I’ve been working these past few weeks in CFI’s Native Plant Nursery and Food Forest Garden, bundling them up for the winter. Luckily for us, it has been a warm fall, so we’ve had a little more extra time to get things ready for the snow….

A Snowy Nursery

Food Forest Garden?

A Food Forest is a garden that is constructed in the image of nature. We see that nature provides for itself and does not need watering, fertilization, or even weeding. Yet, nature is productive and resilient when it is not disturbed. How can we bring these same principles into our gardens? We create the same necessary ecological functions we see in nature and bring them into the food forest.

Echinacea - Food Forest Garden

We started with the soil, 3 years ago. We added layers and layers of organic material – converting a lawn into a forest.

Food Forest Garden - The Beginning

Starting with brown grassy soil in 2009 – we now have black loamy soil and our plants are thriving!! We bring in wood chips and straw every year to continue to build soil, while adding plants that: attract beneficial insects, repel pests, create natural mulch, accumulate necessary nutrients, create wildlife habitat, and provide food and medicine. As years pass, our Food Forest garden will need less outside input because nature does the work for us!

Native Forest Garden - Summer 2011

Native Forest Garden - Mulched for the Winter

What we can create out of our Food Forest:

Native Forest Garden - Summer 2011

Sage Tea

Oswega Tea

Oregano Spice

Thyme Spice

Lemon Balm Tea

Apple Sauce, Apple Pie or just plain Apples

Daylily Fritters

Gooseberry Jam

Current Jam

Blackberries

Native Forest Garden - Mulched for the Winter

Yarrow Tea

Wild Ginger Candies

Northern Bayberry Leaf Spice

Morel Mushrooms

Highbush Cranberries

Fiddleheads

Rose Petals

Rose Hip Jelly

Wild Cherries

Elderberry Wine

Morel Mushroom

Elder Flower Tea

Elderberry Syrup

Elderberry Jam

Red Clover Tea

Witch Hazel Decoction

Wild Raisins

And coming soon: Native edible nuts!

Our Native Plant Nursery

Every year in Canada, CFI aims to plant thousands of trees in the Maritimes to restore biodiversity in the Acadian Forest. With many nurseries focusing on softwood trees, we saw a need to use under represented Acadian Forest species in our projects. So we collected seeds for stratification and planted trees in beds to use in our restoration projects for the summer of 2012.

Native Plant Nursery

Next year we hope to provide: Eastern White Cedar, Sugar Maple, Red Oak, Ironwood (Hop Hornbeam), White Ash, White Pine, and Red Spruce; as well as introduce shrubs and understory herbs into the nursery.

The chosen trees are long lived, slow growing, shade tolerant trees that are needed to restore the biodiversity of our forests so they can overcome the effects of climate change. Since the effects of climate change on the Acadian Forest are unknown, the best practice is to restore diversity by planting a variety of native softwoods, hardwoods, shrubs, and herbs in our backyards and on our woodlots.

Biological diversity includes a variety of plants, genetics, habitats, soils, and even tree ages. With diversity we create forest resilience that can withstand environmental stress and climate variability. We carry these ethics with us in our international projects, in hopes that by promoting community involvement and sharing knowledge globally, we can together make a difference.

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Daimen and I arrived safe in Uganda and met with the members of SLINT (see Daimen’s post). We had a long bumpy drive to a small village in the Kiboga district, called Kiyuni, where community members were eager to learn about nursery set-up and tree care. This was motivated by members of SLINT who provided the community with Avocado seedlings the previous year. In our trip, Dennis, the executive director of SLINT, brought various indigenous tree seeds from the National Forest Center in Kampala.

Dennis presenting indigenous seeds to Kiyuni village

These seeds, along with a short workshop Daimen and I taught, were to start a community forestry project, as well as promoting self sufficient and sustainable ideas to members of  Kiyuni, a remote village with poor road access. Environmentally conscious and sustainable practices become necessary to villages such as Kiyuni, where reliance on external resources is not an option, and where these practices promote community self-sufficiency.

Me conducting nursery and tree-planting workshop in Kiyuni

We hope to support Kiyuni further in their tree planting initiatives, through working with SLINT, as well as promoting environmental education and conservation and food security through using Permaculture techniques.

Meeting Kiyuni community members

A few SLINT beneficiaries

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In Wete, I rounded up some young members of the community to help me plant a Permaculture garden on a small piece of land in the village. The idea was to show how you can grow a lot of food in a small area, something I hope will be evident when the food continues to grow. Of course, I had to find a balance between what I thought was best and what my assistants thought was best. It was fun to involve some young women in activities they normally wouldn’t participate in, and allowing them to lead how the garden was to be put together and planted.

Slowly we can show a different way of doing things that can allow for greater yield, but also giving people a chance to teach us in return is important.

