Learn from Regine's latest improvements and additions to her rain collection system

Regine Maligne-Lynch, who has a background in engineering, has been experimenting and improving her rain collection system at her home over the course of several seasons.  Rather than doing trial and error on our own, follow Regine's progress through this and previous posts to create a system that works.  She has found ways to transport water from the collection site to various areas of her garden, facilitated clean out of debris from leaves and trash washed into the vats, and perfected the sequential filling and overflow of her series of water containers--all done with salvaged, re-purposed or inexpensive materials.   View latest improvments here.

Update on Regine's Water Catchment System

Hey folks I installed 8 barrels before leaving to on a short trip out of town and they all worked and were full when I came back!!!!!!  Success. The overflow 'trash can' worked fine (see end of the document linked below), now I can play with the next ideas... and I am looking forward to seeing a real downpour and see how the water flows!  Regine

Details of Regine's Updated Water Catchment System

More on Regine's Water Catchment Project in North Carolina

Hello world gardeners,

Here is what I got up to this summer in NC.

A few years ago, when we got up to NC some people had run out of water as they wells were dry. This year it seemed to rain very regularly... and I did not need to use the well water for the garden....but the drought of previous years reminds us not to take this precious resource for granted.

Hope you are well!

 Regine

 

Regine's water catchment project

Things you can do to decrease your energy footprint - a case study from Regine

Here is an interesting chart. A few weeks ago I came across a utility bill from the time just before I moved in with Tim. I laughed when I saw the electricity consumption of the previous 12 months.

Tim was intrigued and asked the utility company to send him the data - he turned it into a chart and I added the comments - and here it is!  Regine

 

 

 

Regine's Greenhouse Project from Salvaged Material

Regine is a creative and resourceful permaculture designer with an engineering background.  It is always fun and interesting to be inspired by her well-illustrated projects.  Get the lowdown on how she built a multi-purpose greenhouse on the site of a crumbling shed housing the pool pump and controls at her home.  Her design incorporated the pool equipment and made room for plant benches and storage.  She used mostly salvaged material and added items which made the greenhouse pretty much carefree, such as a temperature controlled venting mechanism.  Thanks to Regine for showing what can be done with a little ingenuity.   I'm sure a lot of other Permie folks are planning or carrying out projects--share them with us, so we can all be inspired.  Regine's Greenhouse

Ed's Post Jet

Post jet

Ed Schroeder shared this handy garden tool with us: 

 

"This is a cheap and easy tool to set steel posts for garden trellises. 

Schedule 40 PVC, 3/4 inch inside diameter, is sturdy enough, even in heavy soil because it has a 1/8" thick wall.  Ed's Drawing of Post Jet Assembly

These are all slip fittings that have to be glued with 1) PVC pipe cleaner; the purple stuff. 2) the actual glue is really a solvent the "melts" the pieces together for a very strong and water proof bond. The garden hose adapter does what the name says; it adapts the tool for connection to a garden hose. Turn on the water and jet a post hole. It's easier than using a sledge hammer."

And from Regine:  "I bought the parts with Ed's hand drawing.  I decided to go for metal and I bet they would be useful to dislodge invasives with big roots."  Regine's Post Jet: 
 

Regine's Report on her North Carolina garden, perennial crops, cover crops, and water catchment

Regine Maligne has been garderning during she and Tim's summer sojourn to North Carolina.   They have now gone on to France to spend time with Regine's mother but she has shared with us what she has learned this summer about gardening in a challenging location.   See Regine's notes on cover crops, water catchment, etc. 

 

Regine also furnished a copy to our teacher and inspiration, Anna Lee, who had the following comments to add:

 

"I was fortunate to have a few days to visit Regine and Tim at their vacation home near Franklin, NC in late July.  I had seen pictures of the garden Regine had been working on for two summers before and was tickled at her irresistible inner drive to garden no matter what the circumstances and obstacles. 

In this case, part of the problem is that she is there for so little time (and in and out during that short time!) that one might wonder if it is worth the trouble to set up a garden which will only be able to yield for a limited time before having to leave until the next summer.  The mountains are very shady, steep in slope, and have different temperature ranges than that of Tallahassee.  Not many people have gardens in the neighborhood because of this and also because some of them aren't there year round.  Regine, a natural permaculturist, has turned the "problem into a solution" in several ways:  

When some dying trees had to be removed she immediately saw the opportunity to use the increased sunlight in a very shady environment.  The large stumps that were left nearly level to the ground are now fine "stepping stones" in the landscape.

When some soil needed to be moved alongside the house, her neighbor who was removing it added it to the very steep edge of a ravine on the opposite side of the house and this gave more garden space than possible to use before.

She has learned to bring some seedlings with her to give them a head start rather than starting everything from seed.  

She is closely watching what plants grow best and fastest in this mountain setting so as to gain the most in the least time.

 

She has figured out how to cover crop and then leave this mulched to enrich the soil for the next year and is experimenting with different cover crops.  

She has connected with her neighbors to let them know the bounty of food left for them to come enjoy which gives her pleasure and community connection.

She has set up different types of beds with some in more shady areas and some raised to hip level which give her access from her deck and offer different micro-climates to experiment with.

She is planting perennials like blueberry into the landscape.

She has brought in various native flowers and plants to become permanent members of her garden family.

She has utilized space that was allowing water to run on one side of the house to create beds to catch and store this water.

She reconfigured her initial beds into a "fish scale" pattern to better utilize the slope and provide better water catch. 

