By: Eric Firpo
We didn’t invent the term natural farming (that was eco-sage Masanobu Fukuoka), nor did we coin the phrase permaculture (google it – then spread the word!).
But we did combine the two ideas to come up with nurbaculture, and set out a vision for the future Natural Urban Farming Institute™.
Think natural farming in an urban setting, which is what we’re morphing into at the Boggs Tract Community Farm in Stockton.
Before you think natural farming, you have to think farming. As in the methods and machinery of conventional farming. Then throw out everything your imagination conjures up.
In nurbaculture, we are the mimics of nature, which does all the work.
Deep rooted plants till the soil and mine minerals. Ducks eat the snails. Chickens fertilize the soil. Orchards become food forests.
Veggies and fruits and herbs and flowers play footsy with tree roots and each other underneath the soil.
Fungus is your friend, and good pals with bacteria. Good bugs go to war with the bad bugs, and win most of the time.
Above all, biodiversity is king, with you in its court.
Your tools are the most powerful forces on the planet – your hands.
And your home becomes a wild island anchored in a sea of concrete and storm pipes and asphalt.