144: Marianne West on Organic gardening
Growing a food forest in an urban setting during a drought.
Marianne is the co-host/co-producer of the Sustainable Living Podcast, the co-organizer of the San Diego Permaculture Meet up group and the founder and organizer of the TOP Organic Edibles Garden Club. Top stands for Transition, Organic and Permaculture. She also is a wife, mother and grandmother who is very much involved in the life of her 3 grandchildren. Marianne teaches Yoga and other subjects and keeps working on developing her writerly self.
In This Podcast:
Marianne shares her story and motivations that have moved her to transform her 1/3 acre into a food forest. She shares her passion for permaculture with Greg and tells him how she has really put to use the water harvesting techniques she has learned. She explains how her upbringing in postwar Germany truly gave her a different perspective on nature and food, and now that she lives in an area that has a year round growing season as well as drought conditions she is really putting all her experience and learning to good use. She tells of the many techniques she is using to harvest water, and how she is trying to make a difference in her community.
Listen in to Learn About:
- How she grew up in Germany post war and had a life with very little technology
- How gardens were so important in her upbringing
- How she lives in a year round growing season in a suburb of San Diego Zone (9B) and is pretty much frost free
- She has 1/3 acre and has a small house of only 800 sq feet so she gets a lot of growing space on her property
- She has recognized several microclimates on her property and describes them
- What she is planning to do with her yard
- Three reasons why she keeps her fruit trees short
- Her goal to always have something fresh coming out of her garden
- Successive gardening to keep the fruit ripening in a series and introducing new flavors
- How she is biased for fresh fruit flavors
- She took a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) and then furthered her studies through more books and hands-on study
- What a Permaculture Design Course is and some of what it covers
- Her definition of Permaculture
- The focus on water and water harvesting that she brought into her garden
- How she is using greywater including her laundry water, shower and sink water, and some kitchen sink water
- Some of the methods she is collecting rainwater
- What is ferro-cement and why is she considering a water collection reservoir made of it
- How she took advantage of the culvert that ran through her yard
- How she staged a series of methods and techniques to help the street water get cleaned and healthy for her yard
- Why she does not grow root vegetables near her compost
- The TOP meet up group and why she formed this group to help her community
- Why food security is important topic for her and how she is addressing it in her community
- Her Sustainable Living Podcast with who she tries to interview and why
- How she found her co-host and how they work together to get the information out
- Why she enjoyed the hands on aspect of her PDC course
As well as:
- Why she would rather not consider things as failures but as learning experiences,
although she does think she tends to try to do too much at times - Her advice for listeners is to do one thing at a time
- How she feels her biggest success is her children
Marianne’s Recommended Book:
John Seymore – The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live it
Bill Mollison – Permaculture Designers Manual
Toby Hemenway – Gaia’s Garden
Brad Lancaster – Rainwater Harvesting
How to reach Marianne:
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