Permaculture and Community

Recently I had the luck of finding out that a friendly couple down the road had an organic garden. I've been walking, cycling, and driving past their house for years and through a series of events and correspondence, found myself invited for a visit to the garden.
Community is important in Permaculture and I've struggled somewhat with that portion of my practice. So it was incredibly wonderful to get to know about the organic garden down the road, and the gardener who tends it. Her garden, like ours, is in gopher infested land. She has several raised beds with hardware cloth under them to keep the gophers from accessing her bounty. Her trellises are sturdy wire (cattle panel) supported by stakes. Her tomatoes were tall and well-supported. She waters with what appears to be a drip system. The set-up produces quite an impressive yield. I came away with my bicycle basked filled with trombetta squash, tomatoes of various sorts, and some Asian cucumbers, all grown on trellises. Sharing from the garden seems to be a fairly common trait among my gardener friends and it was great to bring organically grown vegetables home from her garden.

I brought along a container of winter pie pumpkin seeds for her to try growing next year.

When I return from Permaculture teacher training, I plan to invite her over for a visit to my non-linear permaculture jungle garden. By then the pumpkins and squash will likely have taken over most of the front and back gardens.

Tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers from a garden down the road.