Patricia Mikkelson

Veganic Permaculture at the Living Springs Log House: A Place Ready to Grow Without Harm

Illustration, not a photo: a multigenerational family works in raised garden beds below a cypress log house on a wooded Ozark hillside
This is an illustration, not an actual photo of the Living Springs Log House. It shows what a veganic homestead here could look like, with people of all ages tending garden beds below a cypress log home. What is real is the 40 by 55 foot fenced organic garden I built up over the years. It’s already in place, ready for the next gardener, and every bed in it can be fed with leaves, compost, mulch and living roots, with no harm to any animal.
Looking down from the log house deck over the upper garden of herbs and wild plants, the boulder rock cascade, and the fenced lower vegetable garden with white hoops over raised beds
And here are the real gardens, seen from the log house deck. Right in front of the house is the upper garden, mostly wild edibles, medicinal plants, herbs, flowers and pollinator plants. Below it, big boulders form a rock cascade between the two gardens, and the pockets between the rocks can be planted too. At the bottom is the lower garden, the 40 by 55 foot fenced organic garden, where white hoops arch over raised beds meant mostly for vegetables. I built these gardens up over the years, almost entirely with leaves, compost, wood chips and plants, so the next gardener won’t be starting from scratch.

I’ve lived at the Living Springs Log House since 2017. Over those years I’ve built up gardens all over this land. Now that my friend Barbara Hulley, who owns the property, is selling it, we both would love for it to go to someone who will carry it forward as a veganic permaculture homestead: a place where food is grown with no harm to animals, and where the land is cared for like a living system.

What veganic permaculture means

Permaculture designs gardens and homesteads to work like natural ecosystems, with each part supporting the others. Veganic (vegan organic) growing feeds the soil with plants instead of animal products like manure, blood meal or bone meal. Put together, veganic permaculture builds rich soil from leaves, compost, cover crops and living roots, and lets the land feed the people without using animals.

How I came to permaculture

I’ve known about and practiced organic gardening since I was 21, around 1975 or 1976. I first discovered it in the Garden of Eden at San Diego State University. There was an emphasis on growing berries, tree crops and plants that come up every year, and that really made sense to me.

So when I discovered permaculture in 1999, it was like, oh yeah, this really fits. Permaculture filled in a lot of the blanks, and I continue to learn about it. I’m passionate about it. I’ve never gotten certified, but when I became vegan, I realized I wanted to be more of a purist when it came to growing things, and I was delighted to find The Vegan Book of Permaculture, which I own.

A group of people laying logs over cardboard on the slope in front of the log house to start a garden bed
Our very first work party, in 2017, when we first bought the place. This is where the upper garden began. Friends gathered on the slope in front of the log house to start reclaiming the Bermuda grass lawn. We laid cardboard right over the grass to smother it, then piled logs and branches on top, the beginning of a hugelkultur bed. As the wood slowly rots, it holds water like a sponge and feeds the soil for years, with no manure needed.

I feel confused about how many permaculture teachers say you have to have animals, and animal inputs like manure, for a permaculture system to work. Veganic growers show that a garden can thrive on plants, compost, mulch and cover crops, without using animals at all.

It would be fantastic for every square inch of this land to be put to use: forest gardens, and the woods used for growing mushrooms. Mushrooms are such a great vegan crop, since they help replace meat, and they can even be made into vegan mushroom leather. But of course, veganic permaculture is mostly about growing food. A growing number of people around here love healthy, locally grown food. Many of our neighbors have gardens, but many don’t, so they might love a CSA, a weekly share of fresh produce from the farm.

Where the gardens stand today

The gardens here haven’t been completely veganic. A resident kept chickens, so a small amount of chicken manure was used over the years. When my son and daughter-in-law lived here, they used some rabbit manure. And back when bats lived in the attic of the house, the bat guano we swept up from the ground went into the gardens. I also once buried some bones that a meat eater needed to get rid of, so they wouldn’t go to waste.

Still, nearly all of the organic matter, probably 99.99 percent, came from plants and plant materials: leaves, cardboard, food scraps, wood chips, pine needles, comfrey, comfrey tea, grass clippings, ashes, rotting wood from hugelkultur beds, and unwanted plants I cut or pulled up. A little sand and peat moss were added too, in very small amounts.

Big leafy comfrey plants growing in a hugelkultur bed edged with old weathered logs, beside the driveway and log house stairs
Comfrey growing in a hugelkultur bed beside the driveway, near the log house stairs. Old weathered logs frame the bed and slowly rot into it, holding water and feeding the soil from below, while the comfrey’s big leaves stand ready to be cut and laid down as mulch or steeped into comfrey tea. Two of my favorite veganic garden helpers, working side by side.

