Starting our first permaculture beds in the desert of Egypt! Help us start :)

Hello Everyone!

I just registered to Permies and this is my first post . My name is Victor and I am from The Netherlands. I am living in the Desert in Egypt, 400km south of Caïro. We are starting a permaculture vegetable garden in this arid land, which will be a challenge! I have been reading a lot about permaculture but find it very hard to make a decision on how to start with the first "trial" beds. I would be very grateful if there were people who are willing to share their opinion or experiences on the below matter.

The plot of land we work on is covered with grass and some weeds for about a year or so (with the use of sprinkler irrigation). The percentage of sand is extremely high. We want to start with 20 beds next to each other of 1,20m wide and 10 meters long. My questions: How to start the beds in this poor sandy soil? First plow everything or not? Dig and make the beds below the main surface? Any tips on soil-improving vegetation in this type of land?

I have added some photos of the plot.

Thank you very much for your replies!! If you are missing some info please let me know!!

Hello Victor and welcome to Permies!
You certainly have a blank sheet when it comes to cultivation there.
You say your aims are to have a vegetable garden there. Is this to feed yourself or to sell/exchange for profit? How reliable is your irrigation/rain?

There are lots of good examples in the greening the desert forum so I would have a good browse in there for techniques that seem to have worked. I also like these two threads from Africa. I know they are not local to you, but both have some really interesting techniques for more arid and hot climates:
elementary school and eco village
Rufaro's market garden thread

I look forwards to seeing your progress.

The end goal is to have a big-scale vegetable/herb garden where the harvest can be used in the kitchen to feed employees who are working here. We will as well plant trees and shrubs to increase soil fertility, grow biomass, create shade and break the wind. Also, a food forest will be added next year, when we gained more knowledge. We have unlimited access to water due to the deep well we are using, but we try to use the least as possible of course. These few beds are the first trial and error. So for these first beds we were questioning how to deal with the grass that's there now. Should we plow it? Should we lower the beds by digging them out? etcetera..

Thank you for sending the posts, I will have a look at them!

Nancy Reading wrote:Hello Victor and welcome to Permies!
You certainly have a blank sheet when it comes to cultivation there.
You say your aims are to have a vegetable garden there. Is this to feed yourself or to sell/exchange for profit? How reliable is your irrigation/rain?

There are lots of good examples in the greening the desert forum so I would have a good browse in there for techniques that seem to have worked. I also like these two threads from Africa. I know they are not local to you, but both have some really interesting techniques for more arid and hot climates:
elementary school and eco village
Rufaro's market garden thread

I look forwards to seeing your progress.

Hi Victor,
Welcome to Permies!

I don't have any experience with your climate as mine is fairly cold and wet in comparison. However, I would suggest that maybe you look into some kind of livestock. I know you say the dream/plan is for larger scale vegetable production, but livestock can compliment vegetable production in so many ways. Not to mention, it can provide a second source of income, so all your eggs are not in one basket.

Welcome to the forum, Victor!

My suggestion would be to pick some native vegetables like the ones your ancestors grew.

I am not sure what organic matter is available to you though I like to recommend woodchips, leaves, and compost to help build soil.

You also might enjoy Dr. Bryant Redhawk's Soil Series:

https://permies.com/wiki/redhawk-soil

This thread might offer some ideas:

https://permies.com/t/58559/Big-Fat-Thread-Dryland-Farming

Hoi Victor. Welkom to Permies.
What exactly are you planning?
Maybe you've seen these series already. Anyway, good stuff

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=W69kRsC_CgQ

Groeten Hugo

Just as my 5 cents:

You say you have unlimited water due to a deep well.

This is not right, you will be taking part of the overall existing groundwater depletion because you might end up to go deeper and deeper to get water.
This means you take the chance for your trees to raise the groundwater table forever.

