patch of wild foodplants? Would you assist them in any way, for instance by weeding out competitors?

#5

very good and interesting technique,it reminds me of doing plant cuttings, im doing a community garden to bring back the native setting, id like to hear some more comparisons to permaculture?