PDC - Day 3 Soil
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| Owl at the centre of the Roberts Creek mandala. Photo by Lucie Bardos |
Today was a day of going with the flow and a series of unexpected
events. Paola, Jordan, Victor and I were meant to catch the ferry to Roberts
Creek at 9:40. Due to some unexpected website changes, we ended up missing the
ferry and having to wait 2 hours before the next sailing. At first we all felt
a degree of frustration but creative minds are never idle and soon a song was
a-brewin'. We decided to use our spare time to come up with a rap song about
the soil - the topic of the day. We even came up with a band name "The
Permie Wormie Dirt Band" and song title "This Earth Beneath My
Fingernails" with such fantastic lyrics as:
Refrain
(sung):
This earth beneath my
fingernails
Ain't grime or dirt or
filth,
It's one fine slice of
paradise
It's Earth's delicious
tilth
Finger lickin'!
(Thanks to Jordan for these awesome words! Perhaps a secondary career as a rap artist is in the works?)
We ended up performing the song in front an enthusiastic audience -
Delvin and the rest of the class - after we arrived just before lunch. I guess this
was a classic example of making lemonade when life gives you lemons. I think we
made some pretty good lemonade!
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| The Permie Wormie Dirt Band. Photo by Jocelyn |
After another potluck feast we headed to the Heart Gardens where
Delvin talked about soil health, mulching, explained key nutrients, biodynamics
(including key biodynamic plants and practices), composting and worm composts.
He also showed us how to inoculate the soil with beneficial fungi and brew a biodynamic tea to feed the soil.
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| Beneficial fungi. Photo by Lucie Bardos |
Upon
reflection, it seems strange to me that we are losing such quantities of topsoil
every year when there are so many simple and effective soil-building techniques
(mulching, teas, green manure, cover crops, nutrient accumulator and pioneer
plants, composting, worm composting, etc.). It makes me realize that people
need to wake up SOON so that this doesn't continue happening, and also that the
world needs more Permaculture teachers.... hmmm that's a thought!
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| Biodynamic tea with plants including as yarrow, dandelions, and nettles. Photo by Lucie Bardos |
Afterwards we all gathered in a circle to play a card game where we
had to create a mandala by matching Permaculture principles to folk sayings,
drawings, and photographs. It's always neat to see the associations that people
make and in this case it was interesting finding out the "right
answers" at the end, as there was an actual answer key.
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| Mandala card game. Photo by Lucie Bardos |
At the end of the day my wallet was left at the health food store in
Roberts Creek. I feared I'd have to go a week without it when one course
participant was kind enough to drive it to the ferry terminal. She probably
wouldn't have made it in time but the ferry was late and all was well.
Next week we are back on the Sunshine Coast to talk about trees -
those wise sentient beings that are willing to teach us so much. I look forward
to it!