The rest of your project is a fantastic idea and challenging.
Veggies, you could grow everything in Greenhouses with evaporation cooling and solar energy.
Check Aquaponics, instead of investing in fertilizer you have fish who does this job.
Even the fish will not be profit but you can breaking even and grow your veggies for free. (2nd class or unsellable veggies are fish feed as well - Tilapias)

In public are many characters who green the desert, just see what Geoff Lawton did or see why (nowadays domestic) animals an essential role playing, when it comes to re greening the desert is Allan Savory another Name to look after...

the best of luck with your project..

If you don't have a clear idea for a permaculture project, I suggest that you start copying your neighbours, at least for making a life while you learn more about your land.

My land is very arid, but it is clayey. I can share a few of what I've learned so far.

There's a range for growing variables for each crop in three stages. First the thriving range, these are the conditions under which your crops will grow. Then the vegetative range, these are the conditions where your plants will not grow but they will not be damaged. Finally the tolerance range, conditions that your plants may endure but that are stressful, leading to deseases.

The conditions are temperatures, sun (hours and UV radiation), water, nutrients, winds, etc.

When you have a native plant, most of the conditions are already good for that plant, as you can say because it grows in the wild. If you want to grow a non native, then you have to create the right conditions. For example, you may use plastic fabric to shade your crops against the worst of summer, if it makes economic sense. Or you may find ingenious ways to use plants and earthworks to achieve the same for free.

In any case, anything that you want to grow can benefit from an increased life in your soil. This is achieved by applying compost teas, not tilling, not using pesticides and applying organic matter, usually as mulch.

Hi Matt,

We do have 50 chickens and around 25 sheeps here. They are located like 200 meters from the plot. We are planning to use the manure for composting. Also, we have let the sheeps walk around the plot.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Victor,
Welcome to Permies!

I don't have any experience with your climate as mine is fairly cold and wet in comparison. However, I would suggest that maybe you look into some kind of livestock. I know you say the dream/plan is for larger scale vegetable production, but livestock can compliment vegetable production in so many ways. Not to mention, it can provide a second source of income, so all your eggs are not in one basket.

Hi See!

Well we are using the fossil water hundreds meters below the ground. There will be water available for the coming 100 years. Therefore we want to use the water as less as possible.  We actually have a big water reservoir where soon ducks will be brought to. In time we want to add fish to the reservoir as well.

Thank you for your other advice, I will look into it!

See Hes wrote:Just as my 5 cents:

You say you have unlimited water due to a deep well.

This is not right, you will be taking part of the overall existing groundwater depletion because you might end up to go deeper and deeper to get water.
This means you take the chance for your trees to raise the groundwater table forever.

The rest of your project is a fantastic idea and challenging.
Veggies, you could grow everything in Greenhouses with evaporation cooling and solar energy.
Check Aquaponics, instead of investing in fertilizer you have fish who does this job.
Even the fish will not be profit but you can breaking even and grow your veggies for free. (2nd class or unsellable veggies are fish feed as well - Tilapias)

In public are many characters who green the desert, just see what Geoff Lawton did or see why (nowadays domestic) animals an essential role playing, when it comes to re greening the desert is Allan Savory another Name to look after...

the best of luck with your project..

We are thinking to apply the method with sunken beds described on this page:
https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-9-earth-working-and-earth-resources/sunken-beds/

Any thoughts on this?

Victor van Dalen wrote:We are thinking to apply the method with sunken beds described on this page:
https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-9-earth-working-and-earth-resources/sunken-beds/

Any thoughts on this?

I am trying them.
https://permies.com/t/175744/permaculture-sites/permaculture-projects/Project-Gardens-Orchard-Dignity

Beware I barely can irrigate. It has helped us a little, I'd say it extends water like a 30-40% more. Still not enough to stand against a scorching sun and a persistent draught with high temperatures. We need to stack more measures.

