The Complete Permagarden Manual Growing Household Nutrition and Agroecological Resilience in the Face of Global Hunger, Poverty, Climate Change and Chronic Disease A Step-by-Step Guide To Create and Teach Home-Based Climate-Smart Nutrition-Focused Permanent Gardens using the Terra Firma Method The Complete Permagarden Manual April 2017 Page 0 Acknowledgements Climate Change, Poverty, HIV/AIDS, and Nutrition Insecurity are inextricably linked. This cycle of insecurity contributes to the spread of poverty and HIV where hungry people may turn to unsafe health and environmental practices, in order just to feed themselves a meager diet. Once infected, chronic undernutrition increases susceptibility to opportunistic infections and hastens the onset of AIDS. As people living with HIV become sick, they are unable to engage in normal livelihood activities, including agriculture, thus threatening the nutritional and economic security of themselves, their families and their communities. Within the global context of climate change, economic downturns and insecure land tenure, especially amongst women and the rural poor, this situation becomes even more acute and demands a more appropriate, locally driven, cycle of resilient living. In response to these critical issues, beginning in 2006, the Peace Corps embarked upon an agroecological garden program for all Volunteers and their local counterparts in Permaculture and Bio-Intensive Home Gardens. By 2007, they became known simply as “Permagardens”. The continuing goals of the program are to provide all vulnerable families, including PLWHA, with an attainable, practical and adaptable method that helps them to increase their own household food, nutrition, health, income and environmental security through “climate smart” gardens. Results have proven the method’s effectiveness to significantly increase household resilience with a high probability of replication by other organizations and individuals. The method helps families build skills to locally adapt to and mitigate the impacts of these major global issues on their own terms. These gardens can fill the gap between available crops in the market and the need for daily food in the family kitchen. As they require the use of only what is already accessible, they strengthen the local environment in an economically viable manner acceptable even to the most marginalized families. The initial funding for these efforts came in 2006 from Peace Corps Tanzania, through a grant from USAID and PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. These funds allowed time for investigation of past actions in nutrition utilization for those living with HIV and lead to the livelihood security and gardening approach that follows in these pages. Ongoing funding to bring these concepts to the broader Peace Corps and International NGO community has been provided by Feed the Future, the Food Security program of USAID. All due thanks are hereby acknowledged. As you read through this manual you will come to fully understand the statement: If you prepare for the climate you can stop worrying about the weather. In these days of great climate insecurity we have a chance to adapt to the new reality and mitigate against its impacts. We cannot sit back and remain as victims requiring rescue from outside forces but rather strive to become victors over the very destruction we are witnessing. The answers lie within the local environment and its people if we simply open our eyes, walk, talk, work and learn together. As the photo on the cover exemplifies, the spark for the fire of change now rests in your hands. If our desire is to end hunger we must feed the soil; letting plants feed themselves, the earth, and its many citizens, large and small…including us. You are the one who can make change happen. Start small, slow the water, feed the soil, and eat well, while teaching others how to move from being a ‘Weather Worrier’ to a ‘Climate Conqueror’! Peter Jensen Agroecology and Permagarden Training Specialist Addis Ababa, Ethiopia April 2017 All opinions expressed within this document are my own and do not necessarily reflect the policies nor opinions of the United States Government, USAID or the Peace Corps. The science that is found within this manual, however, is fact and thereby not under dispute. The Complete Permagarden Manual April 2017 Page 1 Table of Contents Executive Summary 5 How To Use This Manual 6 Session 1: Overview and Rationale for a New Paradigm 8 Defining a Permagarden 8 Vision Goals and Tasks 9 Defining Empowerment and Resilience 9 Defining our Targets 10 Why Garden Projects Fail 11 Overcoming the Barriers to Adoption 12 The Rule of CLOSE 13 Climate Smart allows Nutrition Focus 15 The Cycle of Better Living 17 Training Exercise: Teach Two 18 Training Exercise: Roll Crumple Fly 19 Terra Firma: Putting it all Together 20 Plan for Success: Train & Visit 22 Training Exercise: Go, Grow and Glow 22 Section 2: Key Technical Topics 23 An Overview of the Key