One of 55 eco-friendly homes nestled amongst newly established gardens

An hour or so south of the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo is the fishing district of Kalutara. Although only one of many regions hit by the 2004 Tsunami, post-disaster relief efforts here were unique in that Sarvodaya determined to use the situation to create Sri Lanka’s first eco-village.

Designed with the technical advice and guidance of world renowned Australian permaculture experts Max Lindegger and Lloyd Williams, who are affiliated with Ecological Solutions Inc. and Global Eco-village Network (GEN), the village has become a model of sustainable development.

The Sri Lankan government allocated a parcel of land situated five kilometres inland for the purpose, and financing for construction came via Sarvodaya as well as the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC), the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) and the Asia Pacific Forum for Environment and Development (APFED). The combined gifts culminated in the construction of Lagoswatta – a model eco-village, situated on a gentle five acre slope bordered by rice fields, that is now home to 55 families from three villages in the area.

I was of course very keen to take a look, and so after winding our way from the coast, through small farmlets and a rather beautiful and shady rubber tree plantation, I arrived in Lagoswatta for a brief look.

Beginning in April 2005 and completed in 2006, an important aspect of of the work was the involvement of the intended residents in the construction process itself – providing an excellent opportunity to build a sense of ownership and self-determination for their future, whilst giving survivors a sense of purpose that helps them deal psychologically with trauma, loss of loved ones and their subsequent dramatic change in circumstances.

Each earth-brick home in Lagoswatta is virtually identical, measuring about 46 square metres (500 square feet) and consists of two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and sanitation facilities. Each home has its own garden, and practical involvement of residents are positively encouraged with training in composting, gardening, recycling and also maintenance of the solar panel and battery that provides electricity to each home – something many residents never had before. Homes are also equipped with a recycling receptacle and on the edge of the village is a small recycling station where materials are separated and stored for monthly collection. The project also included a Subterra biological soakage system for household greywater.

Water for drinking and irrigation is one of the biggest problems Sri Lankans face. Construction for Lagoswatta thus included fourteen rainwater harvesting tanks to collect roof run-off, five drinking wells and two communal bathing wells.

An important aspect of design for any eco-village are those that encourage community interdependence. In addition to housing, a multi-purpose community center was built that includes a doctor’s office (manned on Mondays), library, computer room, a childcare/Montessori school centre and a playground – all encouraging community interaction and the pooling and development of the creative abilities of individual villagers. Programs assisting in social mobilization and livelihood support foster this development as well.

A boy plays in the community childcare centre

The edge-of-town recycling station – emptied monthly

One aspect of village life I found interesting was that, unlike other Sarvodaya villages, where the very first stage of development is ‘awakening’ to the Sarvodaya principles based on earth care and the ten basic needs, the villagers of Lagoswatta were somewhat thrown together suddenly at a time of extreme stress. Additionally, many of the villagers were previously fisher folk, so once moved from the coast to Lagoswatta they’ve had to take on a whole new existence. Whilst villagers on the whole largely seemed content and adapting to their new surrounds, it was clear to me there wasn’t the same industriousness and cohesion found in some of the other villages who had opted to join the Sarvodaya network out of acknowledgement and appreciation over time of the principles that forms the basis of the movement.

In other words, these people were somewhat thrown together out of necessity, rather than inspired choice.

A Lagoswatta villager harvests compost from his bin

Practical examples of this could be seen by observing the state of different gardens in the village, where some were making excellent use of their land – cultivating quite a diverse range of fruit, vegetables and herbs and developing a lovely shaded environment that is a major advantage in the tropical heat – while others were making merely token efforts.

Some villagers were making excellent use of their garden space

I spoke with a few villagers about how well their solar system worked. One man spoke despondently about how after only four years the battery had already failed and he couldn’t afford the 15,000 rupees to replace it. Considering this man didn’t have power in the shack he and his small family lived in prior to its destruction, I was conscious of how this ‘upgrade’ in their life was making them dependent on polluting technologies that were too expensive for them to maintain. When I mentioned the failed battery in a neighbour’s house, it was explained to me that the first man had not been maintaining the battery as he was told (topping up with water) and so killed it from neglect. Considering this, I remembered that that particular man’s garden was also largely non-existent, indicating either a general lack of pro-active interest or difficulty in adapting, and it made me appreciate all the more the importance of Sarvodaya’s stepped program that prioritises individual transformation at its base.

Each home has a battery that stores power from a small roof-mounted
solar panel. The only appliances for most houses are normally only lights,

a radio and/or television.

As they say, a house does not a home make. In the same way, a collection of buildings and people does not an eco-village make. It became obvious to me that you cannot just lump a divergent range of people together and call them a ‘community’. A truly successful community requires some planning at a spiritual level to facilitate cohesion – and this centres in all involved being inspired with a sense of positive purpose and collectively shared goals. Disasters like that which gave birth to Lagoswatta obviously do not provide the luxury of time for such considerations, but I think this is an important facet to consider wherever possible.

