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Urban pollinator, Railtown Studios Green Roof, Vancouver
Mughal gardens as seminal landscapes for modernism

The back, river side of the Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Modernism was prefigured by the Mughals or, more specifically, in some of the new public space which they created. I first began studying Moghul gardens in the summer of 2000 while advising on the development of a conservation concept for the Salt Range of the north-western Punjab, an area that saw one of India’s first quadrilateral or Charbagh gardens. Built by the first Mughal emperor Babur above Kalar Kahar, Bagh-e Safa functioned as part resting area, part military base (for the care of horses), and part pleasure garden. Today, there is little left beyond a mention in the Baburnama. But as the Mughal Empire rapidly expanded east and south, the Charbagh, originally a Persian garden geometry that efficiently used water to cool public and private spaces revolutionized and came to structure much of the urban space of South Asia. While certain formulaic relationships were shared between the small, early Charbaghs of 16th Century India and built subsequent centuries that were more extensive, this set of garden and architectural approaches created cultural space for an early kind of modernism, a cosmopolitanism that blended aspects of ‘East’ and ‘West’ per local and imperial conditions and needs.
Charbagh schematic drawn in Pakistan in 2004 by Gordon Brent Ingram
With a design education from the West Coast of North America, that emphasized early initiatives for sustainability, I have been adverse but occasionally fascinated by obsessively symmetrical designs. I live in a world of short lines and curves. But I have sometimes found that the quadrilateral enclosures, created through the Charbaghs of Moghul gardens, have created powerful places linking disparate ranges of sites, activities, and experiences. And the careful use of water and vegetation, though artificial, prefigured the diverse interpretations of ecological design that have already marked the Twenty-First Century. In these ways, the imperial ambitions that integrated India for a few short centuries prefigured the internationalism of modernism.

Chaatri, Naubat Khana Gate, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Another of my fascinations with Mughal gardens is from the particularly fluid and transgressive notions of inside and outside – approaches in marked contrast with early modernism, the deficiencies of the latter leading to many unliveable ‘internationalist’ buildings. By contrast, Mughal complexes were better designed in terms of site factors and environmental constraints. Much of the urbanism of pre-Western cities was structured by gardens and around flows of water and biota. And most sustainably redesigned cities of the coming decades and centuries will likewise be reconstructed around ecological infrastructure. Mughal ‘gardens’ were part of a highly rational and unified set of geometries, designs, technologies, and aesthetics that carefully utilized and transformed water and cultivated areas into towns and cities in ways far more supple than the town and country dichotomies of Western cities.

Dry water trough, Sekandra, Akbar's Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The Charbagh or Char Bagh, as in four gardens, was originally a Persian geometry. By the time Persian garden styles were widely influencing Indian landscape designs in the 16th Century the Charbagh was being used in associations with innovations in the pumping and dispersal of water for both irrigation and cooling. In contrast to the fragmentation of the Charbagh, the maidan is a wide plaza or field whether constructed in stone or of earth that has been trampled and swept. Another architectural concept that was early on articulated in Arabic and then re-interpreted in Persia, the maidan was further adapted to South Asia’s diverse local forms of public outdoor space.

Dusk in the charbagh adjacent to Humayun's Tomb, New Delhi, 5 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
While latter Mughal garden complexes were often cultural centres, the early designs, technologies and practices comprised in large part an adaption of the summer, resting and pleasure refuges of the warm temperate zones of Central Asia for the warmer winters, torrid summers and violent monsoons of what is today, north and central India. In what is today, Pakistan and India, the quadrilateral charbagh was built in large part to provide and distribute clean water for horses, humans and garden plants. In Delhi and further south, where it was often too warm for indoor bathing in heated hammam, charbaghs included bathing areas that adapted older South Asian architectures of stepwells and stepped ponds.

Recently restored pumphouse at the Humayun's Tomb complex the circulated and recycled water throughout the gardens, New Delhi, 16 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
In the plains of India, charbaghs, as refuges and nascent pleasure gardens, began to have the central function to provide spaces for keeping cool in the hot months. The engineering techniques of various parts of South Asia were utilized to carefully move, monitor and regulate shallow troughs of water from hour-to-hour.

