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Permacouple creates permaculture
written by Rachel Turiel
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This 2,200-square
foot greenhouse at Oakhaven Permaculture Center,
in La Plata Canyon, is owned by Christie Berven
and Tom Riesing. The center,
which also includes outdoor gardens, is founded
on the idea of creating a sustainable lifestyle
by working with nature./Courtesy photo |
In other times and places, Tom Riesing crunched numbers
on Wall Street, and Christie Berven taught elementary
school. Since meeting in 1998, the two have been
born again and are zealots for their cause: soil,
earthworms, beet greens. Tom and Christie are the
creators of Oakhaven Permaculture Center, tucked
into the gamble oak and lichen-covered rocks at
8,700 feet off La Plata Canyon Road. The center
consists of a 2,200-square-foot greenhouse, outdoor gardens,
ponds, chickens and the ever watchful, astonished gazes
of its creators.
Christie Berven is high energy, exuberance and fire.
She pins you with her eyes, talking so fast you
hope she remembers to breathe. If she is fire, Tom
is stone, quarried from a deep, still place in the
earth. His movements are slow and calculated, as
are the thoughts he expresses. At the ages of 56
and 65, respectively, Christie and Tom are starting
a new sort of family, and certainly a new sort of
life.
In their comfortable solar and wood-heated home, the
three of us sit on pillows and I ask them the obvious:
“What exactly is permaculture?” It seems I’ve
asked the right question because Christie leaps up
to retrieve the multicolored educational banners
she’s been working on. “This is my winter work,”
she says, gesturing to the first of four banners
she’s spread across the woodstove.
Words and phrases scripted in bubble paint jump out
at me: “nematodes,” “building the soil
from the ground up,” “cooperation not competition,”
“connection.” Christie begins reading the
words out loud, and they somehow sound like a prayer for
the earth.
When Christie is done with her chant, Tom explains in
his practical way that permaculture is an agricultural
movement. “It‘s a term coined by Bill Mollison,
of Tasmania, based on the phrase ‘permanent agriculture,’
and has come to encompass the idea of a sustainable
culture and economy through working with nature,”
he says.
Catching the cue, Christie bolts from her position on
the pillow and like Vanna White replaces the current
banner with a new one that bears the heading “Permaculture.”
It is a simple banner. A circle on the inside holds
the word “ethics,” and radiating out are four
phrases: “Care of the earth”; “Care
of all beings”; “Share the surplus”;
and “Aware of the limitations of the earth.”
We start with the phrase “Care of the earth.”
“Have you ever seen a mountain meadow?” Christie
asks as she hops to her feet and points north, where
indeed, the La Plata Mountains cradle many such
meadows. “There is a synergistic relationship happening.
Some plants are taller than others, and those that
need that protection from the sun will grow near
the taller plants. No one Rototills; no one fertilizes;
the leaves die in the fall and cover the ground,
protecting it from the sun and adding nutrients.
We study these natural systems so we can care for
and benefit from the earth with similar ease and efficiency,
making use of the natural connections.”
“If the soil dies, we die,” Tom adds from
his pillow, legs crossed and back straight as a board.
“Building the soil is caring for the earth.”
The permaculturist believes in working with the natural
elements and features of the land to produce more
with less work. If you’ve got a cold spot in your
house or on your land, create a root cellar. If
you’ve got a slope, grow moisture-loving plants
at the bottom where rainwater will collect. If you’ve
got oak trees where you want a garden, trim their
limbs and use them as strong trellises upon which
to grow grapes, hops and other fruitful vines. Leave
the serviceberry shrubs, they fix nitrogen in the
soil.