Villagers said their conditions were improved – homes were warmer in winter,
cooler in summer, and power, water and garden features were all appreciated.

The good news is that Sarvodaya’s efforts in this regard continue to this day, and Lagoswatta has become an excellent model for not only Sri Lanka but also for village development and disaster relief efforts worldwide.

Stay tuned for the next edition in this series….

The community centre is appropriate for culture and climate

The community library was spartan, but it’s a start

Composting toilets are culturally unacceptable to Sri Lankans, so Lagoswatta
utilises septic tanks for black water. Outside are rain-fed washing facilities.

A typical Lagoswatta kitchen. Some homes house two or three families, as
families would open their doors to relatives struggling after the disaster.

A children’s park completes the picture. The sign reads:

"This park is a gift to the children from the American people."

By David Perkins (Dharmadeva) – Farm Manager and resident permaculture designer and educator at Kailash-Akhara.

This report provides an overview of many aspects of creating a retreat center and living sustainably using the principles of permaculture. Short updates will be given regularly to keep our wider community informed. See Part I and Part II if you haven’t already.

First phase of building is now complete

The dormitory

After a year and a half of construction in the core area, painting was completed just before an opening ceremony and party to celebrate the annual festival of Guru Purnima on the full moon in July. Four buildings make up the core area: The Temple/Training Hall, Dormitory, Kitchen-Dining Room, and Bath House with composting toilets. We are now practicing, sleeping, cooking, eating, showering, doing laundry, and recycling our poop in shiny new surroundings – a level of relative luxury compared to the stripped-down facilities we began with.

Fruit from grey water

Banana circle, 9 months after planting

Water from personal bathing, washing dishes, and laundry, is dirty, but it is far from being waste. Our system for treating this ‘grey water’, as it is called, is to feed it to thirsty plants in a feature of the landscape known as a ‘banana circle’. We have 6 circles, each with 6 – 8 banana plants, and 1 or 2 papaya trees. To begin this system, a shallow pit is dug, about 2 meters diameter, which is then filled with food scraps and cut vegetation to provide the extra nutrition needed by these heavy feeders. Then, a shower stall or dishwashing station can be placed directly in the middle of the circle, or greywater is piped from sinks to the circles. The first ones were planted at the beginning of 2008; now, 15-18 months later, they are producing fruit in abundance. We have cut the first few bunches, and I just counted at least 9 more coming along… at this rate we’ll be enjoying fruit and giving away our surplus for many months to come.

Electricity from the sun

Kitchen/Dining Hall

This is an off-grid site. We have kept our need for electric power to a minimum by smart design, and currently the extent of our need for electricity is low wattage lighting for 2 buildings, charging laptops and phones, and running the occasional power tool. Photovoltaic panels have been installed on the south-facing roof of the bath house, with the juice being stored in deep-cycle batteries, and supplied around the site through a 700W inverter. It’s a system that is sufficient to meet our needs for now, with potential for future expansion.

“There’s no such place as ‘away’”

Staff in kitchen

It’s a favorite quote of mine, and we have inevitably been forced to answer the problem that it points to: after reducing, re-using and recycling as much as possible, where do we throw stuff away? In a remote rural location like this, how do we responsibly handle the need for waste disposal? The local custom is to use designated spots on the side of the road, as a dumping and burning ground. Not satisfied with adding to that situation, we created our own on-site landfill. 2 pits were dug by excavator, 4 x 3 x 3 meters deep, which swallowed up all the construction debris, leaving some room for future ‘dump runs’. When burning is necessary, a homemade incinerator gives a useful second life to an oil drum, and it helps us burn as hot and clean as possible.

Swales

Azuki bean & Crotalaria provide good vegetation cover on swale berm

Leguminous trees, shrubs and plants mingle with fruit trees in newly planted food forest near a swale

We continue to work on establishing a system of swales for passively harvesting rainwater – not only in tanks and ponds – but also in the soil itself, by means of infiltrating runoff. We now have around 1,100m of swales on the land. The initial excavation work was completed in 12 days in April, and was followed immediately by sowing seeds and planting the pioneer species. The vegetation grew rapidly with the early rains, and is doing its job to stabilize the disturbed soil and minimize erosion. The heaviest rain we’ve had so far was 35mm in 2 hours. That certainly tested the swales, which performed well, filling to about 60% capacity, and infiltrating completely within 24 hours. Rainwater will now more effectively hydrate most of the entire site (about 25 acres/10 hectares) rather than race to the bottom of the hill.

