I met Steve Whitman a few months ago at D Acres in Dorchester, New Hampshire, where, for the past year, I’ve been filming a documentary. Steve teaches permaculture design at a couple of colleges in NH, as well as at venues like D Acres, an organic farm worked by Josh Trought and a talented team of human beings, oxen, pigs, chickens, bees, worms and countless micro-organisms.
For the past 7 or 8 years Steve has been gradually turning his suburban lot in Plymouth, NH into a mini-farm, experimenting with various permaculture design concepts, and continuously adjusting what he’s doing as he finds what works best. A few years ago he built several small ponds to manage the water that runs across a slope in his yard. Last year he turned one of those ponds into a rice paddy (yes, a rice paddy in NH; I’m not making this up.) And next year he’ll convert the remaining ponds into paddies while he tries out some ten varieties of rice. This year he covered his front lawn with cardboard and woodchips and built up beds with manure, chips and small branches from an ash tree which formerly shaded the lawn. Next spring he’ll plant potatoes in those beds. Last week he was cutting winter greens in his green house as we talked and as nine hens sang about egg-laying in the background.
The neighbors, of course, are curious. They ask questions. And Steve likes that. His vision is a neighborhood of little mini-farms, a marvelous, rich and productive web of local agroecological food production. [read more…]
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