Steps 23 The Circle of Sustainability 24 The Basic Needs of Life 24 Deep Soil Preparation 24 Close Spacing 25 The Garden Map 26 Create the Healthy Microclimate 26 Compost for Continuity 26 The Values of Local Soil Amendments 27 Protective Berms and Swales 27 Water Management “Six S” 28 Water off a Roof 29 Soil Health – The key to Sustainability 30 Understanding Your Soil 30 Soil Texture 30 Soil Structure 31 Soil Acidity 31 Soil Fertility 31 Dealing with Problem Soils 31 Training Tip: The Basic Needs of Life 32 Compost : Benefits 33 Making Compost 34 Materials to Use 34 The Complete Permagarden Manual April 2017 Page 2 Materials NOT to Use 34 Step by Step Instructions 34 Garden Seasonality 36 Making Biochar from Crop Residues 37 Making Vegetable Compost ‘Tea’ 39 Crop Rotation 40 Organic Pest Control 41 Live Fencing 42 Planting the Fence 43 Pruning the Fence 43 Starting Seedlings 44 Planting Seedlings 44 Seedling Creation 44 Seed and Plant Spacing Chart 45 Section 3: Creating the Permagarden Step by Step 46 1. Community Resource Walk 47 2. Preparing the Planting Area 49 3. Garden Layout for Water Management 50 4. Creating Protective Swales 52 5. Double Digging Production Beds 54 6. Bio-Intensive Plant and Seed Spacing 56 7. Garden Management 58 8. Permatainers 60 Continuity: Moving from Weather Worrier to Climate Conqueror 61 Section 4: Walk and Talk Topic Extension Guidelines 62 How to Use the Garden Dialogue Method 62 Building Sustainability 63 General Barriers and Problem Statements 64 Dialogue Topics 1. Household Nutrition 65 2. Identifying Garden Spaces 68 3. Nurturing the Soil 69 4. Local Soil Amendments 70 5. Compost 71 6. Bed Location and Preparation 72 7. Household Water Management 74 8. Surface Water Management 76 9. Mulching 78 10. Plant Timing and Spacing 79 11. Plant Fertility Needs 81 12. Disease and Pest Control 82 13. Crop Rotation and Continuation 84 The Complete Permagarden Manual April 2017 Page 3 Appendix 1. Peace Corps Approach to Nutrition 85 2. The Outreach Plan 86 3. Progressive Productive Behavior Checklist 87 4. Permagarden Teaching Checklist 88 5. Training Flipsacks 90 6. Permagarden Stories of Change 91 7. Overcoming Stunting: Our Window of Opportunity 93 8. The Agroecological Vision: Building Intersectoral Resilience 94 9. The Garden Map 95 Notes: 96 Climate-Smart, Nutrition-Focused Permagardens: From Weather Worrier to Climate Conqueror. Why do we need this alternative method? Isn’t larger- scale farming more efficient than small, family gardens? From a purely economic perspective, this can be argued. But within the harsh tropical climates and the even harsher, evidence-based, climate change, neither families, nor their ecosystems, can afford NOT to take on a new agroecologically-sound approach. So much is happening; seemingly all at once. We see weather extremes and loss of previously dependable cycles; devastating floods and long droughts. When coupled with the ever decreasing availability of arable land due to erosion and overpopulation, and the loss of labor force due to urbanization and chronic disease, there is a huge need to adopt a new approach. Climate-smart gardening shows us how WE can take control; how WE adapt, mitigate and thereby intensify production from small spaces that our children, and our economies, require for empowering, self-development. The Complete Permagarden Manual April 2017 Page 4 Executive Summary Hunger, malnutrition and early childhood stunting are huge problems across the developing world. The root causes have been debated for many years as being linked to poverty, illness, lack of sanitation and hygiene, early marriage, low birthweight babies and climate change. These causes can be overwhelming. Mitigating the problems at the source is, of course, one solution; but a very difficult and costly one. What is needed is a simple solution of adaptation to the new realities; one in which all those impacted can participate; techniques that will bring resilience to each household, one small adjustment at a time. It is this small, step-by- small-step approach that is best exemplified by the creation of nutrition-focused, climate- smart, home gardens. The garden IS the long sought after link between seasonal agriculture and the daily need for sound nutrition. These small, high-yield, daily-accessed gardens, embody all three Climate Smart approaches of adaptation, mitigation and intensification allowing even the most marginalized family the chance to be an active part of their own solution rather than being the perennially disempowered victims of the problem. While acknowledging the important role of agriculture in providing crops to market and food to family table, we must also note that this is seasonal. We all require food on a daily basis and crops in the market do not necessarily translate to food on the table. This is true around the world, but most readily apparent in the developing world where high rates of childhood stunting are the norm rather than the exception.