I was looking around the other day, and it sank in just how good of a spot my family is in for future permacultural potential. To illustrate what I'm talking about, I painted my neighborhood for you to see .

(created with mspaint, referencing googlemaps. scale given only as loose reference)

The blue block labelled "me" is my family's house. The "yard" next to our house is our yard, as is the "yard" directly behind our house, extending to the alley (the land slopes down after the line/fence). The gray areas in the yard are concrete (the black dot on the concrete square is the basketball pole). The brown patches are the existing garden areas, almost completely plantless at this point, save one rose bush, but mulched over heavily. They are the areas I intend to plant this spring.
But looking into the surrounding area, there is an incredible amount of green space that could feasibly be guerilla gardened in the future, as control systems get looser. The big field across from the house to the north of us (which is gutted) is city owned, I believe (well, at least it's city mowed...). The big field behind our house is owned by a church (not pictured, but I show their parking lot). Continuing east, the field across the street is owned by the city. It used to have a building on it (as is true of all of these areas), and has been subjected to some earthworks (there's now little rolling hills, with single trees planted at the top of each). Note the community garden on the corner. I'm considering renting a plot next year to grow some annuals. The grass medians in the road to the north could be planted (they're maintained by the same people who garden on the corner). And west of our house there is some fenced-in private property that could eventually be utilized by the neighborhood, far in the future. One note of concern my dad pointed out is that there's a lot of housing development right now on that northern street, and it could spread to the church owned field, or on any of the other fields.

The two trees in our yard at the moment are a maple (overhanging our yard in the corner) and a cleveland select (in the front/side yard). You can see how many (or few) trees there are in the surrounding neighborhood (most notably, there are two huge mature oak trees (I think they're burr oak), one of them being pictured south of us across the street). I want to increase the numbers of those wise beings in this land. That is my highest aspiration at the moment - to plant trees.

I'm starting to research the plant nurseries in the area to be ready to make my order come late winter. But I wonder, how would I build a forest when the nurseries are closed (hopefully, far in the future)? If there are no good specimens to graft from in the area, I'd have to start from seed. But what if I don't have the right kind of seeds available? How easily, really, could I start a permacultural garden post-collapse? Or is this (ad)venture something that is only feasable to begin from within civilization? I'm not doubting that a forest garden of sufficient size could sustain us during and after a crash, but it seems it would be a necessity to already have the forest at least in it's adolescence to have a chance.

If there is one overarching lesson I am learning these days, it is how to adapt, to readjust to changing conditions. I could let myself be immobilized by fear that my forest will be years too young even as I need to come to depend on it, or I could prepare to be able to shift lifestyles completely. While I'm watching the plants grow, I'll also still be out there learning to track rabbits (there are at least three that live on my block) and gathering acorns and lamb's quarters and dandelions. And I plan to volunteer at the urban farm/csa, new roots, in north city, hoping to make connections and build relationships with others throughout the area attempting to produce their own food - maybe get a little rhizome network going. All in all, I'm not overly concerned about the future, and I'm doing what I need and want to be doing at the present.


I just thought it was nifty how much "green space" I have around me, in the middle of the city, when I took the time to notice.