mallt | Bees & Seeds

Yesterday I spent my time learning about permaculture and beekeeping. We spent the morning listening to a presentation on each & then headed to a nearby home to look at how they've set up a permaculture garden, complete with bees, chicks, swales with raised beds and a hempcrete building. I'm going to split it into 2 posts as the bee post will be pretty picture heavy.

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

Permaculture is sustainable land use design. This is based on ecological and biological principles, often using patterns that occur in nature to maximise effect and minimise work. Permaculture aims to create stable, productive systems that provide for human needs, harmoniously integrating the land with its inhabitants. The ecological processes of plants, animals, their nutrient cycles, climatic factors and weather cycles are all part of the picture. Inhabitants’ needs are provided for using proven technologies for food, energy, shelter and infrastructure. Elements in a system are viewed in relationship to other elements, where the outputs of one element become the inputs of another. Within a Permaculture system, work is minimised, “wastes” become resources, productivity and yields increase, and environments are restored. Permaculture principles can be applied to any environment, at any scale from dense urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions.

The main point the presenter was trying to get across was that it was the initial design that was the most important... design for you water first and structures last. The garden we visited was designed that it could hold (& therefore use) all of the water that falls both on the land and on the house even in the highest recorded rainfall year. To do that they built in swales between raised beds that would hold the water long enough that it would soak into the ground rather than run off into the stormwater system. It was also designed to carry the water away from the house to prevent water pooling around the basement... given they are taking my basement apart to fix a leak as I type, that appeals greatly!

The raised beds were built up in layers of organic matter & then planted mainly with clover to produce good nitrogen rich soil.
Here's a few pictures of the swales & raised beds:

This one has the topbar bee hive in the background:

Also on the site they had chicks, they were heritage chicken breeds so they were all different colours:

Also on this site they were building an office using "hempcrete" which is a mixture of pulped hemp and lime. The wet mixture is tamped down between forms & then left to harden. The lime apparently absorbs CO2 and gradually turns into limestone.

All in all it gave me some stuff to think about in my new place... water design is going to be my biggest issue due to the slope of the place... have to give it some more thought!