White Blanket

The lengthy fall and delayed snow of 2010 was much appreciated. We accomplished way more than we imagined in 10 months of owning this property. Since our main goals of the summer/fall were cutting the concrete and opening up more garden space for 2011, I say we accomplished our goals. The snow was more than welcomed November 18th, 2010 and a beautiful blanket to an unsightly mess of a backyard.

The long winter gave us tons of time to think about our plans on what to do with the concrete!

Cover crops

We learned of permaculture for the first time from our friend, Teresa. Frankly, I am surprised that we did not learn about it sooner when we were living in Oregon for three years. The moment that we learned the basics of permaculture it just seemed to make sense and fit our goals perfectly. Organically growing your own food, designing your landscape so it needs minimum human input, and caring for the environment all at the same time resonated deeply with us.

Any time that there was a speaker giving a talk for low or no cost regarding permaculture, we went to listen. Rob from Verge Permaculture and Adrian from Big Sky Permaculture spoke often about breaking our dependance on industrial food systems, earth repair, building community, and supporting local economy. Every time we heard Rob and Adrain talk, we learned something new. One night in spring of 2010, at a talk by Adrian, he talked about the importance of planting cover crops and mulching your garden to retain moisture and nutrients in the soil. With this new knowledge, we planted a cover crop of field peas in the spring after the snow had melted.

As the cover crop grows, you should "chop and drop" the plant to release the nitrogen into the soil and provide biomass to the soil. We planted so many peas that were coming up all over the garden, that we had to chop quite frequently and some peas got a bit out of hand. From the tangled mass of peas that were growing up through the strawberry netting, we harvested lots of beautiful purple flowers, tendrils and peas which made an impressive salad for parties.

This year, we noticed a fair number of dandelions in the garden which indicates compacted soil. Knowing this, we planted daikon radish seeds for a cover crop this year instead of the peas. Sadly, the daikon greens are not nearly as tasty as the peas were though!

This just in from Verge!

The beginning....

One year after moving to Calgary from Eugene, Oregon, we determined that we were here to stay (despite the "challenging" growing climate). Knowing that we wanted to settle down in Calgary, we started looking for our first home to buy. There were a few basic criteria: 2+ bedrooms, garage, lots of storage space, close to Tim's job and ample room to garden. This home had everything we wanted but needed lots of fixing. We got the keys to our concrete jungle January 2010.

The backyard was basically all concrete and decking, save a small garden space. As soon as the first good Chinooks came in 2009, we got to work increasing our garden space. Here is what the backyard looked like when we bought the home:

The first project in spring 2010 was to remove the flat deck space. The wood that was removed was reused by us and friends, the rest was given away via Kijiji. Here is the before and after:

The next project was to figure out how to hang clothes outside to dry. We wanted lots of space to hang out at least 2 loads of laundry and for the system to have the capacity to hold heavy items like sleeping bags or comforters. My parents have had a 5 line retractable clothesline for over 20 years, yet I was unable to find such a product in Canada. We ordered a product similar to the previous link from the U.S and installed it between the house and garage.

In permaculture we talk a lot about needs and yields. Clothes drying in our yard is a prime example of this idea: clothes need heat and wind, and concrete yields lots of heat. Our clothes typically dry in 1 hour of being outside in summer. This is one way that we are working with the concrete instead of against it.