by Brent Knoll | Jun 7, 2013 | Landscape design
l carefully design my edible landscapes so that they can be enjoyed like any other ornamental garden, with added emphasis on the healthful properties of fresh, living foods. Every garden project is unique and takes on its own life in a marriage of beauty and practicality. Creating an edible landscape doesn’t mean that your whole garden needs to be edible- In fact, nature is so bountiful that filling a yard with edibles yields way too much food for most families, not to mention the time and work required. Instead, careful planning and the thoughtful planting of fruits, herbs and vegetables results in a garden that pleases the eye, the body and soul. I might incorporate fruits, vegetables and herbs into an existing space, or make adjustments to minimize some beautiful but otherwise unproductive plant material, in order to attract birds and butterflies, to adjust sunlight or to create a pleasant ambience where healing can take place. In today’s hard-driven world that puts so much emphasis on work and commercial productivity, few of us have the time or energy to cultivate the habits that keep us healthy. Most people are surprised to discover just how therapeutic it is to enjoy nature in their own garden- even for a few minutes a day. By thoughtfully arranging the landscape and adding architectural details like benches, fountains, foot-paths and bridges, I can help you to create a soothing atmosphere for you tocelebrate life with family and friends.
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by Brent Knoll | Jun 7, 2013 | Landscape design
A Healing Garden is a space that is created with the intention to enhance our inborn stability and to reinforce the grounding belief that we are connected with nature. It’s a space with a therapeutic magnetic pulse, a beacon that offers solace and sanctuary for all to enjoy fresh air, sunshine and shade. With exotic flowering trees, fruits, veggies, herbs and sacred plants, and with architectural accents like fountains, benches, bridges and bird baths, a Healing Garden becomes a space to connect with friends and family, a place where you can express your creativity, and can nurture and love. The plants that you choose to share this space with you become your friends, an extended green family. By introducing super foods, herbs and fruits, you can create a sustainable space for nurturing on the physical level, and feel empowered to take your health into your own hands by growing your own food, rekindling the sense of stewardship that is our birthright. By carefully selecting native trees that will thrive in this tropical climate, including flowering plants to attract butterflies, and bushes with berries to attract birds and other friends, your Healing Garden will become a natural extension of your home. It is in our power to create a space where you can gather, connect, explore, share, bond, laugh, nurture and meditate, a place where you can feel grounded and centered.
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by Brent Knoll | Mar 21, 2013 | B-Sustainability, Education
Purple Cherokee Tomatoes
Brent Knoll, of Knoll Landscape Design, understands the superiority of heirloom seeds. Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been passed through the generations for hundreds of years. They have been lovingly tended and carefully preserved by the sons and daughters of the planters that came before and so they carry with them a legacy of respect and devotion. They bring us back to a time and a state of mind that placed natural virtue well above material vanity. It is a kind of culture when mothers and fathers pass down the essence of their joyful labors, and sons and daughters inherit natural abundance and sustainable prosperity. The saving and passing on of seeds is the last vestige of our natural heritage and a clear reflection of our working connection to nature.
Heirloom vegetables will always stand out and bring a special atmosphere to any garden. They have personalities of their own; bright colors, stunning patterns, rich flavors, stimulating textures, and a strong hearty constitution. The lineage of heirloom plants preserves the knowledge gained from their collective experiences. Plants have an exceptional capacity for adapting to the conditions of their environment. They can alter their processes and structure to become less vulnerable to particular pests, fungi, and chronic soil conditions that are becoming more common as the planet itself begins to change. These learned adjustments begin to develop over the generations as the plants begin to code these developmental changes into their new seeds. When the lines of these plants are preserved, their wisdom is passed down and continues to grow greater in each new seed.
Seeds that are sold by large companies are often hybrid seeds. This means that to create these seeds two varieties of plant from the same species were intentionally crossed to produce the best traits of both parent plants; e.g. preserving the large size of the father and the prolific yield of the mother. This method of production is used to breed plants that will embody exceptional traits, yet unlike the open pollination heirloom plants who develop these traits organically over generations, hybrid plants have these traits embedded immediately through human manipulation. Of course any man made manipulation of a natural process is most often a short sighted solution that will become a great detriment in the big picture. When the hybrid method is used to create plant seeds, the plant may grow well and yield prolifically but the genetic structure is too unstable to produce viable seeds. In other words seeds from hybrid plants cannot be saved for future sowing or passed down to the next generation.
Brent’s favorite heirloom cucumber, The “Japanese Long”
There should be a clear distinction made at this point between hybrid plants and genetically modified plants (GMO). Hybrid seeds are not the same as GMO. While they share essential traits and common disadvantages through their manipulation of nature, the GMO process uses a more intense approach that results in a much more dangerous ecological outcome. Hybrid seeds are created by intentionally breeding particular plants to create a desired plant trait in offspring. Genetic modification of plants is the direct manipulation of the genes themselves. Often times genes are used that do not even come from plants but rather fish genes or even genes of harmful bacteria.
