Sustain Journal

June 2017 - Vol. 1, Edition 2

This issue: Understanding and applying permaculture!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS June 2017 - Vol. 1, Edition 2

Defining Permaculture 5

What is Permaculture?

Taking a look into the details of the permaculture practice and how to become a permaculturist.

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Urban Permaculture Maximizes Garden Productivity

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What Permaculture Isn’t—and Is Success Stories

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Lessons From an Urban Backyard Food Forest A successful permaculture garden making more food than you can imagine.

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The Permaculture Movement Grows from Underground

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Designing Farms to Prevent Farms

Berries can be used to invite birds, which ward off insects that eat crops.

The farmer sacrifices their berries for better crops, utilizing a natural system to complete the task rather than chemicals. The founders of permaculture were berry lovers.

WHAT IS PERMACULTURE? Exploring design with natural processes around the world.

Contributed by the Regenerative Design Institute at Commonweal Garden

Permaculture is a design science rooted in the observation of natural systems around the planet. The principles of permaculture teach us how to design ways of living that have the stability and resiliency of natural systems, untouched by hands. They show us positive solutions for trying to create and manage systems for food, medicines water, shelter, and more.

made drastic changes to it’s composition.

You can work to apply permaculture to any setting or climate on the planet — your garden or farm, urban and small suburban houses, community struc- Take care of earth, take tures, a watershed care of the people, and system, and even to relationships and share the surplus. your own “inner ecology.” Applying the Permaculture is a multi-disciplinary art principles and ethics of permaculture can form, drawing from the physical sciences, provide solutions on any scale, big or small. architecture, nutrition, the healing arts, traditional ecological knowledge, and spir- WHERE DID IT COME FROM? ituality. The ethical underpinnings that guide permaculture practices are simple Permaculture allows us to partner with yet very powerful: we have to take care nature to make longer-lasting, regenerof the earth, take care of the people, and ative systems that can heal the planet share the surplus. and ourselves for generations to come.

The idea of designing our lives based on Designing from nature is not really a new natural systems is not new — our ancesconcept — traditional people have prac- tors naturally embodied these concepts ticed this design technique for thousands for centuries and indigenous cultures still of years. In today’s world, where many of do today. More recently, Bill Mollison and Bill Mollison recently us have grown up in disconnection with David Holmgren from Australia, developed passed away in Sept. of leaving behind a nature and unaware of the deeply inter- the concept of permaculture in the 1970s 2016, legacy of change in the woven structures that create efficient, and first taught permaculture as an applied agriculture industry and no-waste, closed loop ecological systems, design system in 1981. There was no term around the world. permaculture provides a powerful frame- at the time for “sustainable culture,” so work for re-designing our lives. In fact, they coined the new term “permaculture” the principles of permaculture are what to articulate the notion of “permanent we need to implement practical solutions agriculture.” The term has since evolved to restore our damaged environments into the notion of “permanent culture,” and bring the earth back into a thriving, reflecting a broader definition including healthy state of being, like it was before we a more holistic spectrum of human needs 5

Defining Permaculture

HOW DOES IT WORK? point, natural systems take over — the

worms, bugs, fungus, micro-organisms, and roots — and do the rest to help establish a fertile and healthy garden.

Over time, the practice of permaculture results in more than well-designed landscapes and integrated living systems. As we work within the principles of permaculture, permaculture begins to work within us! It is a tool of transformation, because as we actively participate in the closed-loop systems of nature, we reclaim an ancient For example, when first trying to create (or circuitry within us that opens to a new re-designing) a home site, a permaculture world of possibilities. designer looks for ways to integrate water catchment, existing buildings, and energy HOW DO I LEARN? systems with tree crops, edible and useful perennials, self-seeding annuals, domestic The education system within the permaand wild animals and aquaculture. In this culture community, based on Mollison scenario, excess or waste products from and Holmgren’s first course in the 1970s, plants, animals and human activities are is a 72-hour design class. The standard used as nutrients benefit other elements Permaculture Design Course curriculum in the system. Plantings are arranged in transcends cultural, religious, political, patterns that can catch water, filter toxins, and the economic boundaries, though absorb nutrients and sunlight and block no two designs or trainings are exactly the wind. Particular associations of trees, the same. Enrollment in a Permaculture perennial vines, shrubs and ground covers Design Course is the very best way to gain known to nourish and protect one another an understanding of the permaculture approach and the As we work with the principles of permaculture, full scope of what it to offer. Today, permaculture begins to work within us! has tens of thousands are clustered together. Ponds and other of people around the planet have taken elements are constructed in patterns that workshops and seminars, and hundreds maximize their edges to take advantage of PDC courses are open for enrollment all of the increased biological activity at the over the globe. How do you choose what intersection of two ecosystems. course is right for you? Here are some guidelines to help you get the most out Creating a permaculture environment is a of your permaculture education. gradual and long-range process. To implement a design, the permaculturist looks WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS? for the right timing and keeps the design flexible, so that changes can be made as Permaculture is a broad spectrum — what observation of the land and the system, are your individual goals for the course? and experience, bring new understanding. For example, if you are really interested in learning more about natural building and However, permaculturists also use “quick- grey water catch systems, find a course start” techniques that result in maximum that includes curriculum, observation, Sheet compost is a mixed effect with minimum effort. For example, and participation in those areas. If your compost made up of old to start a successful garden in a weedy or goal is to transform your home garden newspapers, cardboard, compacted area, it can simply be covered into a permaculture food forest, take a and straw. This journal would make a great with sheet compost. After a good thorough course in the same climate as your home addition to your sheet watering, soil and seedlings are inserted so you transfer what you learn about your compost later! into holes in the cardboard. From that plants directly into your own yard. Classes Permaculture asks: how do we — as a human species — sustain ourselves and provide for our needs and the needs of the environment for an indefinite period of time? Permaculturists find practical solutions by using nature-inspired principles to create productive ecosystems that have the stability, diversity, and resilience of those found in the natural world.

A closed-loop system is an automatic control system in which an operation, process, or mechanism is regulated by feedback.

are located over the globe, from beautiful WHO ARE THE tropical islands to college classrooms. Find INSTRUCTORS? out how long the site has been developed under the principles of permaculture, and There is not a formal certification process what features you can expect to observe for those teaching permaculture – as a and learn from. student, you determine whether or not the instructors are a good fit for you. Read WHAT IS YOUR biographies and look at their past designs, LEARNING STYLE? make note of how long they have been teaching and working in permaculture, Every PDC is a blend of some lecture and learn about their areas of unique expertise hands-on activities, although the ratio they will bring to the course. varies widely from course to course. Find a course that has a ratio that is a good Make sure to take all of these factors into match for your needs. Also, pay attention account when planning to learn about to the format of the class and how that permaculture. It can change your life! suits your learning style — some course are offered in two week intensives, and other are spread out over a period of six months to a year.

WHOLE SYSTEM DESIGN: EXPLAINED Our world is made up of various systems. We ourselves are composed of systems. The earth surrounding us is one large system nested within another. Each of us can be seen as a small element joining with other elements to create a delicately balanced system. With so much complexity and interconnectedness, at times it is difficult to differentiate the specific impacts of each system. The lines between elements often become obscure during normal conscious activity and decision-making. Whole Systems Design aims to unravel this entanglement of systems. An understanding of systems connection to the things that define it and how it ‘thinks’ is the framework for whole system design.