In an arid flatland I do think sunken beds are they way to go.  They might not look as interesting as a 12 ft tall berm in an advanced site, but you can get a much more effective windbreak/humidity trap for a given amount of earth moved with the sunken bed.  I would go for a larger elevation difference than those photographed, 3 feet for a bed 12 ft across  (6ft level stretch on the bottom.)   A portion of that can be small berms above the current ground level, which is nice because you have to put the material you dig out to drop the elevation somewhere :  )

Just based on the photo my hopes would not be high for what that soil would grow in immediate years without inputs : (  

There is probably a desirable crop you could find to grow without inputs, but yields likely won't be high.  For general vegetable growing within a year... I'd plan on lots of manure.

When starting with heavily used pasture, I would chisel plow everything I'm not turning into a planting bed now and seed with a hardy and native perennial legume.  Throw 3 dozen species of flowering plants known to grow in your area into the seed mix, if you have the time to find and afford them.  In terms of permaculture I think that is the most important step kickstarting the creation of ecology and fertile soil on such a site, but it's more of a 5 year plan and not an "edible produce next year" plan.

Good luck!

A note about the berm. Mine is 30 cm tall, and it makes it a pain to work on the bed. If you think your bed should be 120 cm wide to not step on it, make it just 90 cm wide so you can work on it. I would not make the beds too long, maybe 4 to 5 meters long is enough, otherwise you'll ruin the effect. I consider my pathways as the rain harvesting area, so they are twice as wide as the beds. I don't know yet if this distance is enough.

The first reaction when old people see these beds is asking me if I am not scared of having it flooded like a pool. So far, no problem. We had had days with strong rains, but it didn't last, Maybe it could be a problem somewhere where it rains frequently and the soil does not have time to drain. The constant humidity might produce mold. But here not even flooding the bed has caused any problem. In a desert, rains are very heavy but short. You don't have a second chance for holding it.

You may want to check out Tyler's burried wood bed thread. She gardens in the dry part of Texas.

Hi Abraham,

Thank you for your reply. And did you do the exact design like described in the article? How deep did you dug? And did you add compost?

In the article is mentioned that he waited to plant at least 6 months. Did you do this as well?

Thanks!!

Abraham Palma wrote:

Victor van Dalen wrote:We are thinking to apply the method with sunken beds described on this page:
https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-9-earth-working-and-earth-resources/sunken-beds/

Any thoughts on this?

I am trying them.
https://permies.com/t/175744/permaculture-sites/permaculture-projects/Project-Gardens-Orchard-Dignity

Beware I barely can irrigate. It has helped us a little, I'd say it extends water like a 30-40% more. Still not enough to stand against a scorching sun and a persistent draught with high temperatures. We need to stack more measures.

Victor van Dalen wrote:Hi Abraham,

Thank you for your reply. And did you do the exact design like described in the article? How deep did you dug? And did you add compost?

In the article is mentioned that he waited to plant at least 6 months. Did you do this as well?

Thanks!!

I followed the advice of a permies fellow that did something similar in his terrain in Turkey. I dug a bed of 90 cm deep, 4 m long, 120cm wide (I wish it were just 90cm wide, since now I have to step over). I used some of the excess dirt for a 30cm berm. Then I buried a layer of big branches, then two layers of small branches, more dirt mixed with mature manure (we just happened to have it), another dirt layer, a compost layer and then some mulch. I was instructed to flood it before using, but I didn't have water. I also was instructed to shade the thing and protect it from winds, but I failed at that.
We didn't wait. We planted as soon as we could. I have to warn you, we are very bad growers and spend no money at all. We've just recently learned that we have to wait until our seedlings have 15cm long roots if we want them to survive in the beds, since we cannot irrigate as much as we'd like. Most of what we first planted died. Then it rained heavily for a few days, and a few crops revived, some seeds came to life, and the bed worked well until summer. At least it worked much much better that our other traditional beds, which were just horrendous.

I have another bed where I was composting directly on the bed. It was an idea of composting on an unused bed for a season so we don't have to move or apply the compost. We've not planted anything yet in that bed, but that's because we don't have enough seedlings. I understand that it's not ideal to grow a plant where compost is not finished, but that is less of a concern if you are doing a cold compost instead of a huge hot pile. I'm pretty sure that if you apply mature compost or even compost tea, you don't need to wait.