She took roof top runoff and captures it in a big garbage can to gravity feed this rainwater to the garden and is planning more ways to utilize this.

But what the pictures and drawings cannot tell you is something I was able to observe and enjoy while there.  Each morning Regine goes out to her garden and visits her plant friends. She picks greens for her morning green smoothie and herbs for her tea.  She gains such pleasure and healthful benefits from this morning connection with her garden.  It is a beautiful thing to see.

So you can see how many ways Regine's intelligent observation and reflection has continued to not only grow her summer garden but  also to grow her understanding and appreciation of her mountain home.  The permaculture admonition of "obtain a yield" is well used here in so many ways!  What isn't always stated in permaculture terms is what Love can do in the whole scheme of things which is well demonstrated by Regine.

Anna Lee"

Perennial Vegetables

VegHeadz Perennial Vegetable Plot installed by 2014 Permaculture Class

The 2014 Permaculture Class helped install a plot for perennial vegetables at the VegHeadz demonstration vegetable garden at the Leon County IFAS Extension this past Friday.  The class, led by Extension Agent Will Sheftall and Master Garden Janis Piotrowski, added a number of plants that are not generally familiar in our area.  We will be watching to see how they progress in our climate.   Some considerations for the design of the bed were the slope of the garden (not visible in the picture above, but slopes to the right), partial shade, and the size of the mature plants.   The bed was installed in two "U" shaped plots eight feet wide and 12 feet long with a four-foot path between.  One plot was installed as a Hugelkultur bed with oak logs buried beneath the planting mound, and the second bed was installed without the Hugelkultur feature.  Additional pictures as well as a list of the plants can be found as a post on the VegHeadz Blog.

A Hugelkultur Raised Bed

If we all had half of Regine and Tim's energy, who knows what we could accomplish.  This is Regine's report on the Hugelkultur bed she and Tim built recently: 

I had lots of wood logs used as the garden beds' borders.  After a couple of years they were half rotten.

Rotting = lots of bugs including worms underneath  -  good for the soil eco system…

But on the down side, this attracted critters at night (armadillo?) that love digging around the wood.  It seems that in the garden there are new challenges every year - dealing with the world that discovers the garden (squirrels and others). I need a night camera to see what's going on when I sleep!

So I finally decided to change the borders of two backyard beds - using metal sheets (left over from the roofing project) and cement blocks. 

The visit of Dave's garden (a friend from permaculture class) inspired me to build a hugelkutur bed to use the rotting logs and the old pile of wood chips in the front yard, sitting there since last April (some had turned into very back soil).  Here is the result. I put some compost on top and could not resist putting a few plants straight away.  Will be fun to see how it works out in drought period!

Here is more of the theory on these types of bed! http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

Happy gardening

Regine

Rain Barrels - A Regine design

Regine has put her engineering background to work in designing a rain barrel water collection system.  Her plan has everything you need to know to set up a system on your property. 
Thanks, Regine!

Regine's beautiful permaculture rehab

Regine!  This is beautiful work and shows that you learned a lot from your permaculture course!  Thank you for sharing this and for thinking of your neighbors in sharing your garden produce! 

Regine takes her Permaculture designs to North Carolina

As always, Regine is on the forefront of getting things done.  She doesn't just talk about Permaculture, she does it!  Following is Regine's news from North Carolina where she is cooling it for the summer:

"I got back to my garden in NC and sure enough, it was not good enough any more - I had to change it to apply my newly learnt permaculture concepts... Here is the little story in pictures - I have some questions too (included in the doc) so if you have some ideas, please reply!

"Just had a great time with 6 weeks with my cousin and his wife - Martine likes weeding so this really helped me get the NC garden in shape before the next adventure up North - We are now on our way to Boston to visit Tim's mother.

Feeding Bees with Sunflowers

Permaculture student and Master Gardener Priscilla Hudson has been involved for the last several months in a city-wide project to provide forage for bees in our area.  With the catchy name of Talla-Happy Sunflowers, she helped kick off what has become a very successful effort to make our community aware of the plight of pollinators as well as to brighten up our area with sunflowers.  Sunflowers provide forage for bees during the hot months of summer when most other sources of nectar and pollen are gone.  Read more about the project and how it got started in Priscilla's article in the current issue of Healthy Communities online magazine. 

Sheet Mulching - Grow a Garden Anywhere

If you have poor soil and want to plant flowers, vegetables, trees, herbs, just about anything, sheet mulching is the way to go. Sheet mulching allows you to build up rich soil the way nature does in the forest in a lot less time. And a sheet mulch garden can be started in an existing garden, on a lawn, or even on a concrete slab! Once it’s established, enjoy a vital, healthy garden with no tilling or weeding required! Even though it’s recommended to lay down the sheet mulch a few months before planting, I planted my vegetable garden just a week after laying down the sheet mulch and, two months later, it’s doing great! I have no weeds, the bugs are under control, and I have tomato plants that are literally over 8 feet high with tomatoes popping out all over—a record crop! 

Eastside Library Permaculture Project

As a final exercise, the 2013 Permaculture Class prepared a proposal for the development of a Community Garden and Food Forest at the Eastside Branch Library on Pedrick Road, Tallahassee.  This branch, which opened in 2011, is an LEED Certified green building located on over 20 acres with a small lake.  The landscape design, as well as the building, has been planned with care for and enhancement of the natural enviroment.  The class proposed two alternative sites for a Community Garden.  While the proposal was just an exercise, it has been presented to several County staff members, and is under consideration for possible implementation.