aged trees harvested from this property. The logs, together with the backfill of clay-rich soil that originated in the trench, absorb and store the water. Meanwhile, manure, placed atop the logs, helps to fertilize the raspberry bushes and asparagus. A bucket with its bottom cut out that’s buried underground in the hugelkultur garden serves as a table that enables Gutzmer to gauge how much water is stored in the reservoir. Gutzmer smiles when he lifts the bucket’s lid and finds the reservoir full of murky fluid, teeming with bacteria and nutrients that plants love. “It’s a manure tea of sorts,” he says, scooping out a handful of the brown water. City dwellers can build smaller hugelkultur gardens flush with the ground or in raised beds with branches and weeds. Even knapweed works, Gutzmer says. Just make sure that you bury it at least two inches below the surface so it won’t germinate. The idea with hugelkultur and, more broadly, with permaculture in general is that while you might have to put in a little work up front, once the original time investment is complete, you can kick back and watch your garden grow. “Permaculture is really about intelligent laziness,” Gutzmer says. “It’s about being smart with how much you don’t want to work.” There are a ton of things that we’d rather be doing this summer rather than pulling weeds and mowing the lawn. That’s why we continued to pick Gutzmer’s brain. Keeping a lawn up to snuff is labor-intensive. It requires regular watering, weeding and
s,” ou
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Missoula Independent
Homesteader 2013
mowing. Such effort is far too labor- and resource-intensive to square with permaculture. A better alternative, Gutzmer says, is to pull up your lawn and plant clover instead. The leafy green is highly drought resistant and it actually regenerates the soil. As for growing food, the trick for people just learning permaculture or even basic gardening, Gutzmer says, is to start small. Begin with a raised bed or two and expand from there.
“Permaculture is really about intelligent laziness. It’s about being smart with how much you don’t want to work.” -Jason Gutzmer, Sundog Ecovillage It’s important to plan where you build those beds. Permaculture breaks properties into zones. It’s a way of conceptualizing your land as being made of smaller chunks. Think of zone zero, for instance, as your house. Zone one would include the area immediately around your home, places that you frequent the most, such as the walkway from where you park your car to the home’s entrance. Gutzmer says you should plant higher- maintenance veggies where the most time is