Excerpt from Rethink Sustain from Portland State University

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Urban Permaculture Maximizes Garden Productivity

Gardens that practice permaculture principles in urban landscapes, such as this garden outside of Leazar Hall at North Carolina State University, become an excellent resource for visitors.

It allows relaxation and connection with nature in an area that is otherwise densely populated.

Contributed by Dr. Joseph Mercola of Mercola Health Services

Modern industrial farming, deforestation, overfishing, and other unsustainable practices are exhausting Earth’s natural resources at an alarming rate. More than a billion people have no access to safe drinking water, while 70 percent of the world’s fresh water is going to agriculture.

Vertebrate species are species of animals that posses vertebrate spines, typically birds, mammals, rodents, and similar species.

to be wealthy to eat organic food and you can easily reduce your grocery bill.

The film “Urban Permaculture” features Australian-born permaculturist expert Geoff Lawton, who teaches how to set up a productive garden that takes care of itself with minimal time and energy, even in the smallest of spaces. The film is particularly helpful because Geoff ties the whole concept together with a fantastic garden makeover! He can transform a standard yard into a bio-dynamic, high-production garden before your eyes, demonstrating how a variety of permaculture principles can be adapted to any space, large or small.

Our soil is depleting 13 percent faster than it can be replaced, and we’ve lost 75 percent of best soils in just the last hundred years. Almost one-third of all vertebrate species are currently threatened or endangered, and 60 percent of the world’s ecological systems are nearing collapse. Researchers believe that we’ve entered the beginning stages of Earth’s 6th mass extinction event—this one the WHAT IS PERMACULTURE? result of human activity. With all of our scientific acumen and innovation, we need The many principles of permaculture bring to do better than this. in the best of organic, biodynamic, and regenerative agriculture. According to the One of the ways to turn this around is by Permaculture Institute, “Permaculture is returning to sustainable farming practices, an ecological design system for sustainand this can start in our own backyards ability in all aspects of human endeavor. It by growing our own food. You don’t have teaches us how to design and build natural

homes and abundant food production systems, regenerate degraded landscapes and ecosystems, develop ethical economies and communities, and much more.”

Permaculture is an agricultural system in which the parts of the system are all interconnected, working with nature as opposed to against it. The word “permaculture” derives from “permanent agriculture” or “permanent culture.”

ALLOW ANIMALS TO DO THE WORK FOR YOU Aquaponics is a common feature in permaculture systems. It’s similar to hydroponics except instead of adding nutrients, the fish themselves serve as little nutrient factories. You feed the fish, and the fish excrete waste that’s converted into nitrates (plant food) through a nitrification process (bacteria performs this).

Aquaponics is the symbiotic cultivation of plants and aquatic animals in a recirculating environment or pond.

The focus is not on any one element of the system but on the relationships among them—animals, plants, insects, microorganisms, water, soil, and habitat—and how to use these relationships to create synergistic, self-supporting ecosystems.

Every area of the world has different local pollinators, like bees and butterflies, that must be catered to carefully.

There is really no need for commercial fish food because the fish feast on algae and insect larvae—like mosquitoes—which also helps with pest control. Geoff shows a swimming pool that’s been converted for aquaponics—and you can still swim IT’S ABOUT THE in it, alongside the fish! In addition to SYMBIOSIS OF NATURE fish, animals, birds, and amphibians are also valuable in permaculture systems— According to an article in the magazine pigeons, rabbits, quail, chickens, ducks, Organic Gardening, the ultimate purpose frogs, and just about any other form of of permaculture is to “develop a site until life can make beneficial contributions. it meets all the needs of its inhabitants, including food, water, shelter, fuel, and Water loaded with chicken manure can entertainment.” run down a slope to feed your vegetable garden. Chickens can help by doing your While it’s rare that a home gardener can cleanup in harvested vegetable beds. Goats implement all of the permaculture prin- can be used to keep weeds and other plants ciples, most can implement some of them “mowed down” along roadways—and they to create a new way of landscaping based provide free fertilizer as they mow! By on production and usefulness. combining plants and animals together, your own work is reduced significantly For example, instead of a hedge, you can as nature does what it’s intended to do. plant a “fedge”—a multifunction hedge A permaculture design is never finished that provides food as well as a visually as a site’s ecosystem is always changing. attractive barrier. Permaculture empha- Work with materials you have nearby, as sizes the use of native plants that are well much as possible. There’s no set formula adapted for your area. Plant varieties you for designing a permaculture garden, but like, as long as they provide an abundance there are a few basic guidelines to consider. of benefit for the landscape. For example, choose varieties that support your local A FEW BASIC BEST PRACTICES pollinators—the Pollinator Partnership TO GET STARTED guide is a great resource for this. In permaculture, every part of the system plays Copy a forest blueprint, with a tree canopy multiple roles. For example, the film shows that gives way to smaller trees, flanked by a bed of reeds operating as a filtration shrubs, with smaller shade plants under system for the greywater from a house, the canopy. Group plants by compatible which is then channeled as irrigation. The roots and canopy systems, and by soil type, quick-growing reeds can be shredded and such as acid lovers in one area and drought used as mulch. Fruit trees provide food, resistant in another. Identify microclias well as shade and beauty and a visual mates in your yard and use them to your barrier between you and your neighbors. advantage, such as cooler shady corners, 9

Defining Permaculture

Industrial farming is the mass production of crops by planting one type of plant in a field and harvesting it at once.

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diversity as possible, focusing on native genetically modified organisms into the plants and animals. Plan your area in zones soil. Special genetic elements called vector based on use and accessibility; for example, DNA are present in all GE plants. This plant your herb garden and greens in the vector DNA enables unrelated microorareas easiest to access, such as along the ganism species to mate, but it can also driveway or along a path near your deck. be transferred to soil microorganisms.

Why do we need permaculture? Because Soil fertility depends on the presence of our modernist, chemical-based farming a diverse population of microorganisms, practices are exacting an incredibly heavy all serving different roles in balancing and toll on the environment. Conventional optimizing the soil via symbiotic relation“industrial farming” is devastating our ships. However, experience has shown that soils, depleting water tables, and creating the mating of unrelated species causes massive pollution in our air, water, and a decline in soil diversity and therefore food. Most conventional farmers tend to fertility. When you add up these assaults, leave very much of the soil bare, which the effect is monumental damage to essenallows water to evaporate and hastens tially every branch of the ecological tree. soil erosion. On top of this are massive There’s a high risk of worldwide famine on a chemical assaults scale never seen before if we don’t change. by pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers, which not Mineral depletion of the soils directly only kill soil microbes but also play signif- affects your health because it diminishes icant roles in the decimation of our bees, the quality of the foods you eat. A food’s butterflies, and other flora and fauna— nutritional value depends on the quality even earthworms. of the soil in which it’s grown. The progressive depletion of minerals in our food INDUSTRIAL FARMING SPELLS runs parallel to the implementation of ECOLOGICAL DISASTER agricultural practices like mechanization, nitrogen-heavy fertilizers, and agrichemMore than one billion pounds of pesti- ical use. Fortunately, we’ve figured out how cides (not even including the herbicides) to regenerate soil, and basically it boils are used in the US each year, an amount down to replicating the cycles of nature. that’s quintupled since 1945. This overreliance on agrichemicals has resulted HEALING HUMANS STARTS WITH in weeds and pests that are resistant to HEALING THE SOIL those chemicals. The agriculture industry’s answer to chemical resistance is to apply In nature, a soil’s surface is never bare or more toxic chemicals, sparking an insanely very rarely so—it isn’t cleared away as is vicious cycle of devastation up and down done by plowing. And in nature, you’ll the food chain. Now we’re also facing the never see a monocrop. Far from it—in A monocrop is when one next-generation of genetically engineered one square foot of pristine prairie land, crop is grown in a field or lacking variety or (GE) plants designed to withstand even you’ll find about 140 different types of garden, extra nutrients. more chemicals, including 2,4-D (an Agent plants. Plowing and tilling easily disturb Orange ingredient), and dicamba. soil’s delicate structure, so regenerative farmers use no-till methods that minimize As GE plants overtake the major food this disturbance. Soil restoration is one of producing areas of the world, including the best ways to save our health, build a the USA, China, India, Argentina, and sustainable economy, and prevent global Brazil, there is a high risk of worldwide environmental disaster. famine on a scale never before seen, due to reduced soil fertility. The mechanisms I am very grateful to Paul Gautschi, whose for soil fertility decline are just beginning video “Back to Eden” helped me underto be understood as science shines more stand the value of using wood chips as light on the consequences of introducing an easy, economical way to optimize soil