Pool and trough for using, conserving and recycling water in cooling the gardens of the Humayun's Tomb complex, New Delhi, 28 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
With Mughal gardens, the other half of the cooling equation was vegetation. Most of the temperature trees of Central Asia, especially coniferous cypress, signifying death, and fruit trees, signifying life, required a great deal of tending especially from Delhi southward. So the Mughal garden complex often functioned to impose signifiers of the warm temperate, semi-arid ecology from where the first generations of Mughals originated to the more humid, subtropical zones of the subcontinent. And the tree species from the north and more arid areas, such as the palm, were planted to accentuate a strong and simple symmetry in contrast to the visually more complex woodlands and jungles of India. While India had many large fragments of forest in the early years of the Mughals, these garden complexes were distinctly removed from local ecosystems with threats such as snakes and large mammals. In contrast, the charbagh functioned as a refuge for birds.

Palms (associated with drier climates) in the garden near Badshahi Mosque viewed from Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan, 15 January 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
With the Chhatri, the dome-shaped pavilions and canopies of the Mughals, the boundaries of inside and outside, so important to the European world, were further blurred. Central Indian vernaculars, especially from Rajasthan, were worked into these complexes by the time of Humayun, the second Mughal emperor. Less than a century later, larger, square chhatri were being built such as the Diwan-i-Khas in the Fatehpur Sikri.

The celebrated chatri, Diwan-i-Khass, was set within a hard-surfaced maidan at Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The expanded use and increasingly sophisticated jaali, latticed screens, further subverted Western notions of inside and outside at a time when the cultural exchange with the West was intensifying. Similarly, architectures of verandas, baramada, and covered walkways developed quickly for the heat and monsoons of the plains. And the early democracy of Islamic public space soon saw barriers to the poor and marginal, such as gates, and places for the elite such as towers, minar. And I have yet to decipher the heavily gendered and nuanced, sometimes even heavily eroticized, architectures of Mughal public space.

Jaali in Noulakha Pavilion, Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan, 21 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The emphasis on depiction of Central Asian plants in architectural details, only in part because of the anti-idolatry aversion to imagery of humans and animals, further viewed the inside and outside as many garden complexes and open spaces were being increasingly crowded by urbanisation.

Interior floral detail, Sekandra, Akbar's Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
I often think about the relevance of the charbagh to the city in which I am based: Vancouver, Canada. As temperatures rise and rainfall increases, many of the elements of both the early, Central Asian charbaghs and the vaster complexes built later in India become increasingly relevant. I dream of a few small charbaghs around Vancouver and perhaps even a large, central plaza with a garden and bath-house.

Fragment of a Moghul garden that was modified in the Raj period, Lahore Fort, August 2000, by Gordon Brent Ingram
Mughal Gardens: Cooling geometries of water, shade & sustainability

