Introduction to Permaculture

Permaculture, a term coined for the design strategy which mimics nature and utilizes useful and purposefully chosen plant species to create a permanent system of production, was the jumping off point for me as a young radical who was disenchanted with modernity and the seemingly exploitative systems of production. Not only do you practice Permaculture in the field, but it is a philosophy that can be applied to life as an individual and communities. Above you can see the principles and ethics of Permacuclture. I envision individual homesteads designed with intention as nodes to the community, where communities can then be nodes to greater districts, etc. Only by having a resilient home base via responsible hard working individuals can we have a sustainable society.

Creating a managed system mimicking the “un-managed” systems of nature may seem paradoxical but it just reminds me of the saying “everything gardens”. Nature is actually totally managed in whole by its parts. Predatory species make sure other plant and animal species stay in check. Trees drop leaves which mulch their base and build soil. For everything that expires, there is something to recycle the nutrients of that life and death. The easiest way to manage these systems is to organize them by “zone”. In permaculture there are 5 zones.

I like this particular infographic because it labels the fifth zone as “observe and learn”. The only thing lacking here is the 0 that would be the individual. We have to remember to take care of ourselves first, or we can’t take care of family, homestead, and community. I do these writings on the fly, never really having intention of where to go so how much to expound upon is always difficult. I could delve into zones and how to utilize them, however maybe I will do an overall introduction and I can expound on all these ideas in further posts. Anyhow, here you see the zones and obviously they would change on ones living arrangement. If you are in an apartment, your zone 1 may be just your balcony. Your zone 2 may be the farmers market, or a community garden, or another land share situation. Zone 3 could be a CSA or you-pick farm. And we all can forage off the kings land at our own risk.

When it comes to a larger property or building a community around these ideas, it opens up a whole slew of design concepts around water, soil, and plant interrelations. The concept around water is to slow it, sink it, and spread it. Anyone who has ever visited our farm will notice our beds go against the slight hill allowing for water to collect in the walk ways to be soaked into the beds. In cases of major rain events, this helps to give the water an easy place to travel rather than disrupting our beds.

On more drastic slopes there are techniques of swales and terraces to help to slow, sink, and spread water. On a hill, working across the slope on contour, one would create a dip and build the soil downhill allowing for water to soak through this built soil efficiently watering a productive perennial crop.

Now that we have our water situation figured out, we have a lot of plants we want to grow and we have to learn how to inter plant in a meaningful way. This is where the idea of polyculture comes from. Through layering, and choosing the right species, one can create a garden or even food forest that requires little inputs or effort. The idea is to utilize the horizontal and vertical space most effectively by mimicking a forest. Larger trees or plants create a microclimate of shade and moisture protecting a smaller canopy. Around these smaller trees or plants would be some bushy or brambling plants. Ideally there would be a ground cover plant and a vining plant taking advantage of the under story and vertical space of the trees. Utilizing the space underground by having a tuberous plant maximizes the space.

The polyculture concept plays off of the legume family fixing nitrogen to help to feed surrounding plants. You can also incorporate dynamic accumulators, plants who’s roots reach deep and pull up nutrients into their leaves which can then be chopped and used as a mulch only to regrow again.

Now, we have our water sinking and spreading into our land and need to figure out what plants to use in our seven layer polyculture food forest. Well I have a great resource for you:

Here on Plants for a Future you can look through plants by use, family, habitat, literally anyway you can think to narrow down plant species it is there. I mean look at this, you can select by uses in cooking:

This is a great resource for trying to find natural replacements to foods or even a plant that could provide a flavor or additive from your backyard rather than the other side of the world. There is a whole list of plants with non edible usefulness:

Did you even know plants could be so useful? This is why I have little faith in the centralized powers at solving any kind of “enviromental crisis” which they seem to want to use to create “order” from (order out of chaos). There are plants that can be used for any of our problems or purposes. Plants can rehabilitate the land and our communities. Plants sink carbon. Plants are renewable and build soil. Plants produce food, oxygen, shelter. So why does it seem like every solution from the powers that be are so estranged from nature? The solution to our problems is returning to our place in the Garden we were provided. Don’t fall for the false fruits of technology to be our rescue. We need to be the change we want to see, and it all starts with a seed… or cutting.