Food forest

A Mango tree puts on new growth in food forest

Following the guidelines for creating a food forest, we are planting plenty of nitrogen fixing trees and shrubs in amongst the tree crops we want to grow. The crop trees we’ve planted so far include: guava, mango, jackfruit, star fruit, tamarind, pomegranate, and mangosteen. Not forgetting of course, the one tree generally regarded as having the greatest number of uses, the coconut. We are looking into good sources for more crops, namely coffee and macadamia nuts. It’s early days – we still have a lot of planting to do, and it’ll be a while before we taste the rewards, but as the saying goes, “the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second best time is now”.

Rehabilitation of areas heavily impacted by construction

After 18 months of building, there are some areas that are showing the scars left behind after construction work. Specifically, hard compacted soil where roads where carved by repeated driving. These traffic patterns made sense at the time, but now that major construction is done we don’t need roads between our buildings – we need footpaths and attractive landscaping. The first step in this transition is a kind of permaculture first-aid. Small swales were dug to intercept the excessive runoff from the hard bald ground. A thick mulch of rice straw was applied all over, and footpaths of woodchips were laid. Shrubs that will tolerate these poor conditions are being planted, whose roots will help break up the compaction. A nice touch is that the small swales are now planted with flowers that we’ll use in ritual offerings, thereby keeping a supply of fresh picked flower heads at hand on the way to the temple.

A swale helps restore the site of a former dirt road

Plan for our Rocket-Powered hot water system for the Basecamp shower + bath block

Spending all your day gathering sticks for a hot shower is just no fun. No fun at all. Mind you, anything that results in a hot shower (or even better, a hot bath) has to be considered a priority at Milkwood. So when Nick finished converting the old ‘Sunbeam Sheep Shower’ structure (basically a new-fangled sheepdip) to a shower block with a little wood-fired, home-made firebox thingamy to heat the water for the shower and the bath, that’s what we did. Lots of stick-gathering.

The romance of wood-fired hot water quickly wears thin, however, if your water-heating system is not terribly efficient. Because this means the system requires a fair deal of wood to heat the water, which therefore releases a corresponding amount of CO2. And also results in lots of stick gathering. So Nick went searching for the most super-efficient, super-simple and super-funky heating system idea he could find, which could then be converted to a water heating system. And thus we discovered the glory that is the Rocket Mass Heater.

Nick Ritar + Si Horsely cobb around the burn chamber and firebricks to protect them

The basic premise of a Rocket Mass Heater is that the heat energy of a small, very hot-burning fire is used in a optimal way to get the utmost out of that heat energy. Hyper efficiency with minimal fuel input. Ianto Evans + Leslie Jackson, a couple of Permies who are prettymuch gurus on this subject, put together a great little book called Rocket Mass Heaters and this was our inspiration and guidebook for our project. The heat of the small fire is drawn up through a vertical heat riser of some kind, which creates an updraft and therefore causes the fire to burn extremely hot. A hotter burn means less smoke. And less smoke means more hot water per handful of sticks.

Then the hot gases in the riser is put to work – pushed (or pulled) under hot plates, past water boilers, underneath cobb benches, through thermal mass walls – wherever you need to heat. By the time the hot gases make their way out to the outside world, they are spent, and much cooler – the heat energy has been transferred along the way to whatever needed to be heated. Hurrah!

The completed system – two days work, all told

Rocket Stoves are quickly catching on in various places around the globe – because they’re so fuel efficient, for example, they’re being used in development aid projects where fuel is scarce. And because they’re super simple, they can be made by prettymuch anyone with a need, a plan and some simple tools. There’s a stash of great Rocket Stove projects that have been done around the world at RocketStoves.org. 

But back to us at Milkwood. The making of our Rocket-Powered water heater took two days for two blokes. The above diagram explains it all pretty well. Firebricks in a pattern with a burn chamber in front, topped by an insulated heat riser, topped by a small heat exchanger, topped by a chimney. The water came in one end of the system from the bottom of the water tank, then passively circulated between the heat exchanger and the hot water tank (just a normal hot water tank like you would have on your normal western hot water system) once the fire was going via simple pipes and the power of convection. A handful of sticks in the burn chamber set the fire going. Then we waited and finally turned on the shower tap and… voila. Steaming hot water for one shower. Hoo-bloody-ray.

Post-wash, the water flows into a greywater trench which waters a planting of She-Oaks (Casuarinas) downhill from the showerblock. These will, in time, yeild excellent stickwood for the fire, as Casuarina wood is some of the hottest burning wood in the world. Which is the closest we’ll come to closing the loop (in terms of energy, carbon and responsibility) on our daily shower anytime soon… which makes for a very happy shower.

A handful of sticks is all you need…

Here’s a Flickr set of the construction process – it should give you a good idea, it’s fairly thorough. Feel free to ask questions if you like, I’m sure Nick would love to wax lyrical about his beloved Rocket construction.

So viva la Rocket Stove. These things are hyper-efficient. They should take over the world, I reckon – what is a better beacon for sustainable, responsible living than a guilt-free hot bath?

