MISSION
Published: 2019-12-17
Translation
This is a translation of a Bulgarian-language post. It conveys the content faithfully but is not the author's original English writing.
"A society can exist indefinitely only if it adapts to Nature and does not destroy it." — Sepp Holzer, a pioneer in the field of permaculture.
A permaculture garden in containers at the Waldorf kindergarten "Slanchova Premyana" in Dragalevtsi, which to this day still functions as such for the pupils of the "Nikolay Raynov" Waldorf School in Sofia.
A permaculture teaching garden / experimental field on the land of the village of Aglen is our new project, the main goal of which is to restore the Child-Nature bond, as well as:
- To stimulate children's activity outside the home;
- To encourage creative, holistic thinking, aimed at creating in the child a lasting love and respect for Nature and its resources;
- To acquaint and train children in the permaculture method of sustainable design, based on ecological and biological principles that imitate nature's patterns and models, maximising benefits and minimising effort, so that it is applicable in practice in all areas of their daily life;
- To give parents and children an alternative form of extracurricular learning in a natural environment;
- To draw the young away from the harmful influence of the media and electronic devices that have become a "dependency and necessity" in their everyday life;
- To popularise the permaculture method and its sustainable principles among the local population — (nearby, a collection point is planned for the bio-organic (degradable) waste of the village (leaf litter, weeds, animal manure) and open days, on which the permaculture garden becomes a public, communal demonstration centre for turning it into compost, to be used for the purposes of the local residents and their yard gardens);
- The proper management and use of the bio-organic (degradable) waste of the village.
Besides creating and managing the permaculture garden — as part of the children's very education — the project envisages (with the participation of volunteers, parents and donors) the creation of a pleasant, park-like setting for the purposes of the "extracurricular" classroom right next to the experimental garden: a small pond, a gazebo with a seating nook, a fire pit, suitable landscaping, a Zen sand garden, the placing of signposts and explanatory boards, and more.
The creation and maintenance of the garden will happen in several stages, in the form of group activities with children — children's workshops and camps.
Stage 1 — Popularising the project on social media and in the press.
Stage 2 — A series of workshops in which we acquaint the participants with the principles of permaculture; following these principles, we make the design of the garden and plant the perennial — long-lived — plants, saplings, fruit bushes, a living edible hedge, and so on.
- Getting to know the 12 principles of permaculture — studying them directly from the examples of Nature (e.g. in the Forest);
- The significance of allelopathy (the selection of every single plant in the garden's design is made specifically so that they help one another);
- Sowing the crops for seedlings;
- Following the learned principles of permaculture and allelopathy, we work out the design of the garden together;
- We put up a board fence and plant the perennial — long-lived — plants, saplings, fruit bushes, a living edible hedge, and so on.
Stage 3 — The actual creation of the garden and the park around it will happen in a series of similar meetings/workshops, with the goal that by the end of May 2019 the garden be planted with the annual vegetables too:
- Following the design, we create the beds and paths, edging them with river stones, laying them with cardboard, straw and so on;
- We lay an irrigation system;
- We create a compost heap / collection point for the village's bio-organic (degradable) waste (leaf litter, weeds, animal manure), inviting the local gardeners to an open lesson on composting;
- We look at the methods for extending the season, raise low and geotextile tunnels and sow the first early cold-hardy crops in them;
- We prick out the seedlings into containers and low tunnels;
- We plant the heat-loving crops;
- We mulch.
Stage 4 — The project continues with the regular tending of the garden and its plantings, while at the same time the building of a sustainable children's park begins, in which children, volunteers, parents and donors — practising the methods of permaculture and natural building and other practices borrowed from nature — create:
- a small pond;
- a gazebo with a seating nook;
- a fire pit;
- suitable landscaping;
- a Zen sand garden;
- the placing of signposts and explanatory boards, and more.
Permaculture is an applied science for the design of productive agricultural systems that resemble natural ones as closely as possible. The elements in the system are considered together with the interactions among them — the products of one element are a resource for another. In the typical permaculture system, work is reduced to a minimum, waste is turned into a resource, productivity and yields are increased, and the environment is restored. Its ultimate goal is, through the creation of a sustainable and productive system, to harmoniously integrate people and the land — and, in this particular case, children and the land.