Demeter’s Garden Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
Master Plan Jenny Pell & Jordan Fink Permaculture Now!
• Diverse and resilient perennial plant systems with features from food forestry that include functional hedgerows, medicinal and culinary herbs, delicious berries, native plants, and a coppice woodlot • A welcoming and comfortable central gathering space and outdoor classroom area for ongoing workshops and classes • A small nursery site, a tool-shed, greenhouse, excellent compost system, an area for staging materials, and a place to process harvests • A covered cob wood-fired oven for regular meals and celebrations • Water catchment, a small wetlands, and water management strategies • A connected path to the north wooded area for diverse woodland plantings and fungi
Recognizing that new students will continuously come and go from the Demeter Garden, the students are creating a platform for archiving observations, ongoing maintenance work, student projects, innovations, what succeeded and what failed, etc. In many ways this project begins at the end of this design phase. While it is important to think and design in terms of the integration of all the elements and systems, we also design for phasing according to time, budget, and human resources. Since all the implementation will now be in the hands of the students, it will be their choice which elements to prioritize, initiate, and carry through. Permaculture Now! will continue to guide the students through the phase plan development, mentoring best choices for starting small and scaling up incrementally. The installation of the design, maintenance of the gardens, and ability to continue bringing energy and resources to the site are the student’s ongoing hands-on educational opportunity / expectation of the project.
DEAP
The design charter written by DEAP and Permaculture Now! includes:
At every opportunity the DEAP students took on tasks to deepen their skill-sets in design, research, budgeting, as well as finding and allocating resources. They worked closely with the design team to create comprehensive plant lists, phase plans, and a month-by-month maintenance plan for the entire site.
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
DEAP and Permaculture Now! met for three Design Charettes intensives where we assessed the potential of the site extensively, shared design visions and concepts, worked in-depth on realistic phase plans, plant lists, and actual costs.
Olympia, WA
In early 2012, Permaculture Now! design company was contracted by the DEAP student group (Developing Ecologically Aware Practices), to bring fresh design ideas to the nearly two acre Demeter Garden site. The goals for the project were to showcase as many permaculture features as the site would allow, with the specific intent that the designs are easy to replicate in other gardens, especially in the Olympia area climate zone.
The Evergreen State College
Design Process and Student Learning
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Project Background
• Specific annuals beds designated for DEAP students and potential future TESC permaculture contracts • Excellent access and flow through the space to invite both Evergreen College students and faculty as well as the larger community to enjoy the site • The potential for small income streams from plant and material sales to support the project and create educational opportunities in the future • A sense of welcome, abundance, and beauty throughout the site.
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
• Several distinct “eddies” in the design for benches, arbors, hammocks, and smaller gatherings
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
• A beautiful and welcoming connection to the new Sustainable Agriculture Lab
2/11
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Map Key The site is just north of the College’s Organic farm on Lewis Road in Keepthe Evergreen anF-Lot....C2 open clearing thatOrganic was, Garden....A4-B4 until the early 2000s, locationGreen for the Library....B3-C3 Shore Trail....B1-2, C1 Practice Friendly Trail Use community gardens. Seminar I...B3 Longhouse....B3 Main Entrance...C4 Seminar II...C3 Main Parking Lot...B4, C3-4
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
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Since 2004, the site has been the location for the DEAP student group’s experiments in Permaculture and Food Forestry.
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
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Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
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Olympia, WA
The 2 acre site is nestled in hemlock and douglas fir forests on the Western part of The Evergreen State College’s campus.
The Evergreen State College
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Demeter’s Garden is located In Olympia Washington .
