MANSFIELD — Jason Ogg stood at the edge of the vacant lot, steps away from a steep and slightly overgrown hill.
The sun beat down on a group of volunteers, who stood in a semi circle awaiting instructions.
Instead, Ogg asked them what they noticed about the grassy urban lot.
A young girl raised her hand and pointed out a rusty drain near the center of the property.
“Right!” he said. “We have a slope on every side. So basically, it’s a bowl. It’s perfect location for a rain garden.”
Rain gardens are often planted in low-lying areas to slow the flow of water and prevent erosion.
“A rain garden is essentially like a sponge and you’re planting rain-loving plants around that sponge,” he explained.
Ogg is the founder and managing director of Mansfield Permaculture, a local organization focused on regenerative landscape design and restoring ecosystems in Richland County.
On Saturday, he gathered a small band of volunteers to help transform the problematic property into something new.
Desiree Hypes brought three of her children to lend a hand and learn more about permaculture during Ogg’s morning workshop.
Hypes said the social justice components of permaculture — Earth care, people care and fair share — resonate deeply with her.
“(Permaculture movement founder) Bill Mollison was really active in advocating for and recognizing indigenous wisdom and how that specifically influenced the designs that he and David Holmgren implemented,” she said.
“People care is about everyone having access,” she added. “It’s about spreading wealth and resources and equity.”
Kay Carroll of Delaware County came at Hype’s invitation. She said the idea of community that permaculture promotes appeals to her, as does a practical approach to rainwater management.
“I have a five-acre parcel and it has a problematic water source that floods a few times, really significantly, every year,” she said. “I’d like to let it be as natural as possible and utilize the water source.”
Turning a problem into a solution
For Korinna Goettel, the parcel behind Idea Work’s entrepreneur’s kitchen had become a bit of a headache.
She was hesitant to have anyone mow the steepest part of the lot due to safety concerns. Once the mowing stopped, a neighbor complained that the lot was becoming an eyesore.
Goettel said she thought about planting a pollinator garden someday, but hadn’t yet found the time.
Then Ogg showed up with an ambitious pitch — turning the lot into a food forest and harvesting run off water via a rain garden.
“(Ogg) came up with the idea. He brought it to me,” said Goettel, Idea Works’ executive director.
“This is all him, but I love the energy that he brought, the energy of the people that he’s bringing together.”
‘The problem is the solution’ is a common adage in permaculture — an approach to land management that focuses on working with what exists in nature to create self-sustaining ecosystems.
When Ogg first saw the lot, he started thinking about how best to use the slopes in a way that could be beneficial.
He envisions a rain garden collecting water that can be reused for gardening. He looks at the sharp drop on the lot’s south side and sees a terrace garden covered in fruit and nut trees, interspersed with pollinator-friendly plants and mushrooms.
Ogg said he hopes to complete the project with volunteer help by the end of summer.
“When it comes to the climate events that we’re seeing more increasingly these days, it’s important to have ways to manage the resources and the energies that are flowing through our community,” Ogg said.
Sowing sustainability, harvesting joy
Mansfield Permaculture offers a variety of services, inducing landscape design, educational workshops and soil testing, according to its website.
“We focus on building just productive gardens and helping people with not just aesthetic landscaping, but also edible landscaping,” Ogg said.
But permaculture is about more than just pretty, edible landscapes. It’s also about sustainability and mimicking natural ecosystems as much as possible so that nothing is wasted.
It’s a passion largely influenced by Ogg’s childhood, growing up as a missionary kid in the rainforests of Papua New Guinea. There, the rain forest remained largely untouched, Ogg said.
The local tribes lived off the land, using only what nature provided.
“If they left an entire village, it would completely decompose and go back to the earth with a net-zero effect,” he said.
“They are happy. They love their lives. When I moved to the U.S., I was just kind of struck by how fast-paced everything is and how many inputs we need for the same product that the people I grew up with could produce just by growing it in their backyard.”
Ogg moved back to the United States to attend college, where he met his wife, Geordan. The two later moved to Mansfield to be closer to family.
Ogg, who is also on staff as a digital content creator for the Renaissance Performing Arts Association, said he hopes Mansfield Permaculture can help make Richland County happier, healthier and more sustainable.
“I think that this project serves as sort of a jumping off point for green urban revitalization,” Ogg said.
“The more we talk about creating productive ecosystems that support people and planet and allow for equitable access to these resources, and the happier of a city we can have.”
