Permaculture - The Nuts and Bolts

Pops · Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 3:46 pm Post subject: Permaculture - The Nuts and Bolts

At Ludi's suggestion this thread is for discussion of permaculture topics not covered elsewhere.

Lets keep away from the ethical and moral issues and those covered in other threads here such as energy conservation/production/storage, water management, grass farming, recycling/eliminating waste and the many garden threads and such.

So aside from the existing threads here concentrating on many individual aspects of sustainability what does permaculture add?

My thought is it places an emphasis on planning, not necessarily for a day/week/year, but planning for many years and generations.

Interestingly similar to the title of the forum.
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Make a plan and work it:

Hagakure_Leofman

You're right Pops.

- Design to natures ways, not against nature.
- Observation of , and adaption to natural systems.
- Maximum productivity with the least work/energy.
- Complimentary systems working for, rather than against one another.

It isn't a set a rules, so much as principles to consider.

careinke

Just so we are all on the same page in this discussion.

Permaculture is a much larger discipline than most people think. It has evolved from meaning Permanent Agriculture to meaning Permanent Culture. In other words it is no longer limited to just agriculture. The more I study permaculture, the more I believe it will help a lot of people cope with the upcoming energy descent.

Permaculture is a design system based on three ethical and twelve design principles.

The three ethical principles in order of importance are:

A. Care for the earth
B. Care for people
C. Set Limits to consumption and reproduction, and redistribute surplus

The twelve Permaculture design principles are:

1. Observe and Interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patters to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use value and diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change

Obviously to the newcomer to Permaculture, those 15 principles can be quite confusing or meaningless without further study and practice. I would suggest the interested read David Holmgren’s (one of the cofounders of Permaculture) book “Permaculture, Principles and pathways beyond sustainability.”

Anyway, I think this could be a great thread and I thank you for starting it. Hopefully there will be some good discussion.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

Pops

Shannymara

Ludi

Zonal Planning

The area is developed closest to the house first and then outward from there in order of how often the animals or plants need to be cared for. This is referred to as "Zones." For instance, an herb garden would be close to the house, because one will likely want to cook with herbs each day or even more than once a day. Most vegetable gardens are placed right near the house, so they can benefit from easy daily care and constant observation. The house and area immediately around it is Zone 1. Zone 1 is the most fully developed area and is usually completely mulched. It also contains water tanks from the house and maybe a greywater system.

Zone 2 is a little further away, and might include small livestock such as poultry (very small and quiet livestock such as rabbits might be in Zone 1). Plantings in Zone 2 benefit from frequent care, but not the same degree as those in Zone 1. This area might not be completely mulched, but instead be spot mulched. This is where one is likely to put fruit trees and larger vegetable beds.

Zone 3 is devoted to production of animal and plant products for sale (the farm zone). This is where large animal sheds, storage barns, etc, are placed.

Zone 4 is a semi-wild area with water stored in dams. One might enter this area to cut firewood, forage, or hunt.

Zone 5 is unmanaged, wild land, in which one only observes, perhaps to learn things one might translate to the other zones.

Buildings and gardens in the zones are placed to benefit from sun exposure, or shade, or protection from weather.

This idea of planning in zones was the most useful idea for me, initially, from permaculture. Though it is just common sense. But I think I would have been able to plan our place better if I had had this concept in my mind before we built. Also, many of my tree-planting experiments have failed because I put them too far from the house.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy

Pops

patience · Expert Joined: Jan 04, 2008 Posts: 1683

Ludi,
In total ignorance of literature on this subject, but it sounds a lot like what I read 30 years ago in The Mother Earth News, Organic Gardening, Countryside magazine, and books like "Five Acres and Independence"?

With that sort of thing for guidance, we have pretty much done what you laid out in Zones 1 and 2. Not much room to go further on one acre. I'll find the books and read.

