On his final day at the Greening the Desert Project (https://www.greeningthedesertproject.org) this year in Jordan, Geoff takes us on a unique tour of the property. Rather than showcasing its renowned living systems, he’s excited about how the project is continually evolving. The tour starts on the high mezzanine roof next to solar panels donated and installed by 24 Hour Solar Power from Australia (https://24hoursolarpower.com). The system has a live action feed that allows Geoff and the crew … [Read more...]
Geoff talks to Naema about her permaculture garden
Naema is a local student of the Green the Desert project, and she created a highly productive garden at her house. The garden is terraced and carved out of solid rock, but via a “chicken tractor on steroids”, she and her family have created a fertile place to plant. She is a symbol of success for the GTD project, and she is now having a huge influence on the local community. Geoff takes time to interview Naema after students from the GTD internship have had a guided tour of her property. Her … [Read more...]
Permaculture Neighbours at the Greening the Desert Site
Hayal is a neighbor of the Greening the Desert site and has a young family with seven children. Their home has an established permaculture site with a distinct food forest. They have chickens adding fertility to the system. They’ve added some solar energy. There are two production gardens, recently cultivated wicking beds, and few beehives around. The winter garden is underway and generates income for the family. The food forest is very straightforward with drip irrigation throughout, … [Read more...]
Geoff Leads a Teaching Tour of the Greening the Desert Site
We started about 11 years ago, and it looked like the other bare blocks around the area. we purchased the land, created a society, and gave the land to the society. There was no funding, so everything advanced slowly. With each new success came a new stream of funding. Course by course, they volunteered, and the site got off the ground, so much so that funding eventually came from LUSH (https://www.lush.com). Ultimately, Mulsim Aid Australia (https://www.muslimaid.org.au) began funding the … [Read more...]
A Student-Led Permaculture Tour
Benson introduces Sam Parker Davies (both Australian) to tell us about how the group has been tweaking earthworks to capture water and recharge the landscape with organic material. It’s only just rained for the first time in over a year. They’ve created a diversion ditch to capture a little sheeting runoff coming from a nearby landform. The ditch leads to a berm, both of them lined with rocks to prevent erosion. The berm has been planted to Leucaena and pioneering species to create a biological … [Read more...]
Learning and Practicing Permaculture
The Greening the Desert Project offers once-a-year internships at which students get to work side-by-side with Geoff while they learn, hands-on, permaculture techniques suitable for arid climates. In this video, Geoff takes us on a short tour of the first day of the 2019 internship program. One group has already begun on the major project of tidying up the food forest using the chop-and-drop technique. Much of the work is pollarding Leucaena trees, both opening up the forest to sunshine and … [Read more...]
Abla’s Garden
Meet Abla, the former school teacher who bought a small piece of property in the desert. After nine months on the property, she met her neighbours Geoff and Nadia, and she took our permaculture design certificate course here at the Greening the Desert project. She then began to transition her own property, which had been mostly rocks and barren soil, into a green desert site as well. Having left the city unhealthy, she has felt renewed with a permaculture lifestyle, caring for plants and … [Read more...]
Celebrating 10-Years at the Greening the Desert Project, Jordan.
The Greening the Desert Project started with the purchase of land about ten years ago, and it expanded slowly until that mounted into exponential growth. Things started at the top, literally, with a large water tank that feeds a shower/toilet block just downhill. The toilets are dry composting, supplying fertilizer for plants on site, and the greywater from the showers and sinks goes to a nearby reed bed. The reed bed, still high in the landscape, is then able to send gravity-fed irrigation to … [Read more...]
Food Forest Fertility
It’s the last day and people are still working on irrigation and chop-and-drop. Neem is being harvested for mulch and natural pesticide. Chop-and-drop is around everything. It’s about strategic timing, opening the canopy when evaporation over rainfall flops into rainfall over evaporation. Mulch increases every year, and groundcovers are establishing more and more. The system is designed to time the way the forest falls to feed the soil at the optimal moment. Compost is covered by green mulch, … [Read more...]
Desert Food Forest Chop-and-Drop
The final chop-and-drop bonanza gets underway, cutting the remaining leucaena down to high pollards and using the rich green material as mulch around the bottoms of trees. A couple hundred kilos of material is produced by these trees annually, with trees growing some four meters in just twelve months. The idea is to prune the them to grow through just a few upward shoots, trimming the side shoots as they develop. This will produce high shade and allow room for the fruit trees to grow underneath … [Read more...]
Humans Have the Potential to Turn Deserts into a Green Oasis
In the wicking beds, eggplants are still producing, having survived right through summer. Two perennial spinaches, Ceylon and Brazil, are thriving. These gardens are proving themselves as the most efficient watering system. Wicking beds are inexpensive to produce. The process starts with a used bulk liquid container, which is cut in half, frame and all, with an angle grinder. This provides two wicking beds at the perfect size, as well as a support frame. A piece of plumbing pipe is either … [Read more...]
Touring a Local Permaculture Site in the Desert
Hayal is another local permaculturist who has a fantastic home garden stuffed with examples of permaculture techniques suitable for the region. There’s a chicken tractor and even some milking sheep in the mix. Bee hives have been put in for pollination and honey-production. Wicking beds are producing well, and many rows of vegetables are growing beneath a shade house. The system is young, only three months, but there is already production. Some fruit trees, like date palms, have been growing … [Read more...]