Prepared by Andrea Siatkowski
3/11
Bamboo Grove
West Food Forest
Hugelkultur
Cob Oven
East
Courtyard Food Forest
Blueberry Flats
Berry Guild
Greenhouse
SAL Connection
Sustainable Agriculture Lab (SAL)
Compost
Toolshed
DEAP
Yurt
Office/Arbor/Hammocks
DEAP Green Beds
Olympia, WA
Fungi Beds
The Evergreen State College
Marsh
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Coppice & Craft Guild
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Back Woods
Raspberry Beds
0 5' 10'
20'
DEAP Approach
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
The Berry Edge Insectaries & Nectaries
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP Experimental Beds
40'
Final Design
4/11
Yurt
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Cob Oven
Tool Shed
Description The heart-center of the DEAP garden joins all the main paths to a central gathering area. The classroom, cob oven, greenhouse, plant nursery, tool shed, and compost meet in an open and inviting courtyard, ringed by snack-fruits and berries. The space is designed with an indoor and outdoor classroom capacity to fit up to 25 students inside and more outside. The yurt will house a woodstove, processing area, couches, small library, and the archives of the Demeter Garden. Function and Yields Building community, study area, work area, tool cleaning and storage, plant propagation, central area for processing harvests, compost, greenhouse starts, nursery stock, cooking pizzas, celebrations, harvest fair, plant sales, grazing, etc.
Maintenance Turning the compost, keeping all buildings clean and orderly, stocking firewood, general upkeep, raking courtyard, periodically cleaning the yurt walls, roof and skylight from molds, etc.
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
COURTYARD
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP
Compost
Olympia, WA
Greenhouse
The Evergreen State College
Courtyard
5/11
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Description Just below the yurt and central courtyard is a bed dedicated to late harvest blueberries. Different varieties have very different flavors and sizes, and will make for delicious grazing, harvesting larger quantities for jams and pies, and eating by the bowlful. Raspberries Along the western fence-line are large rows of raspberries for grazing, much like the Blueberry Flats. Function and Yields Food! Maintenance Pruning, mulching, weeding
THE BERRY EDGE Description On the inside of the south fence is a long line of low-growing berries, primarily strawberries, lingonberries, wintergreen, and maybe honeyberries (a fruiting honeysuckle). Designing the garden to maximize sunlight from south to north we arranged all the beds by height. This front area holds the lowest growing group of perennial berries. Function and Yields Berries! Maintenance Weeding, mulching, transplanting, propagating, harvesting
INSECTARIES AND NECTARIES Description Along the edges of the DEAP Green and Experimental beds as well as all along the outside fence area to the south and west are insectaries that attract beneficial insects and pollinators, as well as nectaries designed specifically for honey bees, hummingbirds and specific pollinators. The DEAP beds will be designed as a hedgerow that doubles as a suntrap for the annual gardens. Function and Yields Attracts pollinators and other beneficial insects, creates suntraps, provides fragrance, beauty, fixes nitrogen, diverse berry harvests, forage for birds, defines edges, yields ample propagation material, culinary herbs, cut flowers, potential large harvests for small distillery (i.e lavender oil), etc. Maintenance Weeding, mulching, pruning and clean-up, propagating, harvesting
Olympia, WA
The Evergreen State College
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
BLUEBERRY FLATS AND RASPBERRY BEDS
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP
RASBERRY BEDS
6/11
DEAP EXPERIMENTAL BEDS AND DEAP GREEN BEDS Description These two areas are set aside for growing annuals, with an expected rotation of students and therefore plant choices year by year. The DEAP Green Beds has slightly more shade, and is the best spot for growing chards, kales, collards, spinach, etc. The DEAP Experimental Bed is a large growing area and can grow most Pacific NW vegetables. Each bed has three sides planted with berries and insectary plants to form an edible and functional hedgerow “sun trap”.
Function and Yields Food, student annuals experimentation, pollinator attractants, berries, increased yields from benefits of sun trap Weeding, mulching, cover crops, adding compost, harvesting, pruning hedges, propagating from hedges
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Olympia, WA
The Evergreen State College
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
DEAP Experimental Beds
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP
DEAP Green Beds
7/11
Description In the northwest corner of the garden a small wetlands will collect the drainage from the site, the yurt roof, and the Sustainable Agriculture Lab roof. The overflow from the bog will then go into the road ditch. By crenellating the edge of the marshy area we create numerous and diverse habitats for plants and animals, as well as add a new wetlands ecosystem to the Demeter garden. Functions The marsh will be home to wetlands edibles for people and forage for birds, provide habitat for beneficial insects, newts, salamanders, frogs, dragonflies, etc., and will include both easy to recognize and unusual wetlands plants. Yields Habitat, food, fiber, forage, drainage for the site, biodiversity, beauty Maintanence Periodic harvest, weeding, mulching, general clean-up.
