Starting a Forest Garden - avem nevoie de ajutor!!

Dragii mei clujeni,va lansez o invitatie: 

HAIDETI SA DAM O MANA DE AJUTOR IN CREAREA UNUI SUPER PROIECT 

(detalii mai jos)

avem nevoie de cartoane si/sau ziare & hartie MUUUUULTA. 

asa ca haideti sa ne mobilizam cu reciclarea! 

e pana la urma o situatie "win-win": scapati de hartia care nu va mai trebuie si ajutati un proiect natural si de suflet.

AVETI IDEI DE UNDE SI CUM PUTEM ADUNA MUUULTE CARTOANE/ZIARE?

prietenii mei ar putea veni in Cluj o data pe saptamana dupa ele, dar haideti sa vedem CUM II PUTEM AJUTA. 

CINE SE BAGA??

astept cu interes sugestiile si sprijinul vostru ca si commenturi aici, sau pe adresa mihaelabar@gmail.com! 

(mentionez ca inca nu exista nici macar un punct de colectare, ei ne-locuind in Cluj acum, ci in Mociu) 

MULTUMESC!

Sheet Mulching - Starting a Forest Garden

Who are We?
We are Andreea (a Romanian) and Ronen (an Israeli with Romanian ancestry) and in November 2010 we came (returned) to Romania to pursue an abundant and sustainable life. We believe Romania and its spacious countryside has unique and wonderful potential to create such a life. In May 2011 we completed a purchase of an old village home in the village of Mociu (~40km  east of Cluj-Napoca) and in the beginning of June 2011 we moved out.

Our intention is to find a balance between traditional Romanian village life and other other approaches to achieve sustainable living and agriculture. One example of this is Forest Gardening which can potentially replace the labor-intensive (and usually fuel dependent) tradition of working the fields.

You can learn more about us and our journey to make a home in Romania at http://bhudeva.org.


What is a Forest Garden?

A Forest Garden is an attempt to creating a forest that is designed to provide food and other valuable resources. It imitates the workings of a forest where plants of different sizes play different roles in creating a self-sustaining and self-regulating ecological system. A Forest Garden is made up of mostly perennial plants (plants that grow year after year without the need to replant them) or self-seeding plants (where the seeds automatically spread and grow to become next seasons' plants).


Why create a Forest Garden?
When a Forest Garden becomes mature (which can take 6-10 years) it requires very little maintenance work (mostly cutting back aggressive plants) making it a low-maintenance supply of food (and other resources such as medicinal plants, wood for fuel, wood for construction, etc.) year after year. It is a promising food system which does not rely on fossil fuels which are becoming more and more expensive.

The diversity of a Forest Garden makes it a very resilient ecological system. Diverse micro-climates and conditions within the protection of the Forest Garden make it possible to grow diverse and non-native plants.


It has been said that the natural abundance of a mature Forest Garden feels something like the promised Garden of Eden.

How to start a Forest Garden?
The first step in preparing for a Forest Garden is preparing the land by removing all weed and grass growth. When the land is bare plants can be planted in a timed sequence designed to create the best possible conditions for the plants to grow. For example, in the early stages of a Forest Garden short-lived ground-cover crops are planted to rejuvenate the soil.

One of the ways to begin a Forest Garden is called sheet-mulching. The ground is covered with materials that kill all grasses and weeds. One way to sheet-mulch is with cardboard and newspapers. Not only do they kill all weeds and grasses but they also decompose into a light and spacious layer of soil which encourages biological soil life and makes it easy for plant roots to penetrate and spread.

This makes sheet-mulching a super-ecological process of recycling since no energy (other then transporting the materials and laying them on the ground) for the processing. Nature does it all :)

What can you do?
Sheet mulching with cardboard and newspaper is (for us) affordable and super-ecological and creates an opportunity for you to partake in our journey. All you have to do is keep your old newspapers and cardboard boxes - we will collect them for you and this small act will contribute to the birth of a new Forest Garden.


Cardboard is best for us. Newspaper is also very good. We can use any paper-based material that does not have plastics (because plastics do not decompose well and they contain chemicals which are poisonous to the land, plants and people) in it. For example the weekly Piata newspaper is great except for its external cover which is glossy. Magazines printed on glossy paper are of course not useful to us at all!

This small contribution will resonate deeply with us and will become a part of our 1st Forest Garden - which will hopefully resonate, with your help, with abundance for a long long time.