The carbon content of the soil can be increased by adding other nutrients as well, like leaves.

ecology. Before discovering his recommendations, I’d struggled for years to find the best way to grow nutrient dense food that achieves its maximum genetic potential. The key to soil fertility is increasing its carbon content and this can easily be done by topping it with abundant organic matter—and as it turns out, nature takes care of the rest. The method is brilliantly simplistic and interesting.

Spending time outdoors can significantly lift your mood, so it’s no surprise that gardening has been found to be great therapy for you. In one survey, 80 percent of gardeners reported being “happy” and satisfied with their lives, compared to 67 percent of non-gardeners. Eighty-seven percent of those who gardened more

What Permaculture Isn’t — and Is! Contributed by Permaculture Specialist Toby Hemenway of Australia

Permaculture is notoriously hard to define.

A recent survey shows that people simultaneously believe it is a design approach, a philosophy, a movement, and a set of practices. This broad and contradiction-laden brush doesn’t just make permaculture hard to describe. It can be off-putting, too. Let’s say you first encounter permaculture as a potent method of food production and

than six hours per week reported feeling happy, compared to those spending less time in their gardens. Among volunteers at an outdoor conservation project, 100 percent said that participation improved their mental health and boosted their confidence and self-esteem. Spending time outdoors also boosts your vitamin D level and helps you stay grounded. Whether you go full bore and turn your yard into a permaculture paradise, or start small by adding a few chickens to your vegetable garden, you can easily incorporate some of these permaculture principles to make your home more productive and earth friendly. Small urban living spaces offer the ultimate in garden productivity, and growing some of your own food is a great way to take charge of your health.

are just starting to grasp that it is more than that, when someone tells you that it also includes goddess spirituality, and anti-GMO activism, and barefoot living.

What would you make of that? And how many people think they’ve finally got the politics of permaculturists all figured out, and assume that we would logically also be vegetarians, only to find militant meat-eaters in the ranks? What kind of philosophy could possibly umbrella all those divergent views? Or is it a philosophy at all? I’m going to argue here that the most accurate and least muddled way to think of permaculture is as a design approach, and that we are often misdirected by the fact that it fits into a larger philosophy and movement which it supports. But it is not that philosophy or movement. It

GMO stands for genetically modified organisms, which are still a hotly debated controversial topic.

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Defining Permaculture

is a design approach for realizing a new paradigm. And we’ll find that this way of defining it is also a balm to those in other ecological design fields and technologies who get annoyed, understandably, when permaculturists tell them, “Oh, yes, your work is part of permaculture, too.”

Rafter Ferguson works as an activist promoting permaculture and change in the way humans interact with the environment

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terms. New paradigms usually require — and spur the development of — new tools to solve the now-reframed problem.

“Paradigm” has been trivialized through overuse and I’m sure that Kuhn is spinning in his grave. But I don’t think it’s abusing the term to view the change in humanity’s principal goal from “meeting human needs” to “meeting human needs while preserving ecosystem health” as a paradigm shift. It changes the tools that we use, and the mindset that is required to develop and use new, appropriate tools.

It restores a relationship between people and nature that agriculture, by treating nature as a mere resource to be subjugated and consumed, had severed. Suddenly, agriculture and industrial society look like scourges and technologies of destruction,

Humans are a problem-solving species. We uncover challenges—How do we get food?

Ecosystem health is measured through a How do we make shelter? How do we stay complicated process of healthy?—and then we develop tools to observation and data solve those problems. Permaculture is one collection for years. of those tools. For the last 10,000 years, agriculture and the civilization it built have been the way humans attacked the problems of meeting basic needs. Because we live on a planet that for millennia was large compared to the new human population and its needs and its impact, our How do humans get food? How do humans make species could focus shelter? How do humans stay healthy? on expanding and improving agriculture’s immense power rather than the saviors of humanity that to convert wild ecosystems into food and we’ve regarded them. That’s quite a shift. habitat for people, and we could ignore Permaculture and other, new ecological ecosystem health. approaches are attempts to articulate this paradigm, by framing the problem and We are learning that without a healthy offering tools and strategies to pursue ecosystem, humans — and everything its solution. Now we can ask, what are else—suffer. So we cannot focus solely human needs, and how can each of them on the problem, “How do we continue to be met while retaining, restoring, and meet human needs?” but must now add improving ecosystem health? We know the words, “while preserving ecosystem how to articulate human needs, and we health.” Rafter Ferguson has offered that have metrics to gauge ecosystem health. question as a definition of permaculture. Our problem now is to reach this twinned He’s onto something, though I think that goal, and permaculture offers us hope. “meeting human needs while preserving Let me give a historical example to show and increasing ecosystem health” is the what I mean. goal of permaculture, and not its definition. But it gives some clues toward LOOKING AT HISTORY defining it, and helps untangle the knots wrapped around “What is permaculture?” In the 18th Century, the ability of certain It names and clarifies the problem that things to be burned was attributed to permaculture is trying to solve. something called phlogiston. Matter was thought to be made of elements and also Thomas Kuhn, in his masterwork, The principles, and phlogiston was the prin“Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, uses ciple of combustibility. When an element the word “paradigm” means the viewpoint burned, it then released phlogiston, and that can define the problems to be solved burning stopped when all released. The in a particular field. Kuhn explains that the residue contained the principle of calx, the proper framing of a paradigm reduces the true elemental substance. The theory was number of blind alleys that researchers go backed by the fact that many things, such down by re-stating a problem in clearer as wood and other fuels, lose weight when

they burn. The rejection of phlogiston and the acceptance of the chemical revolution a logically simple decision—the oxygen theory of combustion then snuffed out the contradictions of phlogiston—but it was cognitively difficult because of the mental barrier created by phlogiston thinking. It took revolution in thought to see oxygen.