 Happy Nick bathing in the glory of his Rocket-Powered Shower

**Notes on this system for safety: you want a pressure relase valve on the hot water tank (most have them on already) so the water tank doesn’t explode, and also a tempering valve on the hot water outlet (so no water hotter than 60º comes out), so that no one burns themselves during their lovely wood-fired shower.

Last time I spoke about the world’s largest earthworks project – an incredible and unrivalled example of large scale water harvesting. Today we continue the tale, highlighting the beautiful and practical Kuttam Pokuna, or Twin Pools, found at Anuradhapura in north-central Sri Lanka.

The Twin Pools at Anuradhapura

The massive reservoirs you saw last time allowed for more in antiquity than just growing rice. In this instance, two large granite pools were created and supplied with water from a rainwater-fed reservoir three kilometres away via an underground pipe (most water transfers in these systems were by open on-ground channels, but this one was different). It is believed the smaller, northern pool was constructed in the 8th century AD, and the larger one in the 10th.

The purpose of the pools? Well, there were, at the time, 5000 monks living here at Abhayagiri Monastery, in an area of about 500 acres. 5000 monks needed to stay cool, and needed to bathe, just like the rest of us. There were about twenty pools in the area, but only two were positioned right next to each other, and these were also the most elaborate and beautiful.

The water from the pools was recycled – feeding rice paddies nearby, which in turn fed the monks.

On the waterline on the far side, just to the right of dead centre of the image,
you can make out an exit drain. This one drain bled the water from both pools
– and into neighbouring rice paddies.

And, before it got this far, water entering the pools went through a clever filtration system that ensured the monks weren’t wading in impurities.

A three kilometre pipe emptied into the filter shown here in the foreground, via the
hole you can see at far right. Water needed to reach a certain height (about 12 inches)
before it could progress to the next chamber, leaving heavier-than-water items behind
where they could be periodically scooped out. Even the centre chamber – the final
one before entering the pool, had a raised exit pipe, as you can see.

A five-hooded cobra, considered a guardian of water, protects the inward
flow at the northern end of the northern pool (next to the filter).

So, many centuries ago, we had harvested rain water being transferred very accurately, via pipes made of eco-friendly materials, and used to service man’s recreational and hygiene needs – before emptying out into ‘the garden’.

There really is nothing new under the sun.

When rainwater harvesting is mentioned, most people think of tanks straight away. That’s a great start, but there is a much bigger storage you have available to you on your land – the soil. (Check out Brad Lancaster’s fun U-tube video on this site, ‘The muffin tin and the sponge’ for a good intro)

So when your gutters flow and your tanks are full, don’t send all that valuable water straight the drain like so many do. Instead, have a go at utilising that water in your garden by creating a system similar to this.

Rural and semi-rural permaculture systems are often built with swales incorporated. A swale is a water harvesting ditch on contour which intercepts runoff, then fills up and holds onto the water long enough for it to soak into the soil for the use of tree crops (You can see plenty of examples of swales on this website).

Swales are fantastic, however, in an urban situation not everyone wants to have a garden that resembles a motor-cross track, nor gaping wide trenches that Granny can get lost in. The French-drain design explained in this article is an alternative, which has the same benefits of a swale, whilst being pretty much invisible.

Designing

Just as with swale systems, whenever we are infiltrating large amounts of water into our soil, it’s very important to include trees as part of the design; if not, you risk water logging and quite possibly salting the landscape.

Don’t just wack one of these in; you can put a whole series of them throughout your forest garden for example. When you’re deciding where they’ll go, it’s good to be aware that most fruit trees like to drink and eat at their dripline, so therefore this is where it makes sense to position your trenches. For young trees you’ll need to decide where the end dripline will be and position them there. It’ll take a while for the young tree’s roots to reach out to the moisture you’re infiltrating for them, so in the meantime, you can dig a finger off the side of your trench to direct water closer to it’s young root system.

Gravity is your best friend when playing with water, so start off by directing your downpipes or tank overflow to the top corner of your land through some 90mm PVC pipe (even if you think that your land is flat, there will always be some fall. If not, you’re either living in the middle of a salt-pan or an indoor basketball court). From here, work your way down the hill and position a trench wherever you have trees and shrubs that can utilise the moisture. Just make sure that you’re infiltrating water at least a few metres away from building foundations or else you can undermine them.

Size and shape

Each trench should be about 50 cm deep. Any more than that and you’ll be infiltrating the water below the main feeder and drinker roots of your fruit trees.

If your land is relatively flat, you can get quite creative and make them basically any shape you like. However, if you are on a slope, you’ll need to make sure that they are positioned across the slope, that is, on contour like a swale. Just remember, the bigger your trenches, the more water it can hold, and therefore, the more water it can infiltrate.

The construction is quite simple as the illustration shows:

90mm PVC pipe. Begin with some 90mm PVC pipe heading from your water source with an open 90mm Tee pointing downwards at the centre of your trench. The top of this pipe should be about 10 cm below the surrounding soil level.