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Tom Riesing,top, and Christie
Berven, bottom, pose among
the plants in their 2,200- square foot
greenhouse. The couple grows food
year-round in the greenhouse, using
rainwater and snowmelt to water the
plants. A pond, which collects heat
during the day, radiates heat at night
to keep the air above freezing./ Courtesy photos |
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Part of permaculture is harnessing natural, free energy
and recycling it before it degrades. In this spirit
Tom and Christie collect rainwater and snow on the
north side of their 72-foot greenhouse, channeling
it inside the greenhouse where it warms up in a
large pond and is used to water their plants. Heat
also is sacred, and every bit possible is collected,
stored and rereleased. During the day, fans suck
the hottest air from the ceiling of the greenhouse,
funneling it into the soil where it blows through
4,000 feet of slotted pipe in 150 yards of crushed
rock and sand and radiates back into the greenhouse at
night when the plants need it most.
Working too hard, against the flow of nature, is discouraged.
Any tilling that takes place is done by earthworms,
chickens, ants and snakes, all of which are welcome
in the greenhouse and outdoor garden spaces at Oakhaven.
To prepare a new bed in fall, they lay down cardboard
“which the earthworms love to eat,” then 6 inches
of manure and a thick layer of straw to top it off.
Then the rains and snow come, helping to break down
the compost sandwich and keep the worms hydrated.
By spring, all the work is done and they’re left
with almost a foot of excellent planting medium.
Not only does tilling soil require unneeded work,
and often fossil fuels and money, it can break up
the roots of weeds, creating many more unwanted plants.
Tilling also destroys the network of fungal mycelia (mushroom
roots) which helps hold moisture in the soil and can
have a beneficial relationship with many roots of
perennials. And most of all, this is how the wild
garden is built by nature, from the ground up.
Tom talks about farming practices in California where
tremendous acres of strawberries are grown. “First
they spray the land with methyl bromide, killing
everything. Then they add fertilizer to support
life.”
“It’s ass backwards!” Christie exclaims,
“They’re killing the insects, fungi and microscopic
organisms that naturally build and fertilize the soil.
Plus it’s too much work.”
A principle of permaculture design is to produce more
than what you put in, as well as save time, money
and space by having each element of your agricultural
design perform at least three functions. For Tom
and Christie, their greenhouse pond illustrates
this ideal. In addition to absorbing heat during
the day and radiating it at night, the 5,000-gallon
tank holds water for plants and provides humidity.
“There’s so much moisture in here in the morning
you need an umbrella,” Christie says. The bonus
feature is the algae that grows in the pond; it
is scooped out and given to the plants as fertilizer.
After coming up to speed on the basics, the moment I’ve
been waiting for arrives. It’s time to visit the
greenhouse.
In the middle of winter this greenhouse, which is bigger
than the house I share with four adults, is like
a temperate coastal farm. Fragrant nicotiana flowers
grow taller than my head, plump figs
droop from limbs and a thigh-high mound of calendula
with sand dollar-sized blossoms seem to wave hello
with their yellow and orange heads.
“Fairies live here,” Christie announces matter-of-factly.
Tom plucks dill, arugula and beet greens for me to sample.
The greenhouse was built by Tom and Christie and a motley,
generous crew of FLC students and friends. It is
heated at night, though to no warmer than 40 degrees
Fahrenheit. Despite the chilly evening temperatures,
tomatoes and chili peppers are steadily turning
from green to red. Christie points out how the tomatoes
grow in winter: low to the ground to conserve heat.
“The plants are brilliant – they adapt!” she trills.
Christie recently cut back “a sea of medicinal borage
flowers,” though often when plants get crowded she
stands back and commands “you guys work it out.”
Although most of what they grow is for personal consumption,
Tom and Christie do sell or trade for some of their
produce. For example, last year they sold 85 pounds
of pumpkins to Durango Natural Foods, and occasionally
they sell items to the Kennebec Cafe, down the road.
As far as the future goes, Tom and Christie have big
plans. They’d like to grow mushrooms in part of
the greenhouse pond. They want to build a permaculture
center on their property for classes and workshops
on permaculture design, and sustainable building,
eating and living.
As the tour ends, I ask the ever expressive Christie
for any final words.
She grins and grabs Tom by the arm. “We’re
a permacouple, Tommy and me, and all we need is lovage.”
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For more information on upcoming
classes at Oakhaven, call 259-5445.
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