Many of the pioneers of this revolution called themselves natural philosophers, and also, they led an enormous shift in worldview that required and prompted a new way of thinking about nearly every natural phenomena and event. From the 1500s to the early 1800s, the new astronomers, chemists, and physicists were seen as radicals and a threat to the new social order. They often were: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and other revolutionaries were promoters of this new scientific approach based on measurement and experiment. The philosophy that guided their work was, at that time, hard to distinguish from their work itself.

particular set the tools. They each are the approach for using a wide array of tools—a way of working that is guided by the paradigm. So of course this is confusing. People have been arguing over what “the scientific method” is for centuries: is it deductive or inductive, does the hypothesis or the data come first? Most scientists can’t tell you. They learn the scientific method by using it, and even when you know how to use it, it’s devilishly hard to explain what it is. Sound familiar?

With all this in mind, I think the definition of permaculture that must rise to the top is that it is a design approach to arrive at solutions, just as the scientific method is an experimental approach. In more concrete terms, permaculture tells how to choose from a dauntingly large toolkit—all the human technologies and strategies for living—to solve the new problem of sustainability. It is an instruction manual for solving the challenges laid out by the new paradigm of meeting human needs New tools and new paradigms mutually while enhancing ecosystem health. The reinforce and strengthen one another, relationship explicitly spelled out in that and permaculture is one of many exam- view, which connects humans to the larger, ples of this. Lavoisier’s improved balances dynamic environment, forces us to think exposed inconsistencies that once toppled in relational terms, which, is an important phlogiston theory from its perch, and element of permaculture. The two sides demanded a new way of thinking about of the relationship are explicitly named gases and matter. In a similar vein, perma- in two permaculture ethics: care for the culture’s design methods such as zones, Earth, and care for people. And knowing sectors, and needs-and-yields, by empha- we need both sides of that relationship is immensely helpful New paradigms strengthen one another, and in identifying the we need permaculture is one of many examples. problems to have solve. First, sizing relationships and consequences, what are human needs? The version of reveal the weakness of thinking in terms the permaculture flower that I work with of isolated events and completely static names some important ones: food, shelter, objects. The flaws in paradigm concepts water, waste recycling, energy, community, are like infinite growth, wastefulness, and health, spiritual fulfillment, justice, and Externalities are side “externalities” become glaringly obvious livelihood. The task set out by permaeffect or consequence under a whole systems view. The tools culture, in the new paradigm, is to meet of an industrial or encourage the new thinking, and the new those needs while preserving ecosystem commercial activity that affects other parties paradigm helps create the appropriate health, and we have metrics for assessing without this being tools. In some ways permaculture is in the latter. The way those needs are met will reflected in the cost a class similar to the problem-solving vary by place and culture, but the metrics approach called the scientific method, of ecosystem health can be applied fairly the experimentalist strategy developed by universally.

Lavoisier, Boyle, and their peers. You can’t rightly call either of them a paradigm or a 13

A small house in the heart of Australia is surrounded by a natural food forest.

Mixing pollinators, vegetables and fruits, and other natural vegetation allows the local flora and fauna to thrive and help the food forest to grow without the need for much human interaction.

LESSONS FROM AN URBAN BACKYARD A Food Forest Experiment taking place in Australia.

Contributed by Angelo Eliades from the Permaculture Research Institute

In our modern, Western, science-centered world, proof is very highly valued. We are habitual skeptics, our minds are trained to hunger for irrefutable facts, and when these aren’t delivered, claims are met with denial, skepticism and disbelief….

When it comes to permaculture, one question that often arises from those outside of Permaculture circles is “…but does it really work?” Far too often, I’ve heard people doubting the viability of permaculture systems, I’ve even heard lukewarm responses from within our own ranks!

It’s not every day that you wake up and try to objectively prove a major system

of thinking to yourself. But one morning in early 2008 I woke up like every other morning, but took that first step on a fateful journey that would change everything….With nearly seven years of organic gardening experience under my belt and a good understanding of biological systems from a university degree in the biological sciences as a starting point, I came across the new concept of permaculture in early 2008. I undertook a few months of selfstudy, after which I was convinced that the principles were scientifically sound, and brilliantly innovative.

Well, this was “proof time”. Coming from a science background, my natural approach was to do what I’m trained to do, try it out, test it out for myself, see what results I get, and compare my findings to those of others to see how well they match up. My mission was set — to prove that you can put a food forest in an urban backyard!

Since I wanted this project to work out, I decided to employ almost everything you could imagine for a permaculture design principle and technique. Furthermore, if it did work, it would clearly demonstrate all the permaculture principles in action.

Why would we, as humans, need to try to re-invent the earth’s wheel?

This was pretty ambitious undertaking, since I still hadn’t considered obtaining a formal permaculture qualifications at this point in time. Don’t get me wrong though, I had been reading up on permaculture and applying the principles to my container garden for almost two years. Also, my container garden was incredibly extensive, consisting of over one hundred quite large (mostly 45 and 60 litre) pots, with a huge 110-point trickle irrigation system, so we’re definitely not talking balcony container gardening here.

In a short time, I designed my backyard food forest on paper, then realised the work before me when I looked at what I had to work with.

The garden was not a “blank slate”, nothing even remotely close. First, the soil was dried out, sun-bleached, leached of organic matter, and totally lifeless. More like something of a sandy loam to be precise. There was lawn merging into garden and vice versa, the soil in the garden beds was far from level, and there were plants of every description everywhere.

It wasn’t a pretty picture. I figured it would take some work to transform this garden into something that looked like my design.

What struck me as amazing is that by observing and emulating nature itself, a system that has been successfully growing plants without human intervention since time immemorial, this would show us the best way to actually grow plants! (And yes, there’s more to permaculture than growing plants, really!) Why would we need to try to re-invent the wheel? With this realization, it should be logical that permaculture is definitely the way to go!

Well it was for me.

From all the demonstration Permaculture sites I read about, it looked like the “thing to do” was to purchase a farm and start digging swales, and plant up a food forest, but for me there was only one catch, I live in an inner urban area…. I had to make it work in a regular back yard.

Having scoured every source I could find of examples of permaculture backyards, I was fairly impressed with what I saw, but two things struck me — barely anyone mentioned how much their own gardens produced, and too many looked like boring conventional gardens, not like the food forests I dearly admired.

Not willing to let go of my passion for food forests, I set my mind on designing one that would fit in a regular sized back yard, like the one that I had at home. It proved to be a challenge.

Well, to cut a very long story short, I wasn’t working at the time, so I decided to spend the next three months building it on my own, right through winter. Piece by piece, I managed to complete this momentous undertaking. As fate would have it, two weeks later I accidentally stumbled on a advertisement that Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton were running a Permaculture Design Course with Greg Knibbs at Trinity College, and I commenced my Permaculture Design Course in late fall of the year 2008, here in Australia.

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Success Stories

Naturally, I refined my design even further once I completed the course, and was even more inspired to “go out there and change the world!” Fairly soon after I graduated with a PDC, Craig Mackintosh from the PRI wrote an article “Magic in Melbourne” which featured my newly built garden.

forest and how it seems to be performing based on what I have designed. Here is information on the construction materials and the methods I used to create the garden as a whole.

I can very happily say that the “magic” continues. My own garden is now almost two and a half years old, and I’m firmly convinced Permaculture works. I now have real evidence to back it up!

In building this backyard food forest, the cost of materials including the irrigation, but excluding plants, was approximately six hundred dollars.

CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

The biggest cost component was the 260

GARDEN DESIGNS linear feet of brand spanking new red gum

sleepers for the garden beds. The other materials used were one cubic meter of cow manure and two and a half cubic meters of pine bark mulch (for all the 45cm-50cm (1’6” – 1’8”) wide paths between the garden beds. The main cost component, the red gum sleepers raised beds, could have been replaced with other (cheaper/recycled) materials or simply My garden is now nearly two and a half years be dug as traditional old, and I’m convinced permaculture works. botanical edges to help to reduce the One of the biggest commitments to my costs. I felt they looked nice and therefore research is the detailed and painstaking included them in my design. recording of yields for two and a half years so far (and still going) — concrete, solid The irrigation is the only real costly and facts and figures showing what a backyard absolutely necessary part, about 120m of permaculture food forest can produce. And pressure-compensated drip line irrigation, it has produced a lot! configured as two separate 60m circuits on a Galcon series 9000 Tap Timer fed So, you probably want to see the results! via a Two Way Alternating Valve. With Firstly, to put the results into some kind of irrigation, you have to purchase all the context, I’ll need to provide some prelim- little fittings and clips, plus a stack of inary information on the backyard food landscaping or irrigation pins to hold the From the time the garden was first built, I have been meticulously documenting everything that I have built myself, writing instructional articles on how I built it, and have weighed all the produce coming out of the garden. I’ve published all this on my website, Deep Green Permaculture.

EXPERIMENT SPECIFICATIONS - Total size of backyard: 150 square meters - Total size of garden: 85 square meters - Total area of garden beds: 64 square meters - Fruit Trees: 30+ trees - Berry Bushes: 16 different types, 45 total - Medicinal Herbs: 70+ different kinds - Other types of plants: 50 total

Sleepers are placed in the create an edge barrier around the garden, preventing the soil from escaping and weeds from growing inside.

drip lines in place, and the cost of the small items does start to add up. Fortunately, many places will allow you to still return unused irrigation fittings if you buy too many, so check with the retailer first if they offer such a deal. Mind you, I didn’t have any irrigation in place for the first year and watered by hand, right through one of Melbourne’s hottest recorded summers.

So, yes, watering can be done manually — if you don’t mind spending half an hour in the evening, hand watering on a sweltering hot night while being incessantly attacked by hungry bloodsucking mosquitoes! It wasn’t fun, but I had to do it to keep the garden alive and thriving!

WATER EFFICIENCY Now that I’ve covered those points, lets get back to the results. Firstly, the garden is very water efficient. In Melbourne, residents had been forced to restrict water usage due to bad drought conditions. The harshest restriction level reached was a designated Stage 3a – with watering only allowed twice a week in the late evening, and for one hour only. Watering with full compliance to these strict restrictions, plus with the rainwater I harvested from my 30 square meter garage roof and stored them in my home made water tank system (1500L capacity at the time), the garden did splendidly.

The lessons here regarding water were significant. Firstly, I realized the popular ‘wisdom’ bandied around by gardening ‘authorities’ regarding planting vegetables

This plan shows a small design for the garden and the general placement of the elements. The house in the center already existed before the garden was implemented. Indicated are the shape and scale of the gardens, as well as other elements like the chicken coop and compost combination.

separately from trees because “they have different water requirements” was simply utter nonsense. Not only does this go against the basic principle of food forests, but it defies basic ecology. Trees will use what they need, the other plants will take the rest, that’s how nature works…unless you’re a conventional agribusiness-oriented farmer who gets cheap, subsidized waters and flood-irrigates the vegetables growing in neat monoculture rows with no cover in a wide open dustpan exposed to scorching winds, but that’s another story…

The second fact I realized was how bad the conventional advice on water-wise gardens to the general public is and was. Gardening organizations were drumming out the propaganda like a military campaign — xeriscaping and xerogardening was the way to go. Frankly, no it isn’t! Just to put things into perspective, some etymology first. The prefix “xero- or xeri-” means “dry” in Greek, so we’re talking dryscaping here.

So what does that involve? Recreating your own little backyard “desert-scape”, and that’s precisely what they recommended.

Sparsely planted succulent, strappy leaf plants with a thick layer of dry mulch. So what’s wrong with this you might ask?

For starters, it’s a completely ornamental gardening strategy, and for anything at all other than aesthetic value, such gardens are absolutely useless. It doesn’t create an ecosystem that supports any life, and having sparsely planted (usually called monocultures) is an ideal invitation for nature to bring in some pioneer plants (aka weeds) to restore biodiversity. These dryscape plants cope with low water and nutrient levels by having very slow growth rates, and as a result, don’t take up much CO2 from the air, and produce very little biomass, so they end up playing an insignificant role in capturing carbon and alleviating the global warming issue.

This is an area that really challenged my

WATER CATCHMENT INFORMATION So what does my garden prove in regards to water?

It proves you really can:

1

Mix vegetables and trees in a garden without disorder.

2

Grow plants in high density stacked plantings, where they protect each other and create a small microclimate.

3

Use sheet mulching and living ground covers to retain the moisture in the soil.

4

Capture significant amounts of atmospheric CO2, by building large amounts of biomass, which also builds the soil in the garden.

5

Have an amazingly productive, biodiverse food forest teeming with life — all for the same water use as a trendy “water-wise” desertscape garden.

Not to mention that it’s a hell of a lot more relaxing and aesthetically pleasant to be around, too!

A monoculture is a grouping of only one type of plant. This can be positive for aesthetic but negative for reproduction and health of plants.

PESTS AND DISEASES beliefs about what nature is capable of, or should I say, what nature is designed to do. I remember sitting in my PDC class, where Geoff Lawton was describing how.

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I’ve always been an organic gardener, so when it came to ‘war time’ it was Neem soap that came out first! It also disrupts the reproductive cycle of insects, which is why it’s put in there. It works by direct contact only, and washes off with rain where it works on the ground as a natural soil wetting agent. Pretty neat I thought — it worked on the pests I encountered when I first built the garden, including aphids, scale and the pesky ants that were protecting them.

That was my usual approach to pests, but here was Geoff Lawton challenging my preconceived notions, suggesting that we can let nature do it all! The challenge was set for me, to prove if we can dispense with

all pesticides, even fairly safe organic ones!

I had made a commitment that I would wait to let nature do its thing, and resort to only Neem soap as the last resort now.

CONCLUSIONS If I really wanted to crank up the statistics, I could grow lots of potatoes, pumpkins, cucumbers, etc, but I don’t. I’m growing the garden realistically, casually, and enjoyably! I put in around two hours a week to maintain it, while working a full time job.

I could also remove all the ornamental plants (yes, there are plenty in the garden, including ornamental trees) and replace them with edibles too, but this is not a production farm, but a permaculture food

Basically, it’s a natural organic soap with Neem oils, which is made from a tree that originates in India and is used in everything wholesome and organic, even in some natural toothpastes!

TOTALS:

BERRY HARVEST:

- Produce per month (year one): 11kg - Produce per month (year two): 16kg

- Total year one: 2.6kg - Total year two: 4.0kg

FRUIT HARVEST:

VEGETABLE HARVEST:

- Total year one: 54kg - Total year two: 127kg

- Total year one: 75kg - Total year two: 70kg

CALCULATIONS One acre is approximately 4047 square meters. Now, if we look at my garden, still in its infancy at two years of age, its production is: 202kg/64 square metres To convert this to acres, we do some simple maths: 4047/64 = 63.23 Now, a bit more math to get the yield per acre: 202×63.23 = 12,773kg/acre So, my fledgling garden that is just getting started is producing the equivalent of 12,773 kg/acre.

forest. It is a productive living ecosystem that is also a relaxing, calming, peaceful oasis of nature in an urban concrete jungle — less that 10km from the city centre in a fairly small back yard.

