New to Permaculture? Watch Andrew’s you tube video!

Permaculture is a holistic approach to growing food regeneratively with minimal input from people and creating maximum habitats for wildlife.

Watch Andrew’s talk to members of Herefordshire Green Network.  Its an easy to understand introduction and explanation of permaculture.  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fTdfepeV9Q&ab_channel=HerefordshireGreenNetwork%28HGN%29

 

What is the most important word in the English language? Well, it’s biodiversity.

 

Let’s start with the human gut.

The key to human health lies in the human gut.

Specifically if we have the right organisms we can be healthy.

The gut biome sends messages to the brain about what it wants to feed on. If the dominant bacteria are bad ones then it sends for more bad ones. If we change our diet to a healthy diet then after a while the gut biome will adapt to good bacteria and the biome will demand healthy food.

Also a high degree of diversity will enable the gut biome to be stable so when there are so called bad bacteria present they will not dominate the gut but will be in balance and therefore not a threat.

 

Now let’s reflect that in the soil.

In industrial farming the soil is repeatedly depleted, poisoned, and in time dies.

If we treat the soil as an organism then we should feed it with the foods that the creatures in the soil need to be healthy and in balance.

Plenty of organic matter and only natural fertilisers feeds the soil and enables a thriving, diverse population of WOOFers. Free accommodation, three meals a day in return for their labour!

Again a diverse population which includes the so called pests is in balance and nothing gets out of hand.

The WOOFers work the soil, providing drainage, airways, plant services (like nitrogen fixing). And they connect the plants to the nutrients and each other.

 

The same with plants.

If there is a field of monoculture crops then the pests know exactly where to go for a feast. If the crops are randomly placed in a jungle of diverse lush growth then the pests have to work harder to find them.

Plus the diversity of different plants provides habitats for the pests’ predators.

Plus when the soil is rich in life the plants will be strong and pests and predators like to attack weak victims.

Try feeding your organic cabbages three times during early life with nettle fertiliser and you’ll see what I mean. Plenty of cabbage whites but no damage!

As plant diversity rises so does stability.

Plus if one plant is under attack or needs nutrients and the soil wide web is intact, then other plants can come to the rescue via the threads of mycelium connecting all soil life.

 

Now add in fauna and you can see that the whole picture is a system designed by nature, resilient, productive and easy to manage.

It is also diverse, balanced, interdependent, multi layered and regenerative.

 

Permaculture really is a revolution in the sense of wholesale change of thinking as well as naturally cyclical, revolving through years, seasons, months and days/nights.

It’s not just about gardening though. It can be applied to any of our current woes, ecological, social, business, government

 

It’s a systems thinking approach.

The whole of nature is a complex system and cannot be reduced to a simple level that allows humans to take what they want without regard for the consequences. Nature will always work to bring balance and the more we try to exploit it the bigger the consequences. Climate change is one such consequence and bio-diversity loss is another.

However, when it is allowed to thrive or if given a helping hand, it is a very powerful ally.

 

It’s a design process with design principles.

There are several principles which help us to design productive, healing spaces, communities and ecosystems.

 

It’s a set of ethics.

Ethics are culturally evolved mechanisms that regulate self-interest, giving us a better understanding of good and bad outcomes.

Permaculture ethics are distilled from research into community ethics, learning from cultures that have existed in relative balance with their environment for much longer than more recent civilisations.

In the transition to a sustainable future, we need to consider values and concepts outside the current social norm.

The ethics are the bedrock of Permaculture thinking. Without these we would lack a moral compass to guide our work towards beneficial outcomes.

 

The key elements are:

• design system (using nature as our teacher)

• systems thinking (tapping into the complex system that is nature)

• it is scalable and applicable in multiple fields of life

It is a matter of great debate as to what PC is and some find it hard to pin it down because as seen before it is a complex system and the debate is about which elements are included in PC and which are really something else. But we should not get hung up on this thinking and see that it is whatever best serves our (human and non human) needs.

 

It is capable of being applied to pretty much any of our current problems. Many people use it to solve community and societal situations.

It’s defined and established and ready to rock and roll. There is training at introduction, basic design and diploma levels with a network of tutors to support.

There is a charitable organisation to provide education, training, qualifications, networks, consultancy and support.

https://www.permaculture.org.uk/

 

Let’s go back to the systems thinking bit for a moment.

As we saw earlier, nature is a system.

So using systems thinking in our work makes sense too. After all we are out to learn from and support nature.

 

Here are just some of the design principles that permaculturists use in their work. We will go through each of these and there are plenty more for you to find as well later.

