My Journey Into Permaculture
This graphic designer is super psyched on California native plants and transitioning urban spaces to climate-resilient food forests. I’ve found no greater joy than digging my hands in the dirt, learning from and teaching others about plants and local ecology, and building community around growing our own food.
After earning my Permaculture Design Certificate in June 2024 during a two-week in-person intensive course, I knew I had to make the jump from screen-based to regenerative work. Now, I am focused on putting in my ‘dirt time’ by getting as much hands-on gardening and landscape design experience as I can.
Berendo St Parkway Project
Tongva, Chumash ancestral lands - Los Angeles, CA 90027Planted: April 2024
This was (and continues to be) a project that fills my heart with so much joy and inspiration. The parkway strip, otherwise known as the “hell strip” between the sidewalk and the street, is a humble space that offers great potential beyond a space for dog poop, trash, and water-thirsty non-native grass. After discussing with my neighbors, I got the green light to transform the bermuda grass parkway in front of our building into a water-wise native plant garden and pollinator habitat. Little did I know what a huge undertaking this would be!
Process
With the enthusiastic help from my partner, we set out to collect as much cardboard as we could from all the neighbors in the building. It took several months to gather what we needed to fill 622 sq feet of surface area, but folks were excited to donate what they could to the cause. After stripping all the cardboard of tape and stickers, we covered the parkway with the cardboard in an effort to supress the bermuda grass and start fresh. For mulch, we made many trips up to the free composting facility at Griffith Park and filled our trunks with as much mulch as possible. A dozen or so trunkloads later, we had successfully layered about 2” of mulch on top of the cardboard. Once wetted down, we waited a couple months for the sheet mulching process to do its thing. In the meantime, we found out that landscape edging became a necessity, so we installed plastic edging all around the strips.
At this point, it was April: not the most ideal time to plant, but better late than never! We sourced many of the plants from the Hahamongna Native Plant Nursery at the Arroyo Seco Foundation, which is a wonderful nursery which specializes in California native plants and sources and propogates many of the plants locally. I also ordered a Native Garden Kit from TreePeople which included 10 three gallon native plants. Prior to install, we built cages with chicken wire and stakes to protect the baby plants from foot traffic. We spaced the plants according to how large they would grow at maturity, and were also sure to select plants that would tolerate crappy soil and part shade. Since then, we’ve hand-watered the plants weekly and will continue to do so until they are fully established.
Reflections
One of my favorite aspects of this project are all the new connections we’ve made with neighbors who have been curious about what we’re doing. We’ve met people who live on our street that we never would have before. We’ve recieved (mostly) gratitude, encouragement, and even monetary support from neighbors who love the care and attention being taken to help beautify our street.
The success of the project has had its ups and downs. We’ve learned a ton about what NOT to do, and to celebrate small victories along the way. The bermuda grass is insidious and remains a constant battle to date, as any gardener would knowingly relate to. A handful of plants haven’t made it, and we’ve had to replace several varieties that weren’t happy where we planted them. We’ve learned that a proper sun study and soil ammending (prior to install), is essential for success. I’m looking forward to the cooler months ahead and the rainy season, were we can sprinkle some native annual seeds, ammend the soil with compost, build bigger berms, and continue supporting our little Berendo habitat.
East Hollywood Community Garden
Tongva, Chumash ancestral lands - 1177 N Madison AvenueVolunteer, April 2023-present
Tucked behind a playground amidst concrete and urban sprawl on the east side of LA sits a half-acre oasis. For me, The East Hollywood Community Garden has been a portal to reconnect with my working relationship with the earth as well as my connection to place. The garden is a cultural crossroads and great equalizer between neighbors. We come together regardless of our backgrounds, identities, and status to steward communal areas of the garden, tend to the food forest, sift compost, rest, and share knowledge.
Facing an Uncertain Future
As LA’s temperate mediterranean climate becomes increasingly hot and dry, we often worry what this will mean for growing food and capturing water. As we face the dangerous impacts of climate change (as a consequence of western greed), how will urban centers, threatened by extreme weather and rampant inequalities, adapt in the years to come?
Gardening: A Radical Act
The community garden offers us hope as a meaningful model against the harmful myth of the tragedy of the commons. It is truly radical to come together in a shared space and work in partnership with the earth to nurture abundance. It eschews everything the capitalist imperialist framework demands—privatization, property, global trade, convinience, rugged individualism—and instead utilizes the commons for collective hyper-local resiliency.
Returning to the Commons
With the precious little land given back to the people for communal use, we’ve seen nothing but abundance, beauty, life, education, restoration, collaboration. Imagine what a neighborhood could do with a several acre parcel of land? What if all the thousands of vacant lots rotting away across our city could be re-zoned for communal agricultural use? Or better yet, given back to the original inhabitants and stewards of the land: the Tongva and Chumash tribes? All that concrete broken up, soil health restored, carbon captured, and aquifers replenished? Imagine if cities like LA—with a network of 47 community gardens and over 2000 community gardeners—organized with indigenous networks to demand the city prioritize Land Back?
To truly save ourselves from extinction, we as a species must step away from a system based on extraction and exploitation and humbly turn to the leadership of indigenous wisdom and land care practices.
Permaculture Design Certificate
Santa Cruz Permaculture - Summer Design Intensive June 2024
Coming soon!