The whole point of my permaculture back yard food forest is that it provides tangible, undeniable proof that you can create a rich, functional, biodiverse living ecosystem in the heart of the city that can provide a heck of a lot of food for minimal work and effort by applying permaculture principles.

Even more importantly, I have discovered that it provides inspiration for people to look into permaculture and dare to try it out. I can only say that it’s only by daring to try something new and different that

you get the opportunity to really achieve something notable. For those who have studied permaculture, I can only say that your PDC is too valuable a resource to not put into practice. I freely share everything that I have done and happily teach others.

Through my crazy need for ‘proof’ I have designed and built what I can justifiably claim to be Melbourne’s first urban back yard demonstration permaculture food forest, backed up with objective facts and figures, and open to the public for all to see.

If you’ve had that plan in the back of your mind, that you have told yourself you’ll create ‘one day’, I recommend that you stop procrastinating and just dive into it!

In New York City, the Battery Park center at the southern tip of Manhattan Island features a large permaculture garden maintained by local school and University students. The garden is self-sustaining and doesn’t use any fertilizer and pesticides, relying only on natural processes.

The Permaculture Garden Movement Grows from the Underground Contributed by Michael Tortorello from In The Garden - New York Times

A swale is an earthwork for slowing the flow of water down a slope on a hobby farm. The ditch stops the water and forces it to permeate into the soil in the garden.

As a way to save the world, digging a ditch next to a hillock of sheep dung would seem to be a modest start. Granted, the ditch was not just a ditch. It was meant to be a “swale,” in western Wisconsin.

days of a week long Permaculture Design Certificate course led by Wayne Weiseman, fifty-eight years of age, the head director of the Permaculture Project, located in Carbondale, Illinois.

And the trenchers, far from being the average day laborers, had paid anywhere from $1,300 to $1,500 for the privilege of working their own spades on a cementskied Tuesday morning in late June.

The movement’s founders, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, coined the term permaculture in the mid-1970s, as a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture.

Fourteen of us had assembled to learn permaculture, a fairly simple system for designing sustainable human settlements, restoring soil, planting year-round food landscapes, conserving water, redirecting the waste stream, forming more companionable communities and, if everything went according to plan, turning the earth’s looming resource crisis into a new age of happiness. It was going to have to be a pretty freaking awesome ditch. That was the sense I took away from auditing four

In practice, permaculture is a growing and influential movement that runs deep beneath sustainable farming and urban food gardening. You can find permaculturists setting up worm trays and bee boxes, aquaponics ponds and chicken roosts and coops, composting toilets and rain barrels, solar panels and earth houses.

Truly, permaculture probably contains enough badges of eco-merit to fill a Girl Scout sash. Permies (yes, they use that 19

Success Stories

term) like to experiment with fermenta- Mister Mollison, for example, has been tion, mushrooming, foraging (also known permaculture’s leading figure since the as wild-crafting) and herbal medicine. late 1970s, and his books have hundreds of thousands of copies. Yet his name has Yet permaculture aims to be more than the apparently never warranted a mention in sum of those practices, said David Cody, this particular newspaper. Permaculture, 39, who teaches the system and creates Mr. Pittman said, is “guided by the curricurban food gardens in San Francisco. ulum and a sense of ethics, and that’s pretty much it.”

“It’s an ecological theory of everything,” Mr. Cody said. “Here’s a planet Earth oper- The ethic of permaculture is the moveating manual. Do you want to go along for ment’s Nicene Creed, or golden rule: care a ride with us?” of the earth; care of people; and a return of surplus time, energy and money, to the It’s hard to say just how many have climbed cause of bettering the earth and its people. aboard the mother ship. In San Francisco, In its effort to be universal, permaculture Mr. Cody saw more than 1,500 volunteers espouses no religion or spiritual elements. turn out in 2010 to create Hayes Valley Still though, joining the movement seems Farm, a pop-up food garden near the site to strike many of its practitioners as a kind of a collapsed freeway ramp. of conversion experience. Mr. Pittman first encountered Mr. Mollison and his “I’d like to say it was the largest sheet- teachings at a weekend seminar in New Sheet mulching is mulching project ever done in the world,” Mexico in 1985. As a system, permaculture a technique that said Mr. Cody, who designed the garden impressed him as pan-optic and transforsuppresses weeds and following the permaculture principles and mational. “It shook my whole world,” Mr. builds fertile soil. Thick layers of organic matter directed the processes of covering the Pittman remarked. are placed on the ground ground with a cardboard weed barrier lasagna style. and organic material. We sheet-mulched Almost on the spot, he decided to drop about an acre and a half,” he said. “That’s his work and follow Mr. Mollison to the something like 80,000 pounds of card- next stop on his teaching tour: Katmandu, board diverted from the waste stream.” Nepal. Soon after, he began to lead courses alongside Mr. Mollison, in cities and backIn the last four years, Mr. Cody has helped waters around the globe. Mr. Mollison train 250 students through the Urban hasn’t toured the United States in almost Permaculture Institute in San Francisco. 15 years. At 83, Mr. Mollison has “kind of Scott Pittman, 71, who directs the national faded into semi-retirement in Tasmania,” Permaculture Institute from a small farm- Mr. Pittman said. stead outside Santa Fe, N.M., estimates that 100,000 to 150,000 students have Yet in recent years, Mr. Mollison’s ideas completed the certificate course since the seem to have bubbled up from underphilosophy was developed in Tasmania ground, into the mainstream media. “I just almost three decades ago. “In the U.S., I trained the Oklahoma National Guard,” would say we represent 40,000 to 50,000 Mr. Pittman said. “If that’s any kind of of that number,” he said. benchmark.” The troops, he told us, plan to apply the permaPermaculture, a pretty decentralized movement, culture to farming infrastructure has no membership rolls or census-takers. and projects in the rural But then permaculture has no member Afghanistan. It’s a system, permaculturrolls or census-takers. By intention, “it has ists contend, that can work anywhere. In been, for all of the years I’ve been involved, Park Slope, Brooklyn, Claudia Joseph, 53, a pretty decentralized movement,” Mr. has used the precepts of permaculture Pittman said. The message seems to come to develop new food gardens at the Old out in its own fashion, without publicists. Stone House. (Its own original 1699 Dutch

edifice was a locus of the Battle of Brooklyn during the American Revolutionary War.) “It’s a huge breakthrough,” she said. “To go from one swatch of grass to over 1,000 blueberry bushes.”

Subterranean means thriving underground, growing as a root or a sprout before harvest.

suburban yard or a patio garden. But most of the students I met in Wisconsin had their own 1,000-blueberry-bush visions and ideas on how permaculture could help fulfill their dreams.

The New York City New paradigms strengthen one another, and parks department permaculture is one of many examples. recently bulldozed two of her great gardens in an overhaul Kellie Anderson, a 27-year-old rolfer, lived of the playgrounds in the surrounding for five months in a giant sequoia tree Washington Park. But in a few special, named Keyandoora. (At the time, she was very protected spots, Ms. Joseph, an envi- protesting a logging plan in Humboldt ronmental educator and consultant who County, Calif.) After the workshop, Ms. lives two blocks away, has already started Anderson said, she planned to inhabit a on an edible food forest.

