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Grey Water Banana Pits
Water is water that has been used before. It includes water that has been used for washing and cooking but does not include toilet water. We can reuse this Grey Water on trees and shrubs and any crop that does not produce in the roots. When using grey water on the garden, Be aware of the soaps and detergents you use. (Use unscented, uncoloured soaps, and "green" products wherever possible and aviod Jik, bleach, ammonia and anti-bacterial soaps that are deadly to soil life). Make sure that your garden has lots organic matter in it as this helps the soil life to process the grey water.
Building a greywater banana pit
A Banana Pit is excellent at using basin water from a school toilet block. The idea is to dig a pit and drain the water into the centre and plant up the edge with bananas and other water-loving plants like comfrey and arum lilies.
Harvesting Bananas
It takes up to 18 months for the first Banana plant to fruit, but once they get going you will be amazed at how much fruit this system produces. Bananas flower (a dark red cone shaped flower) before they fruit. Once the flower has all fallen off and the bananas are all exposed, cut the flower off as this will help the bananas to fatten more quickly. When the bananas are big, cut off the entire bunch and hang it out of direct sunlight.. You can also leave your bananas until a few of them appear slightly yellow before you cut them down, tree ripened bananas are very sweet. Once you have cut off the bananas, cut down the entire trunk and chop it up. Lay the chopped up trunk and leaves inside the pit), this material will act as mulch as well as returning organic material to the soil.
Marching grandmothers
A great way of controlling this system is to march bananas around the pit. We do this by allowing new suckers (baby bananas) to grow only if they are clockwise of the older banana. We allow one sucker per original banana to grow and cut the rest down into the pit. We name the generations of bananas. When the original bananas produce suckers they become mothers. When the suckers produce suckers, the original banana becomes a grandmother. It is when bananas reach the grandmother stage that they will fruit.
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Chickens perform a crucial role in a Permaculture system by recycling nutrients.
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If you studied the plants growing in natural forests, you would notice that certain species of plants tend to grow together because they benefit one another. We copy natural systems by planting our productive trees in guilds.
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Grey Water is water that has been used before. It includes water that has been used for washing and cooking but does not include toilet water.
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Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems...
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SEED builts Outdoor Classrooms as the first step in the Organic Classroom Program.
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Windbreaks are the first system that we implement (after the Outdoor Classroom).
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In Organic Gardening we talk about farming the soil. This is because we believe that to grow good food you need good soil.
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In Permaculture we mulch our gardens to retain moisture, provide organic matter for breaking down and to aid in the thriving of soil life.
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Water can be caught off roof areas and stored in rain tanks. Roof water is the least polluted and easiest to treat for drinking.
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