Permaculture Seeds Sprouting in Detroit

Photo by Aaron Lawrence, on Flickr

Permaculture seeds planted in Detroit earlier this year are beginning to sprout, take root, and re-seed. There have been several stories about our city posted here on the PRI website, and I’d like to share with you the project I’m currently devoted to. We’re working to transform a home I bought this past spring and the vacant lots around it into what could be a model permaculture-based urban market garden and homestead in the west side neighborhood of Brightmoor.

This past April, while I was in the middle of the PDC being taught by Rhamis Kent over on Detroit’s east side, I purchased a little house on a hunk of urban prairie. Brightmoor is one of Detroit’s most desolate, and (I would argue) most beautiful neighborhoods. Drugs, charbroiled homes, and large open spaces are the norm. We also have deer, coyotes, foxes, owls, and many different birds. A river and forest wind through the neighborhood as well. Interacting with the bio and social ecologies is quite interesting when considering practical design strategies.

After spending the year interacting with the land and our neighbors, we’ve come up with what we believe to be an appropriate design. It’s still evolving a bit, but it’s a starting point at least. We decided to have friends come join us to learn more about permaculture and also help us to begin the implementation process. Some trees were cut to allow for sun. Trucks of topsoil and wood chips were brought in. We gathered grass clippings, straw, cardboard, and plenty of other organic matter to get things moving. We have 1% organic matter in the soil, the rest being sand and rock. The land is flat and of poor quality. We have a lot of work to do.

As noted elsewhere, Detroit is the birthplace of the automobile industry, suburbia, and the American Dream. Henry Ford taught us that to be human was to be a cog in an industrial machine. Many of the current inhabitants came here in an attempt to find a more humane existence. Before that they were treated as livestock or farm equipment. Many who lived here during the Great Migration couldn’t cope with the demographic changes and fled for the suburbs. Signs of collapse abound in the city and are starting to reach the suburbs. We are in the epicenter of a collapse; a collapse of a system as well as the collapse of an ideology. This weekend we explored what designing in the image of nature is all about. We also played games and talked about the need to become a new kind of human. It’s clear that if we keep being the type of human we were trained to be, it will be the end of our species. This is part of our lives’ work.

We kicked off the weekend with Geoff Lawton’s Introduction to Permaculture Design DVD. That was the only time we looked at a screen together all weekend. This provided the background for all the other work and conversation for the permaculture intensive. The next morning we did sensory awareness activities that helped us see and hear the life going on all around us. We explored the ecological succession happening below our feet on a vacant lot. Later we saw a mini-forest growing in a vacant backyard that hadn’t been mowed or cared for in years. Having no true ‘Zone 5’, this is our great teacher. We learned about water, soil, and design and combined those to build mandala garden. It resembles Holmgrem’s flower with 7 petals, as well as the sunflowers some other gardeners around the city are using to remove lead from the soil. To us, this is a symbol that represents the opportunity for new life. We gathered logs and slash to create a ‘hugelkultur’ berm, similar to the raised beds Sepp Holzer has in Austria. We built this facing the street to create a visual barrier and perhaps a sense of intrigue. It’s important to realize that while some Detroiters are excited about gardening, agriculture has left deep wounds in the family memories of others. Being both aware and sensitive to this is part of our people care ethic. We desire to be a place of healing and restoration. We feel that if it isn’t healing for the neighborhood then it isn’t appropriate. Of course, the berm is also functional and will be catching rainwater and fertility for the polyculture orchard that we’re planting next spring.

Photo by Aaron Lawrence, on Flickr

In the afternoon we headed all the way across town to where the PDC took place this past spring and spent the afternoon and evening learning about forest gardening. The next day we walked around our site and talked about the total design and how the waste or products of each element provide for the needs of another element. We talked about soil food web (PDF) and brewed compost tea. We learned about the important roles mushrooms play within nature. We used several different cultivation techniques to bring 3 edible/medicinal mushrooms into the garden. By next spring there should be enough spawn to start running the mycelium through the veg and forest gardens.

Our friends have gone home now. A few live in the neighborhood, many live in other parts of Detroit, and others in other parts of the state and country. I think at the end of the weekend we were all a bit tired and glad to be done, but there is already excitement to come back in the spring. I know at least a few of them are already sowing new seed in the place they call home. We’re thinking of doing something like this every spring and fall. To some that came, permaculture was an abstract word or concept. Others had little or no exposure. I think they have a better sense of what it can mean in action. Some of us have been to workshops and read the books and a couple of us even have our PDCs. We’re ready to pick up the shovel, get our hands in the soil, move beyond theory and start teaming with life to build something both beautiful and productive. I’m excited to hopefully add to the collective knowledge of small scale cool temperate permaculture. I believe it to be an important tool as we try to understand what type of humans we will become here in Detroit. Now I need to figure out how I’m going to get the rest of this work done before the snow starts falling!

Photo by Aaron Lawrence, on Flickr