Permaculture in Community Gardens: A Systems-based Approach to Engaged Design

Community gardens have positive impacts for individuals, cities, and the environment. However the challenges of maintaining these spaces are also significant.  Many communities have tried and failed to sustain gardens, often due to a lack of appropriate planning, resources, and labor.  Permaculture is a framework that can help promote long-term sustainability by designing systems that create more regenerative landscapes. Permaculture gardens are designed to work with nature to more efficiently use resources, time, and energy. The goal of this project was to: 1) design a tool to assess the level of permaculture design present in community gardens; 2) pilot the tool in eight community gardens; and 3) use the tool as the framework for community engaged redesign of an existing garden. There has been minimal research on permaculture in community gardens. Therefore, the first goal of this project was to determine a strategy to assess the level of permaculture in community gardens. An assessment tool was developed and piloted in eight community gardens. The tool identifies six key permaculture systems within community gardens: soil, water, energy, materials, plants/animals, and community/people. Within each system, core elements are listed creating a checklist for assessment. Three of the eight gardens evaluated were implementing permaculture. Subsequently, the permaculture assessment tool was incorporated into a community engaged design process to redesign an existing community garden while teaching participants permaculture principles, systems and elements. A series of four workshops were facilitated culminating in a new permaculture design for the space. Stakeholders were surveyed to assess impact. In addition to designing a more manageable space, one of the goals was to facilitate learning of permaculture principles. Findings show success in teaching permaculture principles and elements using community-engaged design. Success in teaching permaculture systems was present, but not as prevalent. The assessment tool increased participants’ confidence in identifying permaculture, but was less successful in making participants comfortable applying permaculture. Participants believe that the re-designed space will reflect permaculture and model earth stewardship. The actual ability of the permaculture-focused re-design to ease management stress will need to be assessed over time. The project underscores a need for more research on the impacts of permaculture in community gardens, and supports community-engaged design as one effective model for implementing this work.