Permaculture

Working with the Land

Permaculture is a natural and relatively common-sense manner of growing food in a sustainable way. At the core of its philosophy is an intention to integrate human cultivation with the natural surroundings: plants, animals and terrain. Those of us living at Valle Armonia never cut down indigenous trees unnecessarily. In fact, we leave as many as possible when young newly planted fruit trees are most vulnerable and need adequate shade.

Much of our communal fruit forest is near the creek that runs through our valley. This is the wettest area on our property and therefore we've needed to dig canals to better drain the valley floor. We will dig more as we gradually expand the growing area. Complementing communal efforts, community members also cultivate areas on their individual lots. This is an exciting and creative endeavor for some of us and it's likely most of the food grown in the future will be on individual's parcels.