1986 diesel school bus that she and her boyfriend were currently in the process This “guild” of complementary plants is of converting into a camper. But fortune the opposite of annual row-crop agricul- seems to have taken her instead to Sanibel ture, with its dead or degraded soil and its Island, Fla., where she is now helping to constant demand for labor and fertilizer. plan a sustainable-housing community.

Permaculture landscapes, which mimic the ecology of the area, are meant to be Kris Beck, 48, a founder of an energy-efvertical, dense and self-perpetuating. Once ficiency tech company, had a notion to the work of the original planting is done, build a sanctuary with a megalithic stone Mr. Mollison jokes in one of his videos, circle (think Stonehenge) on her fami“the designer turns into the recliner.” ly’s old Wisconsin dairy farm, along the Mississippi River bluffs. Bruce Feldman, At the lowest level of a food forest, then, 60, who spent two decades as an English are subterranean crops like sweet potatoes teacher overseas, experienced the collapse and carrots. On the floor of the landscape, of the baht in Thailand (he was being paid mushrooms can grow on felled logs or in that currency), and an earthquake in wood chips. Herbs go on the next level, Japan, in 1995, that left him wandering along with “delicious black cap raspber- the streets for four days. These events, ries,” Ms. Joseph said.

Mr. Feldman said, “got me thinking that I should start preparing for my own future,” Other shrubs, like inkberry, winterberry ideally, a four-to-five-acres completely and elderberry, are attractive to butterflies self-reliant homestead farm in the Ozark and birds. They’re an integral part of the Mountains of rural Arkansas. system, too. But more likely to appeal to the children who attend the nearby The site of the workshop was a permaWilliam Alexander Middle School is a new culture Shangri-La unto itself: 60 acres Newtown Pippin apple tree, “a variety first of rolling pasture and woodlands, a few grown in Queens,” Ms. Joseph said. miles from the Buffalo River in Wisconsin.

In 2004, Jeff Rabkin and his wife, Susan Ruling the forest’s heights are the 40 large Scofield, bought this small Amish farm for pin oaks already in the park, whose abun- $125,000. The original plan was to lease dance of acorns will make a banquet for out the fields and build a cordwood cabin Cordwood masonry squirrels. Permaculture also looks favor- as a weekend home. Instead, under the is an old building where walls ably on high-quality bushmeat. But Ms. influence of permaculture, Mr. Rabkin technique are constructed of short Joseph will be leaving that harvest well became seized with the idea of stewarding logs laid up widthwise in enough alone this year. With its focus on the property himself. To this end, he and a the wall within a special close planting and human-scale projects, permaculture buddy, Victor Suarez, fourty mortar matrix. permaculture is ideally suited to a small four years old, bought a small flock of 21

Success Stories

sheep and planted over three hundred (“Even petroleum has a place in permadifferent types of fruiting and nut trees culture,” he said. “The five-gallon bucket around the farmstead. is the greatest application of petroleum in the world.”) He wrapped a clump of During the work week, Mr. Rabkin, 49, standard compost in a cloth like a hobo’s and Ms. Scofield, 48, run a marketing bandanna pack and dunked it in water. and public relations firm in Minneapolis. Next, he added molasses to feed the brew.

That background is apparent in the catchy After a couple of days, we would fling this name they gave the place: Crazy Rooster brownish broth over the kitchen garden Farm and Amish Telephone Booth. But to enrich the soil with beneficial bacteria. the Amish telephone booth is no gimmick.

The couple installed a phone line in the That was the concept, anyway. A week after shed next to their farmhouse, and their the workshop, I ran these theories past Jeff neighbors roll up in buggies to make calls. Gillman, 41, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota and an author of While Amish visitors mill around in Mr. four books about gardening practices and Rabkin’s yard, they may strike a deal to the environment. He professed to be “a sell him three steer and two heifers, or 20 believer in the whole concept of permablack-locust fence posts. Like a coneflower culture.” But he dismissed the compost patch draws honeybees, Mr. Rabkin said, tea as “lunacy.” Scattering a few foreign “I like to say that the telephone attracts microbes into a sea of soil, he said, was beneficial wildlife — our Amish neigh- like parachuting 10,000 people across the bors — which is what permaculture tells breadth of the Sahara. They would not be us to do.” able to survive in the harsh conditions.

Ms. Scofield collected asparagus, beets and raw milk from neighboring farms to feed the permies. The occasional Amish visitor, like Thomas Zook, who delivered a bucketful of new potatoes in the middle of a downpour, gave a glimpse of what low-impact living might look like, taken to an extreme. Mr. Zook’s father, Jonas Zook, even dropped in to watch a video about tiny pond management, but walked out after a minute or two. After marathon days of PowerPoint presentations, I wouldn’t have minded joining him. For all its exhilarating ideals, permaculture is a movement grounded in “zones,” “patterns” and “functions.”

Biochar is charcoal that is partially burned.

This allows it to burn hotter later and create interesting flavor in food cooked using it.

22

Labs, as it were, took place in the toolshed.

On the first day, Mr. Weiseman demonstrated how to create biochar, or partly burned charcoal, in a primitive “rocket” stove, a device that he assembled out of a piece of ductwork and a paint can. Helpful mineral elements attach themselves to the unique molecular structure of biochar, Mr. Weiseman explained. Mixed in with compost, it makes a top-dressing for trees.

Next, he started bubbling compost tea with an aquarium pump in a plastic bucket.

Normal compost, the solid stuff from a backyard bin, “should already contain all the microbes that are beneficial to the soil,” he said. And if it doesn’t, “beneficial microbes move in very, very quickly.”

With biochar, Mr. Gillman admitted to a bit of bafflement. “Charcoal, in general, is not in and of itself harmful to soil,” he explained. “It helps to hold on to nutrients.

But having said that, it boggles my mind why you would take a perfectly good block of wood that you could use as compost or mulch, and burn it.”

In a broad sense, though, permaculture is not about the scientific methods or textbook agronomy. “I don’t know that anyone has ever done a real double-blind study of permaculture,” said Mr. Pittman of the national Permaculture Institute.

“Most peoples in permaculture are not that interested in doing those kinds of studies. They’re more interested in demonstrating it. You can see the difference in species diversity and yield just by looking at the system.” As Mr. Weiseman observed, permaculture may be a “leap of faith.” But not leaping might have its own consequences. Beginning with Mr. Mollison,

Molasses is a viscous by-product of refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. It’s a brown and very thick liquid.

permaculturist have forecast a near future of resource scarcity. “Not just peak oil,” Mr. Weiseman said, “but peak water, peak soil.” And the mainstream news, with its drumbeat of economic decline and ecological catastrophe, feeds the prophecies. In this dystopia to come, permaculture won’t be a lifestyle choice, but a necessity. “We know what’s right,” Mr. Weiseman said.

“We know what’s best. We feel this thing in our bones and in our heart. And then we don’t do anything about it. Or we do.

