|
|
Local News
Oakhaven Permaculture
Center founders walk their talk
HESPERUS - If the unthinkable occurs - be it due to Mother Nature or
man - and the trucks carrying our food supply no longer roll, would
residents of La Plata County be able to sustain themselves? Tom Riesing
and Christie Berven could, and quite nicely.
Cohabitating with the natural environment on 35 acres in La Plata
Canyon, Riesing and Berven have created Oakhaven: a Permaculture
Center, an oasis that is at once productive, ecologically beneficial,
financially profitable and beautiful.
A work in progress, lovingly built from literally the ground up by the
couple, Oakhaven is a model for self-sufficiency as well as a gathering
place for others to learn by example. Neither Riesing nor Berven were
farmers by profession, proving in essence that anyone can do it, and,
as Berven noted, they did start small.
"Our mission is to get as many people as possible planting gardens in
whatever scale, and just doing it," said Berven. "It doesn't matter
whether you're blessed with a greenhouse or a tiny windowsill, you can
still grow... You can watch the magic."
"What we're trying to do with Oakhaven is to teach people how to
produce their own food," said Riesing, explaining that he and Berven
offer classes and workshops in various aspects of permaculture. "One of
the very strong things about Durango is the number of people who are
involved in agriculture. We can never get to the point that 100 percent
of the food comes from here, but we probably could get to 80-90
percent."
And permaculture is a manageable, less intimidating, earth-friendly way
to proceed. The term, which means "permanent agriculture," was coined
by Bill Mollison, and is derived from agri-forestry where "guilds" or
beneficial groupings of trees, shrubs and perennials support each other.
"The term 'guild' means 'helping,' so when we say it's a guild, we put
plants together so they help each other," said Riesing, pointing to an
apricot guild on the Oakhaven property. The three producing fruit trees
are surrounded by Silver Buffaloberry and Siberian Pea shrubs which
fix the nitrogen in the ground and eliminate the need for fertilizer.
The aromatics in the guild - such as dill, sage, lovage and comfrey -
draw trace minerals to their leaves from deep within the ground, and
trimmings are used as mulch for their neighbors. The dill also serves
to defend the rows of potatoes weaving through the guild by attracting
parasitic wasps, which thrive on potato beetles.
"So in one space you may have six or seven different things all growing
because they can work it out. They need different nutrients," said
Riesing, who before he discovered permaculture planted solo crops in
neat rows as is often considered traditional. Though the permaculture
guilds would not be described as "neat," they are highly productive,
easier to maintain and are an appropriate example of order within chaos.
"To be able to step back and allow nature to work together and to
figure out problems and solutions," said Berven. "Yes we have slugs.
Yes we have aphids... We don't over-react and we don't go out and buy
pesticides."
The gardens are for the most part perennial, eliminating the need (and
the often back-breaking labor required) to till the soil. To return
nutrients to the ground at the end of the season, dead plants are left
to decompose under the snow. The beds are also "sheet mulched"
annually, which entails laying down cardboard topped with manure and
hay. By the end of winter, the soil has been rebuilt.
By far the most ambitious effort at Oakhaven has been construction of
the greenhouse. Complete with fans that draw in the hot air from the
top of the facility and re-circulate it into the house through an
intricate air and moisture heating system, the greenhouse is an
abundant provider, even though just in its second year of production.
A large indoor pond, built by Berven and Riesing, is fed by an outdoor
pond that captures the water runoff from the greenhouse roof. The
indoor pond evaporates about one inch per day, providing welcome
humidity to the greenhouse plants.
"We have no rules in here, so things can grow," said Berven of the
plethora of plants in the greenhouse. "All we do in here is share our
love and our joy, and the spirits of the plants hear that and they
respond with abundance... Some things die back, so we have a chance to
plant the winter crops, the vegetables - the broccoli, cauliflower,
Brussels sprouts, all the salad greens, and beautiful beets, and have
beet greens all winter... Plants are free to roam wherever they want -
beautiful interaction of the plants and the insects. We have three
snakes in here, and salamanders and frogs. We have birds that come in
here."
Oakhaven also maintains a chicken coop for eggs, meat, manure and
insect control, although according to Riesing, to be better
permaculturists, he and Berven need to better integrate the birds.
"One of the notions (of permaculture) is that everything is connected,"
said Riesing. "So rather than have the chickens all by themselves where
you have to take the food and the water (in) and the manure (out), you
want to get them in a place where they can feed themselves and where
the manure's doing some good."
One idea shared during the Small Farms Conference last year was
encircling fenced gardens with a 10-foot chicken run, "so grasshoppers
and other bugs that want to get into your garden have to run the
gauntlet of the chickens, and the chickens are really good at nailing
grasshoppers."
Sharing is a big part of the culture, and though much of what Riesing
and Berven raise is either consumed fresh or dried or frozen for
storage, they have sold surplus at the Durango Farmers Market.
"The more we share, the more abundance and the more wealth we get,"
explained Berven. "Permaculture is care of the earth, care of people.
(It's) sharing surplus and being aware of how we're impacting, how we
can make the least amount of impact."
Sharing also applies to the education imparted, and the couple takes
great pride in opening the center to those interested in learning.
Students from Fort Lewis College and the Entrada High School have
enjoyed service-learning projects at Oakhaven, and numerous workshop
attendees have visited the grounds.
"It's important to do this because in my lifetime I've watched people
and children lose their connection to the earth," said Berven, an
elementary school teacher by profession. "The television and fast-food
eating generation is suffering... our children are missing the
connection. So this brings them back to the connection."
Riesing is also concerned with the potential demise of a society built
around depleting fossil fuel resources, and cautions against folks
relying on major corporations that have no loyalty to communities such
as Durango.
"There were a couple of stories in the New York Times," said Riesing.
"If you make a graph of the last 500 years and you plot on it the use
of petroleum, there's a very sharp spike (up) and it's going to go down
just as fast. When that's done, we're going to go back to the way we
used to live a couple hundred years ago because we're not going to have
it."
"We have to learn to take care of ourselves," said Berven. "We have to
take care of each other."
A list of Oakhaven's instructional workshops is available on the web,
www.oakhavenpc.org, as is a growing roster of local producers and
information on the upcoming "Swadeshi on the Green: A Festival of Local
Self-Sufficiency," set for July 11 at Oakhaven.
Mahatma Gandhi defined Swadeshi as "Buy local, be proud of local,
support local, uphold and live local."
Top of Page
Copyright ©
2004 Business Journals, a Gannett Co., Inc. newspaper.
Use of this site signifies that you agree to our Terms of Service
(updated 12/19/2002).
|
|
|
Local News
Latest Headlines
|
|
