PERMAGARDENS

An adaptation of permaculture and bio-intensive gardening, Permagardens are a climate- and water-resilient technology that makes it possible for families to grow large amounts of food all year round, including during the dry season, close to home.
 

Climate change has added misery to the lives of so many people who depend on subsistence agriculture. Not only is there less rainfall in some places, but rain is concentrated in fewer months, feeding a cycle of increasing floods and droughts. Often, there are no ways to store rainwater, droughts are increasing the ‘long walk to water,’ and agriculture is often failing.
 

Pioneered by former Peace Corps volunteer Peter Jensen of TerraFirma International, the idea behind Permagardens is to channel all available water to a double-dug garden which is augmented with waste organic material. Double-digging means both topsoil and the layer of earth below it are tilled (16-18 inches deep), with channels created underneath to capture water runoff, from roofs or simply from sloped surfaces. If done correctly, it is possible to grow nutrient-rich foods close to one's home virtually all year round, regardless of the climate. The same can be done with small agricultural plots, with ridged gardens being double-dug, water draining through the swales to what essentially become underground water tanks. Water can be directed off paths into the swales.
 

Permagardens are rooted in water conservation. Every puddle breeding malaria mosquitos is water that is not working for the community. Every flash flood washing out roads represents water that is not irrigating farms and fields. Every piece of bare land standing next to people's homes is land that is not feeding children and families. We can't change the climate (well, we have, but that's another conversation), but we can adapt ourselves to making better lives for each other using simple, easily implementable concepts.
 

The result is healthier families with higher nutritional status, less subject to the vagaries of the climate, available work, or of the marketplace. We also encourage families to grow moringa, the miracle tree, which can radically transform child nutrition. Moringa plants can even be used as living fences for the Permagardens!
 

When successful, Permagardens ensure greater community resilience, ecological sustainability, and nutritional abundance. Follow-up and monitoring are necessary to ensure ongoing success and program expansion.

Elizabeth Bisno – Executive Director – elizabird3@gmail.com 

Peter Otiende – Director of Global Initiatives – otiendex@gmail.com

David H. Albert – Board Chair – davidalbert1717@gmail.com, 

Phone contact:  (805) 770-0870 

The Permagardens Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization – IRS ruling pending. All contributions to The Permagardens Foundation are federally tax-exempt to the extent allowable by law.