Saturday, February 20, 2010

Greening the Desert

So, one of the books Ethan got me for my birthday last September is Gaia's Garden, which is all about permaculture -- the idea of building organic gardens that are basically self-sustainable. I've been reading it in preparation for when (when!) we buy our own house, and it's pretty cool.

While surfing on the internet, I found this video about a permaculture project near the Dead Sea. This is an area which is basically void of life and considered to be very difficult to farm. This man built a farm using some of the ideas of permaculture and was able to create an organic farm that is thriving in a very harsh environment.

Check it out. Even if you aren't really into gardening, it's pretty cool.

5 comments:

Meg said...

My partner and I saw this video clip too, which inspired us to dig a swale in our garden.

You can see a picture of it here.

I have never read any Thoreau, I am ashamed to say, but you have inspired me!

L said...

Meg, thanks for the link. I have not seen any swales "in action", so that was cool to get an idea of how to set it up.

Don't be ashamed you haven't read any Thoreau. He's hard to read! And, you still have the rest of your life to do it. :)

M said...

Toby Hemenway was actually a guest professor at my university 2 years ago for our permaculture class. Unfortunately, I was not able to take the class with him.

Also, PRI Australia has posted an update to this video. They went back a few years later and set up another permaculture site. You can see the new video here: http://goingbackwardmovingforward.blogspot.com/2010/03/do-you-really-want-to-be-inspired-how.html

Hope you enjoy Gaia's Garden. It's a great rad.

L said...

Thanks Matt! And welcome to my blog!

Matt said...

Thanks for having me. Haha.