So the gardens have been grown mostly the veganic way, and there’s a lot here to build on:

  • Many named gardens, each with its own character: Child’s Garden, Simple, Flow, Edge, Butterfly, Glad, Founding, Big Rock, Circle and the Vegetable garden.
  • An upper garden right in front of the house, mostly wild edibles, medicinal plants, herbs, flowers and pollinator plants.
  • A fenced (non-electric) 40 by 55 foot organic garden below it, mainly for vegetables, that I built up over the years.
  • Three 8-year-old fruit trees, two apple and one pear. They’ve been a bit neglected, but with pruning and care they’re ready to become the start of an orchard.
  • Perennials that keep coming back, like comfrey, herbs, bulbs and plants grown from saved seed.
  • Wild and healing plants all over the land, like plantain, dock, violets, chickweed and wintercress.
  • Hugelkultur ideas, forest mulching and a rock cascade between the upper and lower gardens that can be planted too.
A tall bronze and gold sunflower growing inside the fenced lower garden, with the log house and green boulder cascade behind it
The year the sunflowers thrived in the lower organic garden, inside its fence. This bronze-and-gold beauty grew tall enough to frame the log house behind it, with the boulder cascade green and growing below. I never know which plants will thrive each year, and that’s part of the joy of gardening here. This was the sunflowers’ year, and I loved it.

The land and water

  • A cave spring that has kept our two cisterns full enough for everyday use since 2017. The only times they ran short were when a hose was left running or a technical problem came up.
  • A shady, moist hardwood hillside behind the house, well suited to shiitake logs.
  • Land that was cleared about nine years ago and has grown up since. It could be cleared again for a food forest, an orchard or a market garden.
  • A sawmill about 10 minutes away, a nearby source of free sawdust and wood chips for mulch, paths and mushroom beds.
  • 40 more acres for sale next door, with room for an orchard or a much larger food forest.
India, a big white fluffy dog, standing at the stone springhouse built into a mossy limestone bluff, with a green pipe leading away
India, my furry companion, at the stone springhouse built into the mossy limestone bluff. This cave spring has kept our two cisterns full for everyday use since 2017, and the green pipe carries its water away toward the house. Water like this is the foundation of a veganic homestead: it waters the gardens, the nursery, the mushroom logs and the people.

Buildings that help

The insulated 40 by 60 metal building has power, water, a bathroom and its own septic. It could become a packing and washing room for a market garden, a seed-saving and plant nursery space, a mushroom farm, or a classroom for veganic gardening workshops. The house itself is a hybrid cypress log home, with a walk-out basement suite that has its own entrance, so a small community of growers and their families could live here together.

The red metal building at the Living Springs Log House with its white roll-up door and concrete slab out front
The insulated 40 by 60 metal building, with its big roll-up door and concrete slab out front. With power, water, a bathroom and its own septic already in place, it could wash and pack a market garden’s harvest, grow mushrooms, start seedlings for a plant nursery, or fill up with neighbors on a veganic gardening class day.

Some ideas for a veganic future

  • A food forest of fruit and nut trees, berries and perennial greens.
  • A veganic market garden with a CSA, a weekly share of fresh produce for subscribers.
  • Selling at the growing number of farmers markets in Northwest Arkansas, including the Huntsville, Goshen and Eureka Springs farmers markets.
  • A plant nursery and homemade salves from the herbs already growing here.
  • Shiitake and oyster mushrooms in the metal building and on the hillside, and mushrooms grown in the woods. Mushrooms can help replace meat and can even become vegan mushroom leather.
  • Veganic gardening classes, open garden days and volunteer weekends. Permaculture and organic gardening are topics gaining a lot of momentum in this region.
  • A vegan community or farm animal sanctuary living alongside the gardens.
A panoramic view of the cypress log house with its long front stairs and porch, opening out to green meadows, trees, and misty Ozark hills under a blue sky
A panoramic view on a bright summer morning. On the left, the cypress log house with its long stairway up to the front porch. To the right, the land opens out past the gardens to green meadows, tall trees and the misty Ozark hills rolling away in the distance. There’s room here for a food forest, a market garden and a whole community of growers.

A few insights

  • Veganic land doesn’t have to start perfectly. Soil keeps changing, and a few seasons of plant-based compost, mulch and cover crops can carry a garden fully into veganic growing.
  • Water is the foundation. A spring and cisterns make every other dream on this land possible. There are water spreading systems in place that can help spread out the rain water and overflow from the cisterns during wet weather.
  • The land has already started the work. Established gardens, perennials and wild plants mean a new steward isn’t starting from bare dirt.
The log house in winter seen from below, with a bare boulder wall and plain lawn in front and no gardens
Where it all began: the log house around 2017, close to when it was first bought and I came to live here. Look closely and you’ll see there were no gardens at all in the front, just lawn and the bare boulder wall, and the ground up top was all lawn too. Every bed, path and flower in the gardens today was planted after this picture was taken, almost entirely with leaves, compost, wood and plants. The next steward won’t be starting from bare lawn.

Learn more

The Living Springs Log House Is for Sale

Now offered at $465,000 (reduced by $10,000) for 14.75 acres near Huntsville, Arkansas. Listed with Lori Hawkins of Viridian Real Estate. See the Zillow listing, or call Lori at 479-301-6107.

See more of the gardens, the spring and the land at www.livingspringsloghouse.com.

How we wrote this together. The ideas, experiences and gardening knowledge in this article are Patricia Mikkelson’s: what she has grown at the Living Springs Log House since 2017, how the gardens have been tended, the research she has done on veganic growing, and her hope for a veganic future. Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic, helped write and organize the article and expanded the research on veganic and permaculture resources.

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