Designing Farms to Prevent Floods

And I did. And it’s bearing fruit.” But in preparing for doomsday in San Francisco, Mr. Cody said, is not what draws a crowd of busy people to shovel horse manure on a drizzly Saturday morning. To the 12 central tenets of permaculture, then, Mr. Cody added a 13th: “If it’s not fun, it’s not sustainable.” In other words, why mourn the eventual demise of our office blocks and factory farms, when there’s a feast to be made, right now, in your own backyard?

towns below, pushing the River Calder to a record high of 5.6m (18.3ft). It was the fourth time the valley had been flooded since 2000, and more than 2,000 homes and 200 businesses were affected.

Most locals agree they were the worst floods in living memory. Incredible Farm escaped the brunt of them this time but the farm’s director, Nick Green, says they When Michael Smith set out to feed the now urgently need to start researching new cows at Incredible Farm in Todmorden, ways of managing the Pennine landscape.

West Yorkshire, on Boxing Day 2015, it was raining hard, but not enough to bother INCREDIBLE EDIBLE a seasoned grower with a stout pair of MOVEMENT wellies. When he started home at lunchtime, water was cascading down the main Incredible Farms developed out of the road and the town centre was impassable. Incredible Edible movement, a grassroots The only way to get back to his wife and project born in Todmorden that has spread children was by scrambling up a 60º slope across the world and has at its heart the with no footpath. aim of strengthening its communities by bringing people together to grow and Persistent heavy rain in the preceding share food. A co-founder of Incredible two months had left the steep sides of Edible Todmorden, Nick had built dozens the Calder Valley very saturated. The addi- of raised beds and planted hundreds of tional water could only pour down onto the fruit trees around the town when a local

Contributed by Joanna Dobson of Permaculture Magazine

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Success Stories

Silt is soil made from fine sand or clay and other minerals carried by water and deposited.

businessman offered him 1.6 hectares (4 acres) of land for growings. The site was not promising. Situated beside the Rochdale Canasl, it had a tendency to become swampy. It was cluttered with silt, broken lock gates and old bicycles pulled out of the canal during renovation works several decades earlier.

Fast forward five years and Incredibles Farm is a thriving social enterprise which has been a permaculture LAND centre (demonstration project) since 2013. On just 0.4 hectares (1 acre) there are three polytunnels, five ponds, numerous raised beds and several beehives, along with freerange geese, hens and ducks, and the latest addition: two Jersey cows called Rhubarb and Custard, who represent the beginning of a nano-dairy project.

The farm is off grid, having turned down an offer of mains electricity – ‘it’d make us too lazy’ – and for most of the year runs office equipment, water pumps and a fridge from 10 solar panels.

Incredible Farm has always aimed to be experimental, researching how best to produce food in a valley with sheer gradients, limited sunlight and a tendency to heavy rainfall. One of the first things Nick and his team of volunteers did was to dig six ponds across the centre of the site.

These concentrate the water, directing it slowly onto the adjacent railway cutting, which is one of the lowest point. They then built raised wooden walkways to make it possible for people to move around those parts of the site that are permanently wet.

SEPP HOLZER’S SOLUTIONS As well as employing a grower, a parttime manager and two apprentices, it runs residential courses for young people from nearby cities, and works with local schools and youth clubs to provide activities such as wild camping, vegetable growing and outdoor cooking. So far so successful, but for Nick this is far too little in the face of the current crisis. “Floods, food and farming go together,” he said. “If people were doing the farming right we wouldn’t be getting such extreme floods and we could have much more local good food.”

Nick describes the locals’ landscapes as having three sections: the moorland at the top; the hillsides, which are mostly given over to livestock farming; and the valley bottom, where the majority of homes and businesses are. Most flood alleviation work consists of expensive engineering work targeted at the valley bottom, with some additional land management work on the moorland tops.

Moorland is a type of habitat found in upland areas in temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands and montane grasslands and shrublands biomes

“What we really need to work out is how to manage the bit in the middle – the farming land,” said Nick. “But it involves such a radical rethink of normal practice that most people don’t want to know.”

Nick believes the solution may lie with Krameterhof, Sepp Holzer’s permaculture farm in Austria. Set on a steep slope at altitudes of up to 1,500m (4,921ft), it has obvious parallels with the Pennine environment.

Water management there is based on a cascade system that connects a series of

Growing takes place in raised beds, half It involves such a radical rethink of normal a meter high, and practice that people don’t want to know about situated both on it inside and outside the polytunnels. There ponds and water gardens. The primary aim is an emphasis on plants that do well in is to raise fish, but Nick believes a similar damp areas, such as celery, strawberries system in the Calder Valley would additionand watercress. Ducks also thrive. ally provide flood mitigation, alleviating the run-off that proved so catastrophic Last year the farm produced half a ton of on Boxing Day in Canada so many years salad for sale to local businesses, along ago, destroying much of the farmstead. with numerous fruit trees grafted onto He dreams of an experimental farm, a tough, locally sourced rootstock. living research project that could begin 24

it.

the pressing work of discovering how not just the Calder Valley but also the rest of the nation can become more self-reliant in food production. The realisation of the dream is tantalisingly close. Just across the canal, a 13 hectare (32 acre) farm is for sale. It’s challenging by anyone’s standards there are two flattish fields but the rest of the land is on an average 1 in 4 slope.

FLOOD MANAGEMENT

Permeability is the ability for water to trickle through the soil into the deep ground.

Where most people see problem, however, Nick sees potential. He has a vision for generating income from converting the farmhouses into residential accommodation and establishing a glamping site and a rock climbing centre. Meanwhile, Nick and his team would set about experimenting with ways of farming the slopes sustainably. As well as a water management system, he envisages a micro-dairy selling raw milk; free-range pigs, and a small range of arable crops.

In terms of flood management, a threepronged attack is needed. The first issue is absorption: water needs to soak into the ground instead of running off as it does at the moment. Part of the solution to this is to plant more trees. Leaves and pruned branches from the trees will add organic matter to the soil, making it more absorbent, and the tree roots fissure the subsoil, increasing permeability.

could be added to the soil to help with these issues that occur. Finally, there is need for a way of storing water temporarily in the case of extremely high rainfall. Nick believes this can be achieved by ensuring that in normal circumstances, the ponds in the cascade system are only half full.

This slight modification to Sepp Holzer’s model would mean that the excess water could be accommodated on the slopes instead of pouring straight into the valley.

The stumbling block is the initial funding.

Despite climate change being arguably the biggest problem the world has ever faced, Nick has been unable to find any grants aimed specifically at people trying to address it through sustainable farming methods. “We’ve got a proven track record of energy and achievement; we’ve already built a productive experimental farm from scratch with negligible funding and no mains services; and we’re trying to save our culture – surely that should be enough to attract the funding we need,” he said.

Since the Boxing Day floodings, lands management has become a lively topic in Todmorden, and if anywhere can help make Nick’s experimental farm a reality it may well be the town that launched the Incredible Edible movement. Time is running out, though. Nobody knows how long it will be until the next floods – and nobody can guarantee that Incredible Alley cropping – planting between the Farms will escape them, either. trees – will additionally help to increase absorption, as will mob grazing, a rotational system which allows for different sections of the land to be grazed for short periods of time. The livestock add manure to the soil and also help to trample in the top layer of organic matter.

Secondly, it is necessary to slow the flow of any water that does run down the slopes.

Sepp Holzer’s cascade system offers an excellent solution here, as it would ensure that water reached the river on the valley bottom over an extended period of time, rather than all rushing into it at once and causing a flood. Separate ‘settling ponds’ would also capture organic matter washed down from higher up the slopes and this 25

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