Reln drain. Over the top of the PVC pipe you place an impervious reln drain with a gap of about 5 cm above the pipe (a reln drain is a corrugated half-pipe about 40cm in diameter and comes in 1.5m sections. They’re designed for use in septic tank leach fields and cost about AUD $15 at plumbing supply places). The reln drain should be well supported using old blocks or bricks to prevent it sinking over time, and to prevent pressure on the PVC pipe if it’s walked on.

Budgie wire (the red line on the picture). This is placed over the base and ends of the reln drain and also at the opening of the tee. This is to prevent the mulch (which the trench is filled with) from floating up and entering the pipe.

Old plastic (the yellow line on the picture). This is used to line the base of the trench, which encourages water to infiltrate laterally towards the trees’ main drinker roots, rather than straight down.

Mulch. The trench should be filled with either coarse mulch or aggregate. The purpose of the reln drain is to create an air gap around the pipe, which stops tree roots from clogging it up (see the front view below). If you decide on mulch to fill your trench, it will need to be topped up from time to time, but will eventually become a lovely big humus sponge. If you decide on aggregate, you’ll need to line your trench with Geo-textile matting to stop tree roots and soil from clogging it up.

So basically, what happens is the water flows along the pipe until it comes to your open tee where it has no choice but to pour out into your trench.

Once the trench fills up to the height of the tee, the water will then continue along the pipe until it gets to your next trench which it will dutifully fill etc etc.

On urban properties, a lot of water can run off all those hard surfaces during a wetter period or during a large rain event (A note to Victorians: They will come again one day, I promise), far more than our gardens can infiltrate. So it’s really important to be mindful about the possibility of flooding your neighbour’s or even your own house.

To avoid this problem (quite possibly very costly), once you’ve caught and infiltrated all the water you can/need, you’ll need to divert it back into the stormwater drains before it rushes onto buddy-next-door’s place (by law in Oz, you’ll need a plumber or landscaper to do this job, but before you do, have a chat with your neighbour cause he might like to use the runoff himself).

Similarly, there will be times when your soil is already as wet as it needs to be and if you send in much more, you’ll just end up making your soils anaerobic and you’ll also leach valuable nutrients from your system. To avoid this, plumb your system so that during these wetter times you can just send the water down the drain.

Good luck and happy drought-proofing!

Cam Wilson, www.forestedgepermaculture.com

Greywater mulch-pits provide an excellent solution when re-using greywater on your garden – they are cheap to construct, they improve the quality of water entering your soil and after some time provide you with valuable compost. They’re very easy to construct too. You basically just dig a hole, wack in some 100mm ag-pipe and then fill it up with nice chunky mulch.

Where possible a number of pits should be constructed around the garden. This enables you to rotate your greywater around and prevent the inevitable waterlogging that occurs if you leave your hose in one spot too long. For flat ground it’s great to create round pits, with each one midway between a few fruit trees. If on a slope, they will be on contour and can double as a swale.

The volume of each pit should be about 4 times the peak flow that leaves your house at any one time. For example if your washing machine pumps out 100 litres, the size of the hole needs to be 400litres (as a guide, 1m3 = 1,000litres). This is to allow for the space taken up by the woody mulch (about 2/3 of the volume) plus a bit extra. 40 cm is plenty deep enough, or else you’ll start to send most of the water down below the main feeder/drinker roots of your trees.

If you have very sandy soils in which most water just disappears straight down, it can pay to line the inside of your pit with plastic. A few punctured holes here and there allow you to infiltrate the water in the direction(s) of your choice. It also gives the critters more time to clean up the water.

With the huge increase in the use of greywater on Australian gardens, particularly here in Victoria where we’ve been on restrictions for a number of years now, there is concern about the effect it will have on soils in the long term. Even if using liquid detergents, which are much lower in sodium and phosphorus than powders (see lanfaxlabs for more info), the alkaline nature of soaps will affect soil pH. Fats and oils from our bodies can also clog up soil pores and make them hydrophobic and any bleaches or harsh cleaners will of course have a huge impact on soil life.

By filling these pits with chunky mulch, this acts to filter and clean the water, resulting in better quality irrigation for your valuable fruit trees. It’s not the mulch that does the filtering but rather the tiny soil critters that will colonise its surface and just like in a reedbed system, they greedily grab onto any nutrient that passes by. Inevitably, this mulch will be broken down into compost, at which time you should say “Awesome!” and fork it out of your pit straight onto the fruit trees beside. Then, give your local tree lopper a call and get a free/very cheap load of mulch delivered and refill them. (By the way, this is so much easier than cleaning out a clogged up reedbed, plus you get the compost out of it instead of a mess of aggregate you don’t know what to do with.)

