This week we’ll introduce you to permaculture, our full-time job. We’ll also share a recipe for ratatouille, a tasty way to use your summer harvest.

We're so grateful to be sharing in the trials and triumphs of vegetable gardening with all of you this summer. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or a newbie, we hope you've been having fun and learning new skills. And now that harvest season is upon us, our gaze turns to the future. How can we prepare to do better next year?

Permaculture: Gardening Like We're Here to Stay

Vegetable gardening changes your relationship to food, soil, and biology. As you think about the future, and your plans to grow more, enjoy the process more, and support the health of your home and land, we invite you to explore how the principles of permaculture can guide you in making that happen.

Permaculture is a way of designing landscapes that grow food and create biological abundance by mimicking the way nature designs an ecosystem. In practice, permaculture looks a bit like landscaping, a bit like creating a forest, and a bit like gardening or farming. Though it's a new term, permaculture is based on ancient indigenous practices and is the probably oldest way our species farmed, encouraging the land to grow more of what tasted good.

Using a permaculture approach involves carefully observing your growing area and natural conditions, then tweaking it with slow and thoughtful responses, while understanding and incorporating basic principles and techniques.

If you're looking for some help envisioning how to incorporate more edible plants into your landscape so that you have an aesthetically pleasing and ultra-productive outdoor space, Resilient Roots can help. Our permaculture-certified designer can provide design and consultation services. Also, our workshops are taught with a permaculture lens, so keep an eye out for what we have coming up.

Taking Your First Steps: Perennial Vegetables

If you've gotten comfortable with a traditional veggie garden with annual species (those that we replant each year), consider adding a perennial vegetable bed. These plants remain year after year and create an ecosystem in which each species benefits the others.

A garden like this could include these plants:

Asparagus—shades the plants from the hot summer sun with its ferns.
Horseradish—brings nutrients up through its deep roots and into their leaves, which will later feed the other plants in the bed.

Strawberries—act as a ground cover to keep the soil moist.
Rhubarb—shades the soil.

Each plant has a function and helps the other plants in the bed.

“Companion Plants for Strawberries: Asparagus, Rhubarb, and Horseradish” by John Vivian goes into more detail about creating a perennial bed with companion plants.

Why Transition Your Garden or Yard Toward Permaculture?

Permaculture offers several benefits that might help motivate your next steps:

It uses local (and often free) resources to grow food and be more self-sufficient.
It's a low-maintenance approach (once your landscape plants are established).
It increases biodiversity. Let nature back into your land!
Nourishing your soil by practicing permaculture sequesters carbon. You are actually doing good for the world!

Resources to Learn More About Permaculture

In our opinion, one of the best introductions to permaculture is Toby Hemenway's book Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture.

A National Geographic short film called “A Forest Garden with 500 Edible Plants Could Lead to a Sustainable Future” provides an excellent summary and visual tour of a food forest in the South of England. Just 3 minutes long, it’s worth watching!

Are you trying to imagine what your tiny backyard might be able to produce if you were able to use permaculture methods to grow your food? Take a look at “The Plummery,” another well-done (and short—just 8 minutes!) film about a garden of just over 1,000 square feet.

Did you know that our very own University of Massachusetts was the first college campus to start a permaculture garden to grow food for its cafeteria? Ryan Harb of UMass presented a TED talk about how and why the university built the garden; the video also features a home garden example.

You can join Resilient Roots at a permablitz or workshop to learn how you could transform part of your yard into a permaculture garden.

Let's Eat!

Ratatouille is a delicious and versatile dish that is perfect for cool, late summer nights. The base ingredients—tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, onion, and garlic—are all in abundance now. See how much you can source from your garden or from other local growers!

Feel free to adapt this recipe based on your tastes and fresh ingredients on hand. For a complete meal, pair with chickpeas or hummus on crusty bread. Bon appetit!

Late Summer Ratatouille

(adapted from New York Times Recipe)

Serves 4, easily doubled (it saves well)

Ingredients

2 medium summer squash (zucchini, pattypan, etc)

2 medium eggplants

2 bell peppers

2 cups tomatoes (cherry and plum varieties work best!)

2 large onions

5 cloves garlic

Olive Oil

Salt

Black pepper

Thyme, rosemary, and/or basil

Directions

Slice 1/4” rounds of the eggplant (peeled) and zucchini. Seed the peppers and cut into 1/4" spears, and onions into 1/4 “ rounds. Slice tomatoes if large, or halve cherries (we don’t peel our tomatoes or take the seeds out but you may want to).
Put each vegetable into a bowl separately and toss with a tablespoon of olive oil, then spread them on sheet pans. It’s nice to have them each on different sheet pans if you can. Definitely keep tomatoes on a separate sheet pan from the rest because they have an abundance of moisture. Throw the 3 cloves of garlic on one of the trays. Add some sprigs of herbs such as rosemary and thyme to the trays.
Roast at 350 ° F. The vegetables will cook at different rates, so pull each one out as it is soft. Depending on your oven, here is a general guideline: peppers 35-40 min, eggplant and zucchini 40-45 min, tomatoes 40-50 min, and onions may take up to 60 min. But you should be checking all the trays often after 30 minutes.
Once the vegetables are done, place them in layers in a shallow baking dish. Grate a few more cloves of garlic over the mixture and drizzle 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the mixture. Bake for an additional 45 minutes at 350° F. Salt and pepper to taste.

Garden Extras

Don’t panic, eat organic! Switching from a diet of "conventional" to organically grown food can dramatically reduce pesticide residue in your body—perhaps as much as 70% in just six days. This is according to peer-reviewed research on glyphosate, the cancer-causing chemical found in RoundUp and sprayed on much of our field crops in the US. See the original research papers here and here.

“Three Things You Can Do to Help Avoid Climate Disaster” is a quick read from YES! Media. The answers might just surprise you (hint: lift up your neighbors).

Early September: Gardening Like We’re Here to Stay