From Sand Pit to Productive Garden
The highly-productive gardens on the Resilient Living Campus are part of the non-profit Happy Dancing Turtle, which shares the grounds with H.U.G. The property was little more than a sand and gravel lot when the garden was started. Our growers used the principles of permaculture to transform the site into 2.5 acres of perennial and annual crops. It includes a 25'x50' high-tunnel greenhouse attached to a 20'x24' greenhouse. The gardens and greenhouse produce food for campus employees as well as 30 shares in a C.S.A., which provides weekly dividends of vegetables and berries to members.
The hope of Happy Dancing Turtle is to create a living landscape that inspires others to garden in ways that restore the soil, cleans our water, and provides healthy food. We seek methods that reduce labor, limits the need for store-bought items, and increases self-reliance.
Add-Ons link with a full circle to create chains of Garden Circles that can take most any shape.
This simple Garden Circle row setup illustrates how easy it is to create lovely community gardens, even on top of asphalt.
In this scenario on the H.U.G. campus, Garden Circles were used as a foundation for the hoop house.
Garden Circles border three sides of the hoop house.
More Garden Circles are used inside the hoop house, making it easy to tend, with no bending over. The Garden Circle irrigation system keeps the plants watered.
Garden Circles can be used to line otherwise ugly parking lots, thereby directing the flow of traffic while greening up the site.
Garden Circles has a specialized and inexpensive irrigation option to keep flowers and vegetables growing.
By attaching Garden Circles in creative ways you can make almost any design. We use cattle fencing to create simple and beautiful living arches.
The Garden Circle garden, complete with archways and an inner patio, greens up the yard in front of The ARC.
The Sweet 19 was a design using 19 Garden Circles to create a lovely garden landscape.
Garden Circles is an inexpensive and flexible raised-bed garden system that works well in all gardening conditions. The innovative system allows for Garden Circles to easily attach to one another to create any design. They are ideal for school gardening projects and community gardens, especially in areas of questionable soil. City landscapes can be transformed by stretching Garden Circles across parking lots. They set up in a matter of minutes and are about half the cost of most wood-based raised beds. They also come in several sizes to meet most any situation. Garden Circles was originated through H.U.G., but now is separately owned. They are manufactured on campus.
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The Sweet 19 produced beautifully, even early in its first year. Cattle fence segments are used to create green living arches leading into the garden.
2005
Garden Started
2.5
Acreage in Permaculture
32
CSA Shares Distributed in 2018
15,000
Pounds of fruits
and vegetables harvested (2017)
250
Number of logs imbedded with mushrooms
34:1
Pounds of harvested potatoes for every pound of seed potato