The simplest way to get water to each pit is by extending the washing machine outlet hose. You can rotate this hose once a week or so. A few tips to prevent your washing machine’s engine from burning out: 1. Utilise gravity as much as possible; 2. Over 10m+, ensure the extension hose is at least 50mm to reduce strain on the pump; and 3. Don’t pump uphill (if you do need to, you’ll have to get a pump built for this purpose).

If you include an appropriate length of 100mm ag-pipe inside each pit, with one end just slightly sticking out, this means that you can poke your washing machine hose down inside so that the water infiltrates sub-surface as regulations rightly demand (stops kids and pets getting sick from the pretty nasty pathogens that greywater can contain).

If you want to utilise your bath and shower water also, by law you’re supposed to get a plumber in to divert the water. From here, a more permanent option is to construct branched drains which evenly distribute the water around the garden. Detailed design and installation instructions are available for this method in Art Ludwig’s book The New Create an Oasis Using Greywater.

You can irrigate a 1/8 acre suburban orchard for under $200, which is pretty good value I reckon compared to the $10,000-$20,000 approved treatment systems.

Recent developments at Kailash-Akhara, Adi Yoga Retreat Center, Phu Rua, Loei, Thailand.

By David Perkins (Dharmadeva) – Farm Manager and resident permaculture designer and educator at Kailash-Akhara.

This report provides an overview of many aspects of creating a retreat center and living sustainably using the principles of permaculture. Short monthly updates will be given to keep our wider community informed.

Training Hall & Papaya

Summary

The location for the main vegetable garden has been chosen; an area of about 1/3 of an acre, near the kitchen and Bodhi tree. The first series of vegetable beds have been defined and sheet-mulched. In the center is a small pond and mandala of 6 circular beds, with a dome which houses chickens. There will be an ornamental garden south of the training hall for students to relax, study and meditate. A garden nursery for seedlings and young trees has been established.

We are making compost with locally sourced materials. Improvements have been made to the water infrastructure including underground tanks, pipelines, a new well, and water harvesting by roof catchment. A new facility for vermiculture, and a new access road are under construction. New purchases of more efficient equipment and some imported tools have enhanced our daily work on the land.

Gardens

A thorough analysis and design of the core area of the community helped us identify the prime location for a new main food garden. An overall area 50 x 25 meters (about a third of an acre) has been chosen to supply the community with fresh vegetables, watched over by the majestic sacred Bodhi Tree (Ficus religiosa, a member of the fig family).

Starting new gardens

Initial evaluation of the existing topsoil of this area shows good potential for vegetable production. The bulk of the garden will consist of linear beds, laid out on contour, thereby maximizing water infiltration and soil conservation. The first of these beds have been established and the initial preparation made by sheet-mulching: a very easy and effective technique to feed the soil, retain moisture and prevent weeds, using layers of cardboard, food scraps, and straw.

Aloe bed

In the center of the new garden is a feature we are calling the Chicken Mandala. Surrounding a small pond is a ring of 6 circular garden beds, with a large moveable dome which houses chickens. The birds consume bugs and weeds, while tilling the earth with the scratching action of their feet. They deposit their manure in this limited area, making these beds low-maintenance and highly fertile. After a few weeks in one spot, the chicken ‘tractor’ is moved to the next circle, and our plants go into the freshly prepared bed. In the course of a year, the dome will rotate twice around the mandala, with an abundance of food coming out of this innovative design.

A garden was previously created near the training hall, but the soil in that area would require more years of improvement before being healthy enough to sustain quality vegetable production. It will now be redefined and established as a beautiful ornamental garden where students can relax, study and meditate.

New garden beds

Nursery

Pigeon Pea ready for planting

At the heart of any productive garden is the nursery. This month we improved the existing nursery with the addition of 2 new hand-built tables. We have found the locally available potting mix to be less than ideal, and therefore created our own custom blend of soil, coconut fiber, rice hulls, sand, and compost which has already shown an improvement in germination and the health of seedlings.

January is the coldest and driest month of the year, with the overnight low temperature dropping to near freezing on a few nights. Our newborns were challenged to survive their first few weeks, but we have been able to keep a full house of about 20 kinds of vegetables and herbs going strong in preparation for transplanting to the garden next month. 15 species of fruit trees were bought from a local supplier, ranging from 1 to 3 years old, these have been repotted and will be cared for in the nursery until planting at the beginning of the rainy season.

Compost

The raw materials for our compost are sourced locally, including waste vegetables from the daily market in Phu Rua, kitchen scraps from several local restaurants, cow manure and rice straw from local farms.

The New Year holidays are a time for a major influx of tourists, primarily visiting the local National Park. The population of the town seems to triple during this time when all hotels and resorts and campsites are full. The increase in business leads to extra waste, which we gladly received, enabling us to build more compost piles and sheet mulch a much larger area with the extra materials.

In January we expanded composting operations and now have 12 active piles, each beginning at about 1 cubic meter in size. Monitoring the temperature and turning compost piles is a vital daily task in our quest to build and sustain quality topsoil in our gardens.