Fountain at dusk, Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, Pakistan, 23 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Perhaps no garden form, at least in recent centuries, functioned as much like a machine — or an organism as the charbagh of India.
Central axis and trough filled with water of the charbagh Humayun’s Tomb (viewed from the terrace of the tomb), New Delhi, 5 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Dry trough along the axis of Sekandra, Akbar’s Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The perpendicular angles of the char bagh from the terrace of Humayun’s Tomb complex, New Delhi, 5 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Two levels defined by an axis of Sekandra, Akbar’s Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007,
photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Regardless of what topography or flows of water, the landscape of Mughal Gardens are mediated and transformed by two perpendicular lines – that are troughs or canals that transport water. The two lines create four spaces, as in the term, char bagh, as in four gardens.
Water flow in trough surrounded by palm, Humayun’s Tomb complex, New Delhi,
28 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Pool and pavilian in winter, Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan, 16 January, 2004,
photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The plaza or maidan was often part of or adjacent to a hard-surface or earthen char bagh but their uses were very different.
Courtyard and washing pool in front of Jami Masjid, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Hard-surfaced maidan leading to the pool at Anup Talao, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The Mughals were overwhelmingly urbanites and new sources of water and as well as more multi-purpose open spaces was needed. So as well as transporting water into inhabited space, the charbagh was part of a series of practices to keep the water relatively clean.
Pool and trough with water inside the gate to Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi, 5 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Pool with water and trough for water to surround, Humayun's Tomb, New Delhi, 16 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Lake and pavilion, Hiran Minar, Sheikapura, Pakistan, 27 January, 2004 photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Elephant drinking ramp, Hiran Minar, Sheikapura, Pakistan, 27 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
As the charbagh concept moved south and east across India in the 16th Century, the quadrilateral geometry functioned as a cultural sponge absorbing local styles and technologies.
Inside the lake pavilion with a view of protected woodland, Hiran Minar, Sheikapura, Pakistan, 27 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Empty pool, Sekandra, Akbar’s Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The core functions of the charbagh, for rest and pleasure, often involved cooling through the circulation of water combined with shade from vegetation.
Back fountain, Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, 17 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
And underlying the operations of these increasingly large projects were new levels of sophistication in hydraulics, water conservation, and horticulture.
Empty rectangular pools, garden, Itimad-ud-Daulah, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Humayun’s Tomb from a trough and pool in the adjacent charbagh, New Delhi, 28 March, 2007 photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Site of the infamous, former lake of Fatehpur Sikri, that dried up little more than a decade after the short-lived Mughal capital was built, viewed above from Jami Masjid, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The green spaces of charbagh and other Mughal open spaces were highly controlled. Each species, nearly all from more temperate areas of Asia and the Middle East, was selected carefully, and as the empire spread into the Indian subcontinent, and was increasingly alien to those subtropical and tropical climes. Another function of the irrigation and cooling systems was to keep these plants alive in the heat that preceded the monsoons.
Trees in char bagh from the terrace of Humayun’s Tomb complex, New Delhi, 5 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Trees in the charbagh of the Humayun’s Tomb complex, New Delhi, 16 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Vegetation adjacent to Sekandra, Akbar’s Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The creation of shade was almost as important, in the over designs of charbaghs, as bringing the delights of water, and its cooling effects. And there were contrasting forms of shade: the feathered and rapidly shifting shadows of tall palms in contrast to the large, wide-trunked trees along India’s water courses.
Tree between Barber’s Tomb and Humayun’s Tomb, New Delhi, 16 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Food production was largely jettisoned as the charbagh spread south and east. This was due, in part, to the difficulties of growing the initial charbagh trees and vines of Central Asia, notably apple and grapes, in tropical climes. But as the Mughal Empire became wealthy, the logic of food production in pleasure spaces may have been lost.
Courtyard with Hindu observances, garden of Wazir Khan Shahi Hammam, Lahore, Pakistan, 16 January, 2004 photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
There has been much discussion of the Koranic inferences in charbagh vernacular. Certainly, the sacredness and practical importance of water was one of the guiding fascinations in the designs of these gardens.
Anup Talao with water, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
How ‘sustainable’ were these gardens and the thinking that went into their designs? That topic warrants a few strong debates and books. Clearly, the care with the efficient use of water and vegetation was exceptional. But especially to maintain their clean, modern edges, these gardens required a high level of maintenance.
River pavilion and woodland behind the Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Mughal Gardens: The supple, gradated boundaries between exterior & interior spaces


Riverside pavilian, Itimad-ud-Daulah, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The charbagh as the most basic element of Mughal gardens began as military resting posts in Central Asia as important for horses as for human beings. The only `indoors’ were the interiors of tents. But as many charbaghs were constructed and this new kind of landscape became widely established in India, the Mughal garden became a matrix for a particularly sophisticated form of urbanism where the boundaries of inside and outside constituted gradations created by air, water, shade, text, and symbols.
- Naubat Khana Gate, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
As the Mughals moved south and east, the Central Asian tent, that functioned to project from sun, cold and snow was replaced by various forms of pavilions, verandas and terraces that functioned more for protection from sun and rains.
Central Indian pavilion vernaculars, especially from Rajasthan, were worked into these complexes by the time of Humayun, the second Mughal emperor. With the Chhatri, the dome-shaped pavilions and canopies of the Mughals, the boundaries of inside and outside, so important to the European world, were further blurred.
- Nagina Masjid and chhatri above, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 19 March 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
- Stairs, gates and shade, Panch Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Covered walkway at Ankh Michauli, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The expanded use and increasingly sophisticated jaali, latticed screens, further subverted Western notions of inside and outside at a time when the cultural exchange with the West was intensifying.

View of open space in Lahore, Pakistan from jaali in Noulakha Pavilion, Lahore Fort, 21 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Looking through jaali into the charbagh in the Humayun's Tomb complex, New Delhi, 16 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Garden, covered walkways, fountains, pavilion, and gate at Baradarri (White Pavilion), Hazuri Bagh, Lahore, Pakistan, 15 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Room and passage way with interior fountain, Lahore Fort, Pakistan, 21 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Vernaculars of verandas, baramada, and covered walkways developed quickly for the heat and monsoons of the plains.