However, just getting out and doing things with the community in the village is also important, as foreigners don’t travel to Pemba often, and building trust can allow for success of projects in the future.

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We visited the village of Gando and the land given to Community Forests Pemba for the Pemba Sustainability Institute (PSI). We wanted to involve the community and hear their questions and concerns. The main concern was that currently farmers are using this government owned land to grow cassava . The building of an education site would mean they might lose the ability to farm there, and thus, they were initially opposed.

Lush Greenery on Gando Site

Viewing these problems as opportunities, Daimen and I have begun to brainstorm on how we can involve the community to create a win-win situation. Our main idea was to have demonstration plots, where interested local farmers can come and practice advanced agriculture techniques, harvest the profits, and actually have greater land tenure than they do currently. These demonstration plots will then become examples of working advanced agriculture techniques for students at the PSI.

Daimen Adressing Gando Community

Meeting Under Mango Tree

 We also discussed with the community about how they can become involved, and how the education site would be of great value to this rural community. A Pemba Sustainability Institute committee was proposed, so that locals of Gando would have rights as stakeholders in the project.
What is important now is to get these ideas across, not only to the locals of Gando, but to all the supporters of the PSI.  Gando will be the first to benefit from the project, and their experiences and education will provide the foundation for educating students from across Pemba and further abroad once the institute is established.

Gando Sheha, Elders, and Community Members

“I think the future of conservation lies in getting the cooperation, understanding, and participation of the local people. If we do not, then we will surely fail”.
Costa Mlay, past head of the Wildlife Division of Tanzania’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, speaking on converting land to game reserves.

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Daimen and I have visited more sites on Pemba, some having the same problems starting seedlings, but one community doing quite well, Shumba Viamboni. However, this community has been running for awhile, and will facilitate training for other communities. The problems of deforestation have become apparent to the community of Shumba Viamboni, in an area close to the village. Twenty or more years ago a piece of land was deforested and without the shade, mulch, and root structures conserving water in the soil, it quickly turned to desert. The people of the surrounding communities, with aid of an NGO in the UK, replanted the site with Acacia, and now 20 years later, a forest has once again emerged. It was great to learn that the community was not going to cut this forest, rather, they were going to conserve it for environmental and ecological purposes.

Desert turned Acacia forest

It is clear that Acacia would grow well in sandy desert-like soils and we have suggested planting Acacia in sandy areas such as Tundua. However, the idea is not being taken well, as an exotic Acacia species has been over planted and mono-planted in the past. Biodiversity is an important consideration when replanting a forest, to insure its longevity in times of drought, flood or other environmental hardships. If no other trees will grow in a site, such as Tundua, indigenous Acacia should be considered as a nurse crop to make the soil more suitable for other tree species to be planted in the future. Acacia sp. will build the soil by adding mulch from fallen leaves, conserving water in the soil through its roots and hydraulic lift (water evaporating from the ground to its leaves creating a cool moist environment under its canopy), and buy adding nitrogen to the soil, a necessary nutrient for tree growth. The trees then can be selectively cut to allow sunlight for other trees (small areas only) or shade tolerant species can be planted.

Another issue that came up as we drove down the winding roads of Pemba, was the cutting of mangroves. This resulted in sea water spilling in on their once productive land, creating salty soil where farming could not continue. As we saw in one area, only black soil remained, as sea adapted plants had not yet moved in, and the soil is nutrient depleted from over farming.

Shumba Kwale Nursery

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Here are a few more pictures of our Permaculture experience. Enjoy.

Me in an Edible Forest Garden...Mmmmm

Children's Garden at the Sabina Orphanage

Class time in the Sabina Garden

PDC students taking some shade

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In our Permaculture (PC) training, we have begun by identifying global issues that need to be addressed. These are polluted air and water, soil erosion, deforestation, peak oil, population growth that cannot be maintained, and unfair trade/economics. These problems are creating loss of biodiversity, unfair distribution of wealth, land degradation, and climate change. Permaculture provides solutions to these problems as a design science for sustainable living and land use. Using methods of Permaculture, we can create food security, sustainable communities, fair trade, diverse ecosystems, less use of oil, and environmental and social rehabilitation. Daimen and I hope to introduce the ideas we are learning in our Permaculture Design Course (PDC) in Pemba, Tanzania, helping to create more sustainable communities (i.e. more localization of food, goods, and services) that will result in fair trade and less dependence on outside resources. Implementing PC in our tree planting projects will yield better growth of not only timber products, but food products as well. At the same time, people of Pemba Island will be improving their island’s environment and soil for future generations. These PC ideas can be applied in our daily lives as well.

“Treat the earth well, it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children.” Algonquin

Pictures coming soon, as the connection is too slow for that right now.

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