Vermiculture

Future worm compost factory

Vermiculture is the process of turning waste organic matter into high quality fertilizer with the use of worms. A small-scale system was established last year and has been continually operated on a trial basis with great success. This will now be expanded to large-scale production in a new facility at Kailash Akhara. This project is being conducted in collaboration with Maejo University, the leading school of natural agriculture in Thailand.

Construction of the new facility for vermiculture was begun at the end of January. Our operation will result in commercially viable products, thereby providing a source of income for the center, as well as valuable soil amendments for our own use.

Water infrastructure

The existing system of pumps pipes and tanks was designed over 20 years ago, for irrigation of the orchard. It is now showing its age, and we have suffered repeated leaks and breakdowns of this old infrastructure. Therefore the decision was made to overhaul and upgrade the water distribution system around the property. After several quick fixes in urgent situations it became clear that the diesel motor was on it’s last legs, and could not be relied on. It needs to be replaced with a Japanese 2 year-old diesel motor, which will provide many years of reliable service. This will run the pump sending water from the lower ponds to the main storage tanks at the top of the property about 500 meters away and 30 meters uphill. A pipeline was laid on a new route from the pump to the main tanks, and from there to the vermiculture buildings and the garden.

Swale 2 under construction

A new well has been drilled, which found water at a depth of 45 meters.

Roof catchment of rainwater is a great means of harvesting water, and wherever roofs exist, it is an easy and cost effective way to meet a community’s water needs. The core area has 4 buildings, the Training Hall, Dormitory, Kitchen/Dining room, and Bathhouse. An annual rainfall of 1650mm (65 inches) gives us a potential roof catchment of about 1.6 million liters (352,000 US gallons). The question then becomes how to store a useful proportion of all this water? We have begun construction of an interconnected system of tanks for drinking, cooking and bathing, including a 55,000 liter underground tank and a water tower with a capacity of 6,000 liters. Overflow from roof catchment, and rainwater in general, will be directed to ponds and swales designed to reduce runoff, infiltrate the soil and recharge the groundwater. Much work remains to be done before the beginning of the rainy season in April.

More steps in the right direction…

We have recently purchased 2 new items of machinery: a woodchipper and a generator for producing electricity as needed. The generator in particular is a very efficient motor, and will pay for itself in one year due to fuel savings over the previous model.

Finding our line through the Lychee trees

Existing fruit trees are plentiful on the land, including jackfruit, papaya, pomegranate and citrus, but by far the most numerous are the lychees (Litchi chinensis), most of which have not been pruned or thinned for years, with plenty of dead branches and crowded new growth in evidence. We have begun the task of better management of the lychee trees through judicious use of pruning saws. The removed branches will not only meet our needs for firewood, but will provide a homegrown supply of woodchips for pathways and mulching around trees.

A new road has been designed to enter the property at the south-west corner from the public road, providing easy access to the gardens and the vermiculture buildings, thereby minimizing vehicle trips into the central area of the property. Work is in progress on this road, which will eventually be extended to run along the southern boundary to the area designated for future Kula housing.

A shipment from the United States arrived mid-month, which included some high quality gardening tools. The quality of most tools we have been able to buy in Thailand leaves a lot to be desired. The closest thing we could find to do the job of a pitchfork was a kind of rake made out of welded re-bar! Many Thai tools tend to bend or break easily, or are simply multipurpose tools which are used for each and every task. We have already gone through several tools of poor design and manufacture, so the arrival of the correct tools for the job is good news for the gardeners. It’s amazing what a difference it makes to use a real pitchfork for turning compost!

Urban drool running down concreted channel Tujunga Wash, Los Angeles, California. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

All around the world I see water wastefully flowing down and out of urban street curbs and concreted storm drains even though it has not rained in months. It is not stormwater I see flowing. It is urban drool. Others call it “nuisance runoff” – water from leaky pipes, driveway car washes, overwatered landscapes, and so on – our waste.  But it can be a resource. It can be harvested.

That is what is happening in Los Angeles, California long a mile long stretch of the Tujunga Wash Flood Control Channel, between Vanowen Street and Oxnard Avenue. It is bringing myriad life back to this community.

Section of Tujunga Wash and fenced-off upper bank pre-rehabilitation. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

Between 1950 and 1952 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleared a 9-mile section of the waterway of its vegetation and lined it with concrete to drain the water out of the community as quickly as possible. The goal was flood control, but it also dehydrated the watershed and its aquifer, removed the natural water filter, and created a fenced-off sterile blight.

That is now beginning to be reversed with the Tujunga Wash Greenway and Stream Restoration Project. A stream has been recreated and replanted with native riparian vegetation on the upper banks of the concreted channel. The new stream is fed by water diverted upstream from the channel through a half-mile-long pipe. Much of this water is urban drool, which flows year round. As the water flows through the greenway, it is filtered and cleaned by sand, gravel, and tree roots. Some percolates into the ground (helping recharge the aquifer), the rest is returned to the flood control channel via another pipe. It teems with life and invites one to step off the wide pedestrian/bicycle path lining the stream to explore and play.