Veranda on the edge of a garden, Diwan-i-Am, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Veranda at the 'Turkish Sultana's Pavilian' garden, Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The early democracy of Islamic public space soon saw barriers to the poor and marginal, such as gates, and places for the elite such as towers, minar. Islamic architecture minimized caste barriers but recognized and some cases re-enforced barriers defined by gender and class. While erotic allusions were formally removed from Mughal public spaces, the suppleness of the architectural membranes combined with complexes of water and vegetation allowed, sometimes fostered, illicit liaisons.

Plant detail, 'Turkish Sultana's Pavilian', Fatehpur Sikri, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Detail of the ceiling in a pavilion in Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, Pakistan, 23 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Ceiling, Baradarri (White Pavilion), Hazuri Bagh, Lahore, Pakistan, 15 January, 2004, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Unrestored wall in the early phases of the renovation of the Shish Mahal, Lahore Fort, Pakistan, 16 January, 2004 photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
Further subverting and playing with the lines between outside and inside were the geometric and floral images, often with text, that were inscribed in the public garden complexes of the Mughals.

Interior detail, Sekandra, Akbar's Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram

Floral detail on a ceiling and on walls, Sekandra, Akbar's Tomb, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, 18 March, 2007, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
The green roof of Railtown Studios on Vancouver Harbour: an overview

