Greening the desert

Geoff Lawton taught a group of agronomists in Jordan how to turn ten acres of salty desert into a fruit-bearing garden. What's more, they sprinkled only one-fifth the irrigation water other folks were using in the region. They were so successful that months later Lawton received an e-mail from the Jordanians telling him there was fungus growing in the soil. The fungus was mushrooms, and the Jordanians were astonished because they had never seen mushrooms.

Take five minutes and twenty seconds to see how Lawton's team grew fruiting figs in just four months. More find out just how important those surprising mushrooms were to the success of the project. (I'm tempted to say, like the nightly pre-news blurb: "You won't believe the significance of those seemingly insignificant mushrooms ...")

Edit 5/19/08: My apologies, friends and readers. I embedded the wrong video last night. I've moved it to its rightful place in today's post. This is Greening the Desert. Watch it and be amazed.

You can solve all the world's problems with a garden.
Geoff Lawton

Think of denuded jungles and clear-cut forests, now desert wastelands all over the earth. Think of reclaiming them with these techniques. Think of using such techniques to grow food worldwide.

Tomorrow, we'll delve deeper into permaculture, with the first of six ten-minute videos with Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture. You'll be filled with hope, and just possibly inspired to start your own permaculture garden on your urban balcony, and maybe to plant a few seeds. Now that's Ordinary.