Bombarding with Gardening

Morgan Maher

Combine permaculture (design systems for sustainable living and landuse) and a "focused application of energy or a concentrated effort to get something done" and you get Permablitz.

A permablitz is simply an informal gathering involving a day on which a group of at least two people come together to create or add to edible gardens where someone lives, share skills related to permaculture and sustainable living, build community networks and, of course, have fun.

Each permablitz is part of a longer process including a pre-blitz design visit (or visits), prior organization of materials needed for the blitz, and then follow up visits after the blitz to see how people are getting on with their new gardens.

Permablitz started in April 2006 with a collaboration between permaculture students and a South American community group in the South-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.  Since then, over 40 permablitzes have been held.

Recently "Uganda Permablitz #1" took place in Ssanje in Southern Uganda to establish a vegetable growing area on land that already boasts some bananas, coffee, chickens and cows.  The operation will involve about ten neighbours from the village, and hopefully a couple of teachers from nearby.

If you're interested in running a permablitz in your area, the Melbourne team have put together this short manual to help you get things going.

The 2006 film, Eat The Suburbs, follows Melbourne’s permablitzers as they prepare for the end of the oil age… one garden at a time.