22/08/2013 - Organic Unit 10325 & Permaculture Unit 21041

Actual Temperature
15 degrees Celsius
Humidity : 75%
Rainfall : 0.00mm
Wind :  Light wind

Today morning the class was with Lisa Burton on Organic Unit on was discussing on last week visit to Community Gardens, Shetland Street. What was the purpose of the Community Gardens? The purposes of Community Garden are on revegetation on Kaikora Valley, demonstrate to people, how to grow organic plants @ on growing food own compost, recycling of food waste @ kitchen scraps, encourage self seedlings, seedling perennial, no pesticides, no herbicides, densely planted edges of strawberry, native plants (which bring shelter, riparian stream, riparian stream - stabilise from erosion, habitat of native plants for birds, butterflies and bees.

On The Resource Management Act we watch a video on Environmental Factors Influencing the Development of Organic Horticulture of New Zealand. It controls the management of land, soil, water and ecosystems. It applies the concept of sustainable management to decisions about resource use.

Finally we watch a video on Countryside Calendar Goes Green. 

We ended the section today at 12.00am since Kim Thomas was not feeling well to conduct the Permaculture Unit. I read through on all the Zones. Zones are about creating and placing areas of activity in good relationship to their needs and yields.

• ZONE 0 — The house, or home centre. Here permaculture principles would be applied in terms of aiming to reduce energy and water needs, harnessing natural resources such as sunlight, and generally creating a harmonious, sustainable environment in which to live, work and relax.
• ZONE 1 — The zone nearest to the house, the location for those elements in the system that require frequent attention, or that need to be visited often, such as salad crops, herb plants, soft fruit like strawberries or raspberries, greenhouse and cold frames, propagation area, worm farm and compost bin for kitchen waste.
• ZONE 2 — This area is used for siting perennial plants that require less frequent maintenance, such as occasional weed control (preferably through natural methods such as spot-mulching) or pruning, including currant bushes and orchards. This would also be a good place for beehives and larger scale composting bins.
• ZONE 3 — The area where maincrops are grown, both for domestic use and for trade purposes. After establishment, care and maintenance required are fairly minimal (provided mulches and similar things are used), such as watering or weed control once a week or so.
• ZONE 4 — A semi-wild area. This zone is mainly used for forage and collecting wild food as well as timber production. An example might be coppice-managed woodland.
• ZONE 5 — A wild area. There is no human intervention in zone 5 apart from the observation of natural eco-systems and cycles. Here is where the most important lessons of the first permaculture principle of working with, rather than against, nature are learned.