Section of Tujunga Wash and new pedestrian path/corridor post rehabilitation. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

Much of this life acts a living seed bank of indigenous plants, whose seed can help revegetate downstream areas as water and seed flows downstream, and upstream areas as wildlife walks and flies upstream with seed in tow.

As this life resides on the upper banks it is unlikely to be washed out in big floods. The floods will scour down the concreted channel, leaving the life in its protective upper bank eddy to replant what is scoured – and to germinate still more life not yet seen.

It is a small step. A beginning. An invitation to revalue and rehabilitate our waterways so they once again are regenerative corridors of water, pedestrians, and wildlife.

Playing in section of Tujunga Wash rehabilitated upper bank stream. Photo credit: Brad Lancaster

For more on this dynamic project see here and here (PDF).

For more ideas, strategies, and stories on how to harvest urban drool and rainwater runoff to generate more life higher in the watershed of our built environments see:

• Street Orchards for Community Security
• Parking Lot to Parking Orchard
• Farming in the City with Runoff from a Street
• Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2: Water-Harvesting Earthworks

And thank you to David O’Donnell of TreePeople for guiding me to this project and its resources.

In comparison to the cost in life and property that these fires bring, such systems would be extremely cost-effective, and if done thoughtfully could also be used to bring other benefits – beyond fire protection – to local populations, wildlife and the environment. These concepts should be urged upon your local political representative for their consideration, and not just in Australia. Climate change is causing many normally wet regions to begin to dry out and already dry areas to dry out even more – so we can expect the frequency and intensity of fires to escalate in coming years.

You can listen to the clip in its entirety here (17 min, 15.4mb MP3). To download the file, simply right-click on the link and choose ‘Save Link As’ (Firefox) or ‘Save Target As’ (Internet Explorer).

Turramurra has the highest rainfall in Sydney with averages of around 1300mm a year, and issues such as flooding and erosion are common in lower areas of the catchments. The traditional approach to urban storm water has been to treat it as a problem, and to our detriment our cities have largely been designed to collect and dispose of rainfall as quickly as possible. City watercourses are being battered by dramatic and damaging flow patterns that would not have existed before hard surfaces and drainage systems were put in place. We are also wasting a hell of a lot of water.

Local government often approaches the problem with end-of-pipe solutions such as preserving riparian vegetation and stabilising channels with weirs, logs or concrete ‘realignments’. Water sensitive urban design is starting to be considered by councils, but this usually focuses on public or industrial areas, and will often prescribe expensive engineering structures that are out of reach of most home owners.

The Permaculture approach is tackle the problem at its source by slowing the water down and putting it to good use, and keeping it on site as much as possible. Swales are a low cost way to recharge aquifers, grow food forests that are largely self watering, reduce erosion and water pollution, and restore downstream aquatic ecosystems to natural flow patterns.

The Turramurra project was a great example of what can be achieved with a group of permie enthusiasts and a few basic bits of equipment. The site had a gently sloping gradient and potential water inputs from a rainwater tank overflow and laundry greywater. The swales will enable the water and nutrients to be passively spread across the yard on contour to water the food forest, rather than straight down the hill and off the site.

The swales were pegged out on contour using high and low tech methods (for practice), including an A-frame with a spirit level on the cross bar, a long tube filled with water, and a dumpee level and staff.

The backyard is inaccessible to machinery, so the swales were dug by hand. As luck would have it, there was quite a bit of rain in the lead up to the big day, and the rich sandy loam was easy to shovel. It took 12 people around 3 hours to finish two 16m swales with troughs 20 cm deep and 1 metre wide. We put a 2m wide level sill in each swale to protect the banks from bursting under big downpours.

Luck was on our side again as we finished compacting the sills – a massive thunder storm erupted and the swales filled up almost to spilling level while we had lunch. Normally a big rain would be a disaster for a gardening team event – but this time it was brilliant because we saw once and for all that the swales were perfectly level. We also saw the massive amount of water that could be captured in swales – and this was without any input from the overflow or greywater. While some of the rain would have fallen directly into the trough, much of this volume would have been surface flows that would ordinarily have trickled over the compacted lawn and off the site.

We finished off the swale banks with lashings of green manure seeds, three bales of lucerne and young acacias spaced 1.5m apart. The acacias are nurse trees to fertilise and shelter the fruit trees as they are planted in to the system.

This project was completed in December 2008. These photos were taken on the day. I will be loading more photos of the system as it develops. For more information on this project or other Permaculture North activities, check out our website www.permaculturenorth.org.au, or contact the Gardening Team on: garden (at) permaculturenorth.org.au .