Observation
Catch and store energy, and water
Relative location
Produce no waste
Everything gardens
Each function has many elements
Each element has multiple functions
Diversity = stability
Problem = solution
Co-operate, don’t compete
Least change – greatest effect

 

Firstly observation.

We have probably all stood or sat still and waited for nature to reveal itself.

If you stand and stare at one place for very long you will see the complexity, and beauty, of that place.

If you stand there for a day and night you will experience the changes in light, weather, animal, bird and insect activity, plant activity.

If you stand there for a month you will see changes in the growth and/or decay of the natural system.

If you stand there for a year you will see the seasons come and go.

But don’t forget to take something to eat and drink!

The point is that you will see what the weather patterns are, how much rain falls and where does it collect, the wind and where it blows unabated and which areas are protected, where the sun reaches and areas that are constantly in shade, where are there frost pockets.

From all of these observations you get to know the nature of the land and can start to design the best place for water collection, trees, vegetables etc.

 

The next principle is that of relative location. Not where is Granny but where are all the design elements relative to each other.

It’s like ergonomics meets nature and remember that it is a natural system we are designing.

It involves zoning.

Generally the places we spend most time in should be closest to where we live, so zone zero is where we are living, our house.

Zone 1 is the land around the house and we should consider placing herbs and commonly used vegetables which we go to every day immediately surrounding our house.

Zone 2 is perhaps the main vegetable beds, an orchard and any animals we have which we visit a few times a week.

And so on…

 

Next principle is produce no waste, or put another way, there is no such thing as waste in a permaculture system. Every waste is really a resource.

Here is a good example.

I used to burn the woody brash like brambles and small tree brash that I didn’t know what to do with. Then I discovered charcoal making which proved to be fun and simple.

When you burn woody materials without oxygen then the gases burn first and then the lignum burns after and you end up with ash which itself is a resource. But when you stop the burning between the two stages you end up with charcoal. I douse it with water at this point.

Charcoal is great for conditioning the soil and holding water and micro-organisms. So I break it down to almost powder and add liquid fertiliser and IMOs from the local woods and add it to my compost. WWOOFER meals and accommodation!

 

Next is Everything gardens.

Back to the wwoofers.

Micro-organisms, insects, mammals, birds and even weeds.

 

Next is Each element has multiple functions.

Take the Huegel bed. It stores moisture and organic matter for plants. It prevents erosion. It supports growth. So with one thing we get more than one function.

 

And the corollary. Each function has many elements.

Take the keylines and swales. A swale has the function of water retention but does it by using the elements of water flow and water store and on a larger scale it has the elements of forestry and orchards.

 

Next is about problems and solutions. Very often we have see problems as negative things. When we see the problem as an opportunity then it is no longer a problem. Where do I go for some building materials, then I can use those tyres that I don’t know how to get rid of as the perfect solution.

 

Then we can look at least effort for greatest effect.  Great for lazy gardeners!

Or think about the easiest way to restore forests is by preventing excess browsing. Control the deer and sheep and forests will regenerate.

 

Co-operate not compete.

When we plant a guild of plants that all support each other and that is greater than the sum of its parts we get better results than continually striving to beat the weeds or pests.

 

Edge effect.

Top soil, the layer between subsoil and the atmosphere is rich in life and benefits from life systems crossing over from one to another.

 

Now that’s enough of the permaculture principles so we can now look at a couple of topics that are not in the standard realm of permaculture but are actually manifestations of permaculture principles. For example No dig.

Did you ever see nature dig? Nature puts down an annual mulch of leaves and dead plants at the end of the growing season and supports the decomposition using mychorizal threads and funghi. So why do gardeners dig their soil and destroy the network of hyphae and communities of wwoofers?

No dig is also easy and can be applied to virgin ground as well as established land.

There are various layers that can be put down to provide a rich growing medium for our desired plants. Either on existing beds or on virgin ground.

Irish farmers used to just put down loads of organic matter on grasslands and grow plants directly in them. So they achieved a yield in their first season and developed a rich soil once the materials decomposed.

Raised beds are becoming more common and are an effective way of maintain the soil health whilst growing large amounts of veges.

 

Forest gardening

It seems like this is a new trend but in fact it has been around for as long as humans. We visited an eco homestead in the Philippines a few years ago and found a thriving forest garden which just looked like a woodland area, but it had eyewash tree, shampoo tree, snake deterrent grasses and all manner of hidden vegetables and fruits. The idea is that we create a habitat for diverse realms of useful plants from canopy layer trees down to ground cover plants and perennial vegetables that don’t require much effort to maintain. A bit like the garden of Eden.