OFFICE / ARBOR / HAMMOCKS Description and Function The 9 x 12 office will serve as an interim space for DEAP students and visitors to keep the small library, garden plans, create a central area for inclement weather with comfortable chairs, desk, etc. A long trellis for grapes, hardy kiwi, or hops will front the office, transitioning to the main ring road and then up to the courtyard. Under the trellis is space for one or two hammocks or benches.
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Olympia, WA
The Evergreen State College
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
THE MARSH
Functions and Yields As these beds will be a longterm experiment the function is mostly educational and the yields dependent on the types of plants Demeter chooses to study.
DEAP
Description A series of experimental beds showcasing in-ground hugelkultur and hugel mounds. These beds and mounds are filled with woody debris and covered with soil. The slowly decomposing wood provides long-term nutrients to the soil, while minimizing and sometimes eliminating the need for irrigation.
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
HUGELKULTUR
8/11
Function On a three to four year rotation the coppice will be ready to cut, providing materials for a variety of uses, including crafts and firewood. The coppice guild will showcase a woodlot management model that can be easily replicated on different scales. Yields Basketry, thatch, and broom craft materials, firewood, rooting hormone for plant propagation, medicinal bark, “live-staking” cuttings for propagation, habitat. Maintenance Regular weeding, mulching, 3 – 4 year harvesting rotation, learning more diversified tree options and longer rotation cycles for larger wood for additional uses (i.e. furniture, tool handles).
We strongly recommend many of the alders in this area be harvested as soon as possible. They are more or less at the end of their life-cycle and have reached the stage where they are prone to fall over in windstorms – most certainly damaging or destroying the fence, buildings, and the new plantings. The harvested trees can be put to many excellent uses, and will be replaced by “specimen trees”, shrubs, and groundcovers. This will also open the site for better airflow, light, and provide yet another diverse edge showcasing permaculture features in the forest setting.
Function A diverse forest ecosystem with a variety of yields, a meditative invitation into an abundant forest landscape, a place for both people and wildlife, educational trail with information about natives and edibles, a demonstration of how to walk lightly on the land, yet design and plant for abundance. Yields Berries, fungi, pawpaws, habitat, beauty, diverse understory, rare specimen trees Maintenance Keeping path clear and periodically adding fresh wood chips to the trail, harvesting berries and mushrooms, planting, propagating
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Olympia, WA
Description Outside the fence to the north of the Demeter Gardens a meandering trail connects the more tended food forest Demeter garden to into a forest glade of mixed natives and other useful and edible woodland plants and fungi. This area will include a selection of shade-loving edibles, medicinals, areas for shitake (and other fungi) logs, and will be partially left for TESC to design into the future.
The Evergreen State College
Description Along the north fence-line a coppice guild of willows and hazels anchors the far edge of the garden. There will be opportunities to add other tree species into the future if DEAP wants to diversify the coppice area.
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
THE BACK WOODS
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
COPPICE & CRAFT GUILD
DEAP
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
The Back Woods
9/11
Description In the northeast corner of the garden is a beautiful stand of clumping bamboos. Clumping bamboos do not “run” into neighboring areas, and so are not an invasive concern. Function and Yields Bamboo serves many functions in the garden – the poles are excellent for trellises, stakes, and all kinds of building projects. Bamboo is beautiful, it makes music in the wind, has edible shoots, and will provide excellent water filtration in the drainage ditch.
Description This guild showcases three excellent “permaculture all-stars”. Aronia is a beautiful shrub with excellent highly medicinal berries that ripen in late fall. Aronia’s foliage is fire-engine red and serves as both a delicious and nutritious berry as well as a stunning ornamental. Goumi is a nitrogen fixing mid-sized shrub also with a nutritious and interesting berry that both people like and birds love. Goumi is an early bloomer with delicate yellow flower that is good late-winter bee forage. Elderberry is the taller berry plant in the guild that yields large clusters of flowers for tea early in the season, and easy-toharvest handfuls of excellent berries for pies, jams, wines, cordials, and tinctures.
Maintenance Regular harvesting of poles and thinning clumps, i.e. digging up a small section and either planting it somewhere new, or selling it (medium pot sells for ~$50).
