Maintainance, evaluation and perhaps some tweaking..

Everything in the garden has been designed to be pretty straightforward to maintain. The plants are all easy to take care of, needing nothing more than some watering. We have given the Free Bird cafe a copy of the garden design so Lisa and the staff can see what is planted where. We are also in the process of preparing a booklet of information about the new plants, giving details of how to identify them and care for them should they develop any common problems.
The water system was the only thing that on the day needed some slight adjustments. We thought it may as it was a very experimental design for us, and we weren't sure that it was going to work as planned. 
When we first tried it out we faced a problem that the water was all coming out of the holes in the drainage pipe too soon - none of the water was reaching the far end of the pipe, and due to a slight slope on the muddy ground near the box the water was finding it's way back down to the alleyway behind the house before it had a chance to soak into the ground. This is the same place that flooded before the filter box was in place, so was a terrible outcome! We realised that we could solve this by changing the filter pipe with another that had fewer holes, and that it would be better to only have the holes starting from halfway down the pipe, so that the water would be unable to exit the pipe so close to the sloping ground. 
Just to be sure, we also created a 90 degree bend in the exit pipe so that the water would then be persuaded to travel down to the end of the pipe by gravity. We also changed the exit pipe to a smaller diameter tube, so that the pressure of the leaving water would be increased. We dug a large hole at the very end of the pipe where the last of the water would finally exit, and filled this hole with pebbles. This would stop the ground becoming waterlogged and muddy and would allow easy filtration of the water into the land. You can see these adjustments below. ,  

Here you can see the 90 degree angle that we fitted to create more gravity to feed the water further down the filter pipe. The holes in the pipe now only are drilled from the furthest half, to stop the water from returning to flood the area behind the house.

The finished waste water system

One week on - returning to check everything was going ok, the water filter is working perfectly.

We returned to the cafe one week after the implementation had taken place, to check everything was running smoothly and to see if Lisa was having any problems. We found her to be completely happy with the way everything was going, and really enjoying her new garden. She had had some very positive comments from students who were very excited to see the changes, and she and her staff were very happy to have a working water filter, saving them so much time after previously mopping and sweeping the water behind the house. In the days after we had visited the children had begun painting the mural on the wall. Here is a selection of photos from the visit one week later. 

Permaculture principles and ethics visited in this project

I thought here would be a good space to explore the principles of permaculture design that we visited during this project. 

Observe and interact

• When we first came to the Free Bird cafe to speak to Lisa, we spent a lot of time making a map of the site and observing what was there already growing, We then worked on maintaining and recovering (interacting with) these plants, whilst adding to them with more plants that we observed would fit well with Lisa's vision and the requirements of the cafe and garden.
  
• On a personal project level, working as a group of designers required us to observe each other';s behaviours, strengths and weaknesses, and develop together a harmonious working relationship. We spent a lot of time together during this design process, and learned to work together to bring out the best of ll of our abilities

Produce no waste

• The creation of the water system was a particular passion of mine, one that I worked hard on and brought in my experienced friends to develop a system that I was sure would work. Before we arrived, the waste water on site was all flooding the concrete area behind the building. By creating this grey water system we ensured that the water was being returned back to the ground to be used by the banana plants behind the kitchen, which would then in turn produce more fruit back for the cafe. A closed loop system!

Integrate rather than segregate

• Freedom house and the Free Bird cafe works hard at doing just this, integrating Burmese children into their local neighbourhood and community by offering a school and charity organisation, where they otherwise have no rights and no hopes of an education. It felt so wonderfully worthwhile to be working alongside Lisa and her garden to be a small part of this.
• On a design note, we made sure that we integrated all of the elements that were already in the garden, and worked with them rather than taking anything out.
• And by working as a team we worked with consensus decision making for all of our meetings, and integrated the knowledge and personal qualities from everybody within the community. Everybody was welcome to be a part of this design process, and some of the newest visitors to Panya sat in on some of our design meetings to get a flavour of what permaculture design was all about. 

Use edges and value the marginal

• A lot of the planting we did in the borders of the garden, where the tall walls provided shade and a different micro climate to the rest of the site. We placed our plants with careful thought as to which specific conditions would suit it the best.
• This also echo's the integration aspect of working in a group: I leave this project with recognition of the huge value of using people's skills from within all areas of the community. 
• The intention of the Free Bird project is to do just that: value those who are at the edges of our society; the marginalised communities. I jumped at the chance of being a part of this project as soon as I heard Lisa needed some help, as the values she works within are enclosed completely within the ethics of permaculture design: Earth care, People care and Fair Shares for all. And everything that fits within these ethics is working towards a better more sustainable world for us all, and deserves all the support it can find.  

And to the final stage, the appendix, and reviews, click here