Garlic with vines of Scarlet Emperor beans in the background, 3 August 2008, Railtown Studios Green Roof, photograph by Gordon Brent Ingram
29 May, 2008
in the garden of agro urban agri culture:
celebrating ten years of the Railtown Studios green roof 1998 - 2008
PDF copy available: 5-2008-the-continuing-evolution-of-the-railtown-studios-green-roof2
The continuing evolution of the
Railtown Studios Green Roof
Railtown Studios is one of Vancouver’s first buildings zoned exclusively for artist / live work rental space. The original concept for the green roof was approved by Vancouver City Council in the summer of 1995 as part of approval of the sale, renovation, and artist live/work zoning proposal for the building (a former fish packing plant, morgue and early film location for The X-Files) along with the construction of The Edge across the street).
The original 1995 – 1998 design concept was under the supervision of Rob Leshgold, the son of Jack Leshgold who is the current owner of the building and Rossmore Enterprises and Reliance Holdings of Gastown. The original garden was installed in the spring of 1998.
Being four stories above Vancouver Harbour, this green roof receives considerable sun along with a great deal of salty wind off the mountains and the sea. This particular green roof has been shaped, in particular, by wind and salt. For the first six years of the Railtown Studies Green Roof, Anne Carlson and Jeff Olson worked very hard to maintain the garden consistently with Rob’s original concept and design.
A drip irrigation system was installed in 1998 and functioned until about 2004. As this system stopped functioning, a large portion of the material that was installed in 1998 died. In addition, the original plantings consisted of cheap, conventional nursery material, notably German ivy and boxwood, which often does not sustain itself after five to ten years. Of the original material, four conventional street trees have survived as well as most of the rosemary bushes and about half of the boxwood hedges.
In 2006, a more manageable surface irrigation system was installed and over half of the current species in the garden were planted. In contrast to the plant material from the initial installation, in 1998, the more recent plantings have nearly all involved species that are moderately drought tolerant and more able to cope with the wind and salt.
Over the last decades, scores of tenants have reworked the original design to include more trees and shrubs, native species and food species with local adaptations of principles associated with the following movements:
permaculture and older traditions of polyculture[1];
Masanobu Fukuoka’s ‘natural farming’ and his ‘one straw revolution’[2]; and
Miguel Altieri’s principles of complex agro-ecosystems influenced by traditional Amerindian practices[3]; and
local and regional efforts to produce more food throughout the year such as the early work of Binda Colebrook[4].
As a green roof in a building dedicated to combining creative production with households, tenant `ecosystem management’ has been influenced by a range of cultural movements including but not confined to the following:
contemporary fashion photography (with many commercial sessions in this garden);
bioregionalism;
the cusp of contemporary landscape architecture and public art;
land art (as a movement within public art) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_art); and
bioart that is sometimes linked to wetware.
And in the coming years new perspectives and art-making practices inevitably will further link practices of horticulture, agriculture and contemporary cultural production.
Chronology of the Railtown Green Roof
• summer 1995 - City Council approved both the sale of the derelict Railtown building, still contaminated with PCBs, and the permitting of the joint proposal for The Edge and Railtown Studios after considerable debate with the proposed Railtown Green Roof the deal-maker. The Railtown garden became the first green roof in the City of Vancouver that was formalized and legally recognized (and mandated).
• 1996 - 1998 Owner Jack Leshgold lead the renovation of the building and his son, Rob Leshgold, designed the common areas of the roof.
• 1998 - The garden was installed in an arrangement where tenants installed and tended their own plants in assigned parts of the three long and narrow beds (supervised by building manager, Esme Friesen) and the remaining parts of the roof were planted by Rossmore Enterprises — with plants chosen by Rob Leshgold. Rob chose an ‘industrial brut’ planting style popular in the early 1990s emphasizing simple forms and a small number of supposedly resilient species (rosemary, juncus (Carex sp.), German ivy, and boxwood. The quality of the planting material was relatively poor (and cheap).
• 1998 - 2005 - Tenants Anne Carlson and Jeff Olson (who were and are married) worked with Rob Leshgold to develop his concept of the garden — with no formal involvement of the building managers Esme Friesen and Kris Grunert (and some other building managers with shorter contracts). The varieties and this particular material responded unevenly to the windy and salty conditions on the roof. The rosemary thrived. In response to the salty winds, the ivy grew down and not up. The reed-like juncus thrived in the winter and mostly died and turned brown in the summer. For six to eight months a year, Jeff and Anne put an average of ten hours a week into weeding and watering the garden. Within several years, a significant portion of the Rossmore plants had died and gaps and bare earth were evident. There was a great deal of settling of the soil in the beds and Anne and Jeff arranged for tenants to pay for the major replenishing of the soil that took place around 2003.
• 2005 - 2007 - Anne and Jeff moved out of the building and asked me to coordinate gardening. The initial irrigation system stopped working. Subcontractors for Rossmore dug up and accidentally damaged some of the remaining Rossmore plantings. Building manager Kris Grunert’s contract was not renewed.
• 2006 - present - Joanne Reilly became the new building manager and Jack Leshgold shifted responsibilities for the garden maintenance to her. More of the original Rossmore plantings died-back. Rossmore installed a new irrigation system. The tenants were encouraged to plant in the common Rossmore beds. David Beckitt provided maintenance support in the second half of 2008.
• In comparison to most other large and complex green roofs in the region, this project at Railtown has been developed with an exceptional amount of goodwill, cooperation, and volunteer labour. Similar green roofs involve annual expenditures of $1,000 to $2,000 in new plant material, $500 in new soil and fertilizer, and maintenance contracts (especially for weeding and trimming) in excess of $500 a month.
***
The following are February 2009 recommendations for further developing a low-maintenance garden for the building that nurtures transitions to sustainability practices and creative production.
1. There has been a lot of winter die-back and it could well cost $1,000 to $2,000 to buy plants to fill in al of the gaps in the Rossmore beds (not including the three tenant beds). If those gaps are not quickly filled in the next month, more weeds will get established that will be difficult to remove and control.
2. Because of more settling in the beds (which is normal), another $500 of soil would be necessary to fill the beds.
3. The new plants that would require the least maintenance and would have the best chances of surviving for extended periods are more hearty perennial bushes, flowers and herbs such as the black-eye Susan flowers, small apple and plum trees, bulbs, and native trees and shrubs such as wild rose and red current. It is most cost-effective to obtain bona fide plant material from established nurseries not from box-stores where the material is cheap and bred not to survive for long.
4. Like most gardens, there are a number of weeds that must be managed weekly from March through November and based on my experience and labour I estimate that a minimum level of maintenance is five person-hours a week.
5. The other two tenant beds also will need significant plantings and weeding and gardeners committed to acquiring and maintaining more plants and weeding are needed.
6. Annuals, such as tomatoes do well but stop producing by October while the weeds survive all year round. So to minimize takeover by weeds, a perennial such as an herb plant or a cover crop such as buckwheat or clover could be planted after an annual crop is harvested in the autumn.
[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture . The first books of the permaculture series by Bill Mollison of Tasmania remain highly influential (Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. 1978. Permaculture One: A Perennial Agriculture for Human Settlements. Hobert, Tasmania: Trasworld Publishers. ISBN 978-0938240006. & Bill Mollison. 1979. Permaculture Two: Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture. Hobert, Tasmania: Tagari Publications.).
[2] (Masanobu Fukuoka. 1978. The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka)
[3] See http://www.agroeco.org/doc/new_docs/Agroeco_principles.pdf and also see Altieri’s highly unfluential 1995 text book: Agroecology: The Science of Sustainable Agriculture. Berkeley: ITDG Publishing.
[4] Binda Colebrook.1977. Winter Gardening in the Maritime Northwest. Arlington, Washington: Tilth.