Genetic modification is a highly dangerous and incredibly irresponsible endeavor that only exists out of a fluctuating combination of public ignorance, blind greed, and misguided desire to save humanity. The biggest problem with this industrial process is that there is no way to opt out of it. Seeds by design are made to spread across great distance and cannot be contained. Pollen drifts through the open air on and seeds float across the fields on the breeze. If someone is using GMO plants in their garden or farm, they are putting at risk an area larger than most would imagine.
While the difference in intensity is quite clear, in the context of seed saving, GMO and hybrid seeds arrive at the same essential downfall. When the seeds we sow cannot produce seeds of their own they become, quite literally, unsustainable. While this becomes quite conducive to the consumerist system of our culture by veiling the free providence of nature and making us dependent upon a marketplace or manufacturer, it allows us to fall out of alignment with the natural order to where we cannot harmonize with our inherent natural legacy. If we cannot preserve the natural history that is at the very root of our sustenance as ecological co-creators then we gradually erase our place and purpose in this world of being.
Brent understands these issues very well and furthermore he understands them on a very practical level. While others are ranting and raving about the politics of it all and engaging in laborious self perpetuating struggles of the mind Brent brings the simple practical solutions to the grassroots of us all. We all have the opportunity to practice our views about this issue in a joyful productive way. When we grow our food sustainably and responsibly in our own back yards then our voice grows and fruits in the sight of our universal neighbors. What we do and how we live becomes the loudest clearest and most influential argument for natural harmony and the case for sustainable natural freedom.
Heirloom plants provide superior flavor, texture, and heartiness than any other method of seed creation. They perpetuate the freedom of nature and alleviate great financial strain by continually providing the seeds of their own reproduction again and again. They afford us the ability to offer an inheritance to our children that will nourish and serve not only them but their children and their children’s children.
Heirloom melons illustrate the inherent superiority in flavor of heirloom plants
When Brent plants fruit and veggie gardens for his clients across Miami, he uses the methods that best suit us all. Brent works with heirloom seeds that his predecessors have been using for generations. He sows and waters those seeds with joyful memories of his youth and the love of those who planted before him. He preserves and cherishes the seeds to be replanted again and again in the gardens of the children who are enjoying the sweet fruits of those seeds today.
by Brent Knoll | Feb 18, 2013 | B-Community Projects, Education
Brent and Sarah are excited to announce their new project that is sure to bring sweet and delicious fun and education to children all across the South Florida school system.
We all know by now that children are the future. So if we want a bright sustainable future we need to provide an avenue for children to be actively engaged in the wonders of the soil, sun and sky. They need a way to learn the fundamentals of our natural human bond with the earth and her bounty.
Brents Organic Gardens is infiltrating the south Florida schools to design and set up fruit gardens to be planted, maintained, and harvested by the children. Brent and his crew of volunteers will bring all the necessary tools and materials to begin planting a beautiful and delicious edible garden, providing the children with the opportunity to be gardeners in training.
We need your help to really bring this project into full bloom. You can volunteer your time to help us build and plants these fruit gardens. You can spread the word and find schools or other public institutions e.g. nursing homes, hospitals, etc., that would be interested in this program. You can also make monetary donations to the projects so that we have the resources to implement this incredible mission all over the region!
Children should have the opportunity to plant, care for, and harvest their food while learning so much about what this great planet has to offer. By Engaging the planet in this manner, they will come to understand what “Real Food” is and come to appreciate the joy and virtue in a simple life led close to the earth.
The commercial junk food market has long been capitalizing on our children’s natural affinity for sweet colorful and delicious fruits. They have been exploiting these natural relationships to push candies and other junk foods that are packed with an excess of additives, refined ingredients, and countless other toxins all under the guise of their fruity colors and flavors. All of this deceptive manipulation has even begun given stigma to the raw organic fruits themselves, creating irrational rumors about the harms of fruit sugar and the like. The manipulation and perversion of these sweet and vibrant natural wonders has us all mixed around.
Now, by reintroducing our children to fruit in it’s purest, most natural form, we can give them the joyful experience of sweet, juicy, vibrant, colorful fruits and , at the same time, introduce them to the joys of gardening and growing our own food. These children will grow up with a healthy body, a uniquely special connection to nature, and a practical understanding of the limitless providence beneath the soil.
Children will be excited about their healthy natural foods; they will appreciate the earth, gain a stake in the quality of the soil, and align their thoughts and actions with upholding the highest quality of the soil and all natural elements. These children will have the opportunity to grow up within a conscious partnership with nature and that is partnership that will change the world.
A project that gives our children the tools necessary to understand and actualize their relationship with their eco-systems and appreciate the nutritioin of natural whole foods, while simultaneously facilitating joyful interactions with the plants and each other, is truly higher education.
If you know a school in the south Florida area that would be open and willing to participate in this project, contact us right away! We are excited to help you and your children grow a better tomorrow!
