Vegetable production from the month of 12-7 Eggplant 72.435.kg Tomato 39/225KG Parsley 6,690 bunch Mint 12,735 bunch Green Onion 18.225 kg Hot Pepper 39.345kg Sweet Pepper 36,035 kg Thyme 3.080 bunch Sage 4,680 bunch Cauliflower 35.355kg Cabbage 20,140 kg Fennel 10.290 kg Potato 10 kg ( first Trail ) Spinach 12,980 bunch Okra 6,820 Malukhia 14,530 Pawpaw 150 fruits Egges 2010 egg … [Read more...]
We’re Mulching Pits, Propagating, Planting, and Making Compost
Our Permaculture in Action course is meant to offer a more hands-on (versus theoretical) learning environment to permaculture students, and by late October, teams are spread out through the Greening the Desert site. Students from all over the world are busy with projects on the farm. A team of ladies is working on the top terrace, creating a mulch pit with the last of the spiky nitrogen-fixing trees (prosopis regrowth and Jerusalem thorn). The site is now fertile enough to switch to a … [Read more...]
Permaculture is Greening the Desert
Next door to the Greening the Desert site, a former student has been designing her land to be productive. She has added lots of compost, a shade cloth, and unglazed pots for efficient irrigation. She is growing a collection of herbs and vegetables, things such as clumping basil, Ethiopian cabbage, and marshmallow. She has support species—acacia, leucaena, casuarina, Tacoma stans, neem, albizzia—on the go, having learned to repair the soil before adding fruit trees. And, she has begun to slowly … [Read more...]
We’re Literally Spreading From One Garden to the Next
In a small settlement above the agricultural land, where the landscape is horribly degraded, some people are beginning to use permaculture techniques. Crops are up in shade houses. Wicking beds are in full production, yielding crops even at the end of summer, a miraculous event in the desert. A chicken tractor is producing a cubic meter of compost a week. And, the gardens have been cut out of two-to-three meters of solid rock, with the excavated rock then used to make retaining walls cut for … [Read more...]
Casual Tree Tours
Greening the Desert Project, Jordan September 2018 Stepping onto the site in late September 2018, just at the end of summer, the trees of the food forest are looking impressive. Our support species have moved from thorny nitrogen-fixers, like Prosopis and Jerusalem thorn, to less aggressive species, such as albizzia, cassia, Casuarina, and leucaena. The thorny nitrogen-fixers were cut down to the ground, and the detritus was piled into deep mulch pits. Many of the second wave of … [Read more...]
Permaculture for Pastoralists in the Jordan Valley – Part II
Note: If you haven't already, you can read Part I here. A Dead Sea Valley family home with their typical front ‘lawn’. Photo © Craig Mackintosh The title may lead you to think we are talking about people who manage pasture or have access to wide areas of rangeland. In fact, we are talking about people whose parents and grandparents were nomadic pastoralists that ranged flocks of animals across vast areas of land with the changing of the seasons. Rangelands in the Middle East were … [Read more...]
Permaculture for Pastoralists in the Jordan Valley – Part I
Awassi sheep ready to go to market (and random standards inspector) I’ve been to the Greening the Desert “Sequel” site three times now. Once was in 2011 when we were at the IPC in Jordan. Once was in 2012 when I went there to take an internship with Geoff and Nadia. This year I was able to go back there to teach a PDC myself. So I’ve seen some of the development of the site over the past three years as the trees have grown up, formed a canopy and started to alter the microclimate of the site … [Read more...]
Permaculture in the Islamic World: The Dire Need to Get Involved!
A Dead Sea Valley family home with their typical front ‘lawn’ (Photo © Craig Mackintosh) Looking at the state of the Islamic World these days, it seems like Muslims don’t really care much about the environment. Canals which carry Nile water to irrigate farmlands in Egypt are so full of rubbish they frequently get blocked up, stagnate and spread disease. The once-mighty river Jordan has been so diminished in these dark days it is down to a muddy trickle you could probably jump over if you … [Read more...]