Ludi

It's possible to retrofit to some degree. I'm trying to develop gardens closer to the house, and readjust drainage through the outbuilding area, which floods horribly. Actually the whole place floods horribly as most of the land is in a drainage. So my main focus planning is on water management now. This would have been easier if we'd known about it before we built, or if we had known what to look for to tell in a drought where the flooding would occur and how bad it would be. This is why observation is considered so important in permaculture. You don't just plop buildings and plants anywhere, but rather, place them where they can take best advantage of conditions, and mitigate any bad weather effects. If the buildings are already in place, it may be, if possible, best to rebuild them in a different configuration over time. The good thing is one does not have to do everything right away. Once one has a plan developed based on observation, one can add in the various elements gradually. I'm in the process of reconfiguring our sheep paddock to take advantage of more shade, and to put a shearing pen closer to the shop so we can more easily run an extension cord out there for shearing. I'm planning to put a grove of almonds and olives in the old part of the paddock, which was always too exposed to the sun and uncomfortable for the animals.
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"...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy

Ludi

careinke

Here is a personal story that illustrates the 1st permaculture design principle “Observe and interact.”

I started out my garden with three raised beds. Slugs were a BIG problem. After reading Jeavons “How to grow more Vegetables,” I decided I was going to need a lot more beds. Since funds were a problem, I decided to “double dig” out the extra beds, sift the dirt for rocks and add compost to the top layer for my beds.

Well there was a LOT of rocks, some the size of small boulders. I piled up the rocks into stacks while sifting, intending to dump them on our beach when I was finished. Fortunately I did not get around to it that year.

While working in the garden, I began to notice that garter snakes had taken up residence in my rock piles. It gave them a warm place to lounge in the sun, and a nice hiding place to go to when we strolled by.

Then one morning I noticed this snake with a huge slug sticking halfway out its mouth. This happened several more times and our slug problem started going away! Needless to say those rock piles are still in the garden (along with a few more)!

If I hadn’t been observing what was happening, I would have ended up getting rid of the garter snakes new habitat, and would still be fighting slugs. Now I have maintenance free slug control. The snakes are happy and I’m happy.

Of course this works in the Pacific Northwest where all we have are Garter snakes. If you did the same thing in Texas or Oklahoma, you would have another not so friendly type of snake in your yard.

Cliff (Start a rEVOLution, grow a garden)

katkinkate

And everything is in cycles. You work with the cycles of nature and the waste products of each element become inputs into another element, so nothing is wasted. You hold the resources and energy for as long as you can on your patch by letting them cycle around and around and your just take what you need out of it and feed back your own waste products and energy to keep it going.
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Kind regards, Katkinkate

"The ultimate goal of farming is not the growing of crops,
but the cultivation and perfection of human beings."
Masanobu Fukuoka

Ebyss

I love the idea of a permaculture garden, and the zoning thing is great IF you have a set up that allows it to be implemented. I don't - well, not really. The "garden" is out the front in full view of the road (and it's pollution). The designated veg garden is on the side of the hourse, meaning a walk around to it. It is currently quite windswept which I have to do something about. That garden will also be the chicken garden, and a greenhouse will probably go in there. There is space for a shed already in place - I'm not laying down extra foundations just to fit stuff into "zones", no matter how convenient it would be - we have no "back garden" as such.

I'm looking for the steps beyond the zones and the guidelines because I have to work with what I've got. The books I have (Whitefield, Hemenway, Kourik) are great (Kourik's so far is the most accessible and practical I think), but there is this sense of "make your garden work for you to bring in some extra cash" - so many of the plans for things like nutteries are for a larger scale. I'm trying to figure out where everything goes on MY plot, and the guidelines and zones are thus far reasonably unhelpful. I'm looking for a nuts and bolts guide too - something along the lines of "put x plant here" "put y plant there", but of course such a thing is impossible given that everybody's situation is different. I just sometimes feel that permaculture is more about the planning and less about the gardening/growing - they kind of expect you to know how to do all the basic stuff. As a complete gardening/food growing newbie I need a bit of hand-holding and so far I haven't been able to really implement anything from a permaculture point of view because I don't really know how.
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We've tried nothin' and we're all out of ideas.

I am only one. I can only do what one can do. But what one can do, I will do. -- John Seymour.

Shannymara

Ludi