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Over the years we’ve researched, experimented and read piles of books to nourish our ever growing hunger for knowledge on biodiversity, resilience and what drives life.
This led us to permaculture – a design methodology inspired by natural systems that allows us to collaborate with nature instead of exploiting it. With permaculture principles in hand, we decided to transform a piece of land loaned by the family into a living laboratory and playground. A place for us to heartily test, learn, live and grow.
Ahead of our first season opening, we designed our market garden, the core of our food production system, according to the bio-intensive method by Jean-Martin Fortier. In addition, we planted hundreds of aromatic herbs, medicinal plants, and flowers.
We also started raising laying hens, which we house in a chicken tractor. This is based on the design by Swedish-based Brit Richard Perkins, and allows us to rotate the hens on the land to improve soil health (using Zimbabwean Allan Savory’s holistic management principles).
Earlier in the year, we followed Japanese traditions and inoculated logs with shiitake and oyster mushroom spores – let’s see how that experiment goes.
We planted a forest garden using Ernst Götsch’s Syntropic Agroforestry method. Götsch has become a living legend, originating this hyper-productive, regenerative method in Brazil. We adapted the method to our local circumstances, and have continued to experiment with it.
We participated in the plantation of a forest of 12,000 trees, planted using the method ascribed to Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki.
All these projects take time. We have time, but we mustn’t waste it. That’s why we always operate in the form of small-scale “micro-businesses”, learning as we go along. Precise planning allows us to predict the obstacles ahead, and means that when we make a mistake, we don’t suffer the consequences on a large scale.
We invest our efforts across different timescales. In the short term, vegetables and eggs allow us to serve wonderful spreads and salads at the guinguette. In the medium term, berries, aromatic herbs and medicinal plants will bear fruit, and in the long term, larger fruit trees will become productive.
Our garden is a meeting place for all living things through time. It’s the answer to our question: “Can we, as humans, truly live in symbiosis with nature? Enrich it by enriching ourselves? Feed it by feeding ourselves?”
We hope that La Briquette can prove that the answer is yes.
