Agroecologist Peter Jensen, a former Peace Corps permagarden training specialist, worked in Haiti and East Africa for over two decades, “building landscapes back better than they ever were.” Since leaving Ethiopia in 2019 and moving back to Orleans, where he grew up, he has been applying that knowledge to designing gardens that help property owners control runoff.
Runoff is a big problem on Cape Cod, disturbing the thin soil surface layer and taking nutrients away from forests and dragging them toward sensitive wetlands, adding nitrates, phosphates and pollutants from the road to the water table.
Jensen’s work at the Church of the Holy Spirit started a year and a half ago with the design of a runoff control and permaculture project around its solar field. This spring, he was asked to take on the problem of runoff around the parking lot entrance.