Functions and Yields Berries, medicines, fixing nitrogen, shielding the garden from cool air sliding down the east hill, beauty, and forage. Maintenance Weeding, mulching, harvesting
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
ARONIA, GOUMI AND ELDERBERRY GUILD
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
THE BAMBOO GROVE
DEAP
Maintenance Keeping it moist, adding additional substrate when appropriate, weeding, harvest, and processing
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Bamboo Grove
Olympia, WA
Functions and Yields Food, medicinals, soil tilth, and so much more!
The Evergreen State College
Description Between the coppice guild and the bamboo grove are two areas for variety of fungi substrate - logs, wood chips and sawdust. Fungi serves numerous services in the garden, including decomposition, growing mycelium to increase beneficial symbiotic relationships in plants and the soil, edible and medicinal mushrooms, and so much more! There is ample room to expand fungi growing areas north into the Backwoods and east toward the SAL.
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
FUNGI BEDS
10/11
Description West Food Forest Nestled between the marsh and the coppice guild, and connected to the backdoor of the yurt is a large food forest “super guild”, with a meandering rock bed to carry the rooftop water to the wetland area. A small path from the yurt follows the rocky creekbed out to the ring road, connecting the marsh, the backwoods and the food forest. East Food Forest The East Food Forest is the basically the same as the West, with room for two larger mulberry trees, and a central “outdoor room” connecting the ring road to the courtyard area through wooded trails in the food forest. This food forest area have a variety of fruit trees, small nut trees, and many different understory guild plants.
Function These areas are designed for maximum yields: harvesting, gleaning, foraging, seed collecting, and generating an abundance of materials for propagating. It is meant to be seen as an easy-to-replicate model, showcasing the relationships of permaculture guild plants and fruit trees. Deep-rooted “dynamic accumulators” pull up minerals from the soil and make them available to the tree in the form of decomposing mulch, comfrey attracts bees, and repels grass, perennial flowers attract pollinators, are sometimes edible, and often medicinal, as are culinary herbs. Healthy, rich, well-mulched soil feeds the tree roots, and extends the growing season both in the spring and fall.
Yields Fruits, nuts, berries, herbs, roots, flowers, seeds, mints for tea, scion wood for grafting, biomass from prunings, and more. Maintenance Weeding, mulching, pruning, harvesting, seed collecting, propagating.
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Olympia, WA
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
THE EAST & WEST FOOD FORESTS
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP
East Food Forest
The Evergreen State College
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
West Food Forest
11/11
Maintenance Weeding, harvesting
DEAP
Functions and Yields Creates a sense of connection and inclusion, is an invitation to the Demeter Gardens, joins food processing with food growing, opens the garden to more students, faculty and visitors and therefore creates more learning about food forests, permaculture, fungi, etc.
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
Olympia, WA
As in the Backwoods area, we recommend harvesting a few large trees in between the garden and the SAL - for safety, to protect the assets of the new building and the Demeter fencing and plantings, and to open airflow and light to the garden. We will replace these trees with other shorter and more functional trees and shrubs for the site.
The Evergreen State College
Description The Sustainable Agriculture Lab in many ways is complementary to the Demeter Gardens, and anticipating that students using the SAL yearround will have an interest in regularly visiting the gardens, we have designed a main entrance joining the two. A large deck off the west side of the SAL will drop down a few wide steps to an edible native plant garden that leads directly into the Demeter Gardens.
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103
SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE LAB & CONNECTION
Functions and Yields Creates a sense of welcome, is beautiful and fragrant, has some edible native berries to forage on your way in, and is a more direct path to the main entrance.
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
Description The main path from the campus brings students to the Demeter Garden East Entrance. There is a natural flow from the road to the main gate through the large bed in front of the SAL. The south side of the path will be a continuation of the fence-line insectary, and the north side of the path will be and extension of the SAL Connection edible natives area.
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
DEAP APPROACH
12/11
Existing Topography 13/11
Olympia, Washington Winter 2012
Demeter’s Garden Master Plan
Olympia, WA
The Evergreen State College
DEAP
Not for construction. This drawing is part of a student project and is not based on a legal survey.
JENNY PELL & JORDAN FINK PERMACULTURE NOW! 3636 CORLISS N SEATTLE, WA 98103