Shades of Green Permaculture is Fresh Harvest’s neighbor just down the road from us in Avondale Estates. Their emphasis on working with nature to regenerate soil and create healthier habitats where we live, work, and play is perfectly in line with our support of regenerative agricultural practices. Enjoy this guest post about the benefits of permaculture from Shades of Green, and be sure to check out their generous offer below!
Permaculture offers a compelling framework for creating a harmonious and resilient ecosystem where plants, animals, and humans relate to the natural environment in a way that supports the inherent value of all living things while producing an abundance of food, medicine, and habitat. Your garden is the perfect place to start. By rewilding your garden with permaculture practices, you can create a thriving ecosystem that supports biodiversity, conserves resources, and enhances your well-being. It might seem daunting, so we’ve provided three first steps toward cultivating your permaculture garden. Every garden, no matter the size, can have a positive impact.
1. Regenerate Soil Health
Healthy soil is the foundation of a thriving garden. Permaculture practices focus on building and maintaining soil fertility using organic methods that mimic natural processes.
Begin composting and adding that organic material to your soil.
Sheet mulch to solarize the growth beneath and build lush topsoil for a rich planting bed.
2. Foster biodiversity
Permaculture encourages the cultivation of a wide variety of plants and animals. By promoting biodiversity and choosing native and useful plants, a garden becomes more resilient to pests, diseases, and environmental changes, while feeding the stakeholders, human and non-human alike.
Buy native plants from nurseries like Prairie Moon Nursery, where you can trust the plants will be healthy when they arrive.
3. Manage Water as a Resource
The foundation of any permaculture garden is managing water as a resource by allowing it to slow, sink, and spread. Through the use of water management designs and techniques like raingardens, rainwater harvesting, and swales, water can dance through your land and replenish soil moisture, eliminating the need for conventional watering.
Design and build a raingarden with water-loving plants to help slow all that water. Better yet, take our course, The Regenerative Backyard Blueprint, and learn how to design and implement a permaculture landscape with big impact.
Overall, a permaculture garden strives to create a sustainable, harmonious, and productive ecosystem that works in unison with nature. It encourages responsible stewardship of the land while providing abundant yields and numerous environmental and social benefits. Moreover, we believe anyone can tend to and benefit from a permaculture garden. Once we enter into a relationship with our landscapes and understand the sacred reciprocity of the land and our role in it, we can build lasting and healthy gardens that contribute to the Earth’s return to health.
About Shades of Green Permaculture
Our company is devoted to creating outdoor spaces that contribute to protecting biodiversity, growing food, medicine, and pollinator habitat, building soil, and restoring the water cycle. We’ve helped thousands of clients make these transformations.
For more information on what we do feel free to visit our website – shadesofgreenpermaculture.com or book a discovery call to explore how we might work together. Fresh Harvest customers can receive 50% off SOG Design Consultations, just mention Fresh Harvest when booking your discovery call.