This is the home garden of Paul Cereghino, founder of Permaculture.info.

Setting

It is located at approximately 150 feet above Sea Level in South Puget Sound, USA. It is in fairly fairly flat terrain in an inclusion of Giles silt loam soils, in a landscape of Alderwood compacted till. Sections of the property are saturated during winter. Soils are fairly damaged from site clearing and construction in the early 1980's.

Vegetation

Natural herbaceous vegetation is dominated by Agrostis spp (bentgrass). and Hypocharis radicans (hairy cats ear) with substantial populations of Vicea sativa (vetch), Circus canadensis (Canada thistle) and Plantago lanceolata (plantain) in wet spots. If not for a history of mowing the site would likely succeed to Rubus discolor (Himalayan blackberry) and Cytisus scoparius (scot's broom). Native Rubus ursinus (evergreen trailing blackberry), Rubus parviflorus (thimbleberry), and Rhamnus purshiana (cascara) are common. Natural vegetation was likely a moist to wet forest dominated by Douglas-fir, Cedar and Hemlock.

The property is being converted to herbaceous and forest gardens beginning in Fall 2006.

Common to the whole garden is use of lupine and alder as an early succession nitrogen-fixing crop for soil restoration.

Local Resources

• There are many horse owners in the neighborhood with a substantial horse manure surplus. Their piles are useful, but not well designed, and could be improved to insure an easy and systematic supply of well aged manure.
• Spoiled hay is out there, but I need to find it. I would need more chickens to process the hay into a seed free material.
• There is a local mushroom farm for spent mushroom compost, but we suspect they use pesticides for fungus gnat control.
• There are some arborists who will dump arborist chips in the county but so far delivery has been sporadic and unreliable.
• The local forests have many species that reproduce well from stem cuttings.

Projects

The following projects are underway:

• Mobile chicken armada
• Apple/Persimmon/Plum food forest (permanent mulch)
• Pear/Peach food forest (permanent mulch)
• Bed culture vegetable garden (seasonal cloche, some chicken tractoring)
• Seed and cutting plant nursery

The following future projects are in planning:

• Willow/blueberry guild
• Native dominated hedgerow
• Kitchen Garden with Tea (permanent mulch)
• Small Fruit (raspberries mostly) integrated into chicken gardens
• Tropical foods in the sunroom
• Ash/Alder/Mushroom woodlot buffer

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