Tiny Homes, Big Community!

This was our biggest project yet, and we are incredibly grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with such a wonderful community.

Tiny Timbers Agrihood is a place where people who believe in the tiny home movement and share a love for gardening and the outdoors can come together and live in a year round community of similar minded individuals.

After heavy rains flooded the community's nearly 2-acre gardening area, Tiny Timbers reached out to Alex from PermaCulture Party for help. Alex brought in two of his permaculture partners, Travis Holzem from Food Forest Abundance Minnesota, and Graham Towerton from Permaculture Adventures of Michigan, to collaborate on a solution.  Graham designed a swale system to manage water flow, directing it underground and around the central island towards a new fish pond. Overflow from the pond will feed into the community's larger water retention pond. The swale was designed to be filled with rocks or water-loving rain garden plants. 

We also designed perennial and annual food systems for the Tiny Timbers residents, with Alex leading this aspect. Tiny Timbers already had an amazing start to their foodscape with existing fruit trees, berry bushes, native pollinator plants, and chickens. We expanded upon their design by adding more fruit trees, berry bushes and vines, hazelnuts, perennial vegetables, pollinator plants, and annual and perennial vegetables. We designed a 40' x 94.5' central garden area featuring a mix of companion-planting annual vegetables, perennial vegetables, berries, and native wildflowers.

On June 2nd, around 30 people gathered for a PermaCulture Party to implement parts of the design. We planted blackberries, grape and hardy kiwi vines, strawberries, paw paw trees, and some plants within the swales. We also began building the framework for the central garden area. Alex and Travis partnered with Tiny Timbers residents to lead this community-installation.

Many portions of the design have been quickly implemented and the community is empowered to implement the remainder of the design over the coming years, at a pace they are comfortable with. 

We learned so much throughout this design process and are excited to see the Tiny Timbers community continue to grow and flourish in the coming years!

Tiny Timbers: https://www.tinytimbersagrihood.com/

PermaCulture Party: https://permaculture.party/

Food Forest Abundance Minnesota: https://foodforestabundancemn.com/

Permaculture Adventures of Michigan: https://permacultureadventuresmi.com/dir/