Local Food Grant at Well End Permaculture International

Project Type

Project Summary

Convert a 10 year derelict field, surrounded on two sides by mature woodland, into an intensive crop production system through Permaculture techniques, in one season, growing 3-4 crops a year.

Project Description

From Brmables 3-4 feet high we proceeded to cut an heavily mulch the land. After 6 months the bramble roots and attempting shoots have been so weakened that they can either be repeatedly cut into submission of rotovated into raised beds where the roots come flying out.

With the Mega Optimum Mulch (MOM) we mulched out these prolific brambles, having harvested the tops of the first half of the acre field for compost manufacture.

The site is afforded to us from a large Cattery and the deal is that we recycle all the cat waste that is based in a litter of saw dust. This we know is the hardest thing to decompose in a compost heap (lignin) and so we apply only 3 bags per cubic metre through the Howard Higgins Hot Box System that digests these wastes and renders them pathogen free in 14 days!.

This system was first tested at the Waltham Centre for  Pet Nutrition in Leicestersire. This group is owned by MARS which specialises in Pet Nutrition. They added 700 dog wastes per week and every analytical test they carried out showed that the 30 day old material was chemically equal to earth.

This was carried out in 2001, and we thus established the Howard Higgins process as a world first for the scientific sustainable remediation of obnoxious wastes. Now, of course, we have applied it to the remediation of human waste and find also that it is a world first in the time it takes to render human waste into a saleable fertilizer (90 days). We recently supplied 'The greenest School in England' with 35 25Kg bags of it at a price of £25.00 per bag. They now have a fantastic garden!

The demonstration, teaching, and centre of excellence has already been attended by an OXFAM researcher and other NGO representatives. It depicts a maximum fast turn round cropping system that works in conjunction with Moon planting and the use of copper tools for planting. There are NO pests or disease found, so far, on this site. This, according to the philosophy of Sir Albert Howard, is due to the plants having fully synthesised minerals, vitamins and proteins.

In short we demonstrate that a fully fertile soil will sustain plants that will not be subject to pests and disease.          "Pests and disease are only attracted by the inefficient"   This was my final statement of the Howard Lecture 2009, given at Coventry University

At the site we are also building to the codes of Vaastu, which is the science of directions (mother of Feng Shui) and we are only using wooden or copper planting tools (Victor Schauberger, 1943). We have NO pests and disease in the first year (which is the most difficult) and as yet we do not have a pond, or any water source.

We are not connected to any grid and our only source of water is gravity feed from the roofs of the Cattery. We find our plants require so little water compared to conventional systems of growing.

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