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You may have heard of permaculture before, perhaps while reading an article or browsing the web. I came across it about eight years ago and when I did, it changed my life.
Permaculture is a system of sustainable design principles and practices developed in Australia in the 1970s by two naturalists, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, who were inspired by Tasmanian Aboriginal and other traditional practices. The term blends “permanent” and “agriculture, and the system is based on the cultivation of nut and fruit trees which produce year after year, as opposed to large farm fields of annuals such as corn, wheat and soybeans.
The Case For
Permaculture
Increasingly dire environmental news begs for some kind of meaningful personal response. Incorporating permaculture-inspired practices can help us feel empowered and more hopeful, connect us to nature and each other, increase our self-reliance and reduce our carbon footprint.
Some environmental messaging subtly casts humans in the role of villains, which deflates and demotivates us. Permaculture acknowledges that humans are a part of nature, have needs that are ok to satisfy, and can genuinely improve the landscapes around them. This hope and positive vision are what first attracted me to permaculture. Yes, there are problems, but we can do something about them. We are not doomed to be agents of blight.
Three ethical principles undergird the permaculture system: Earth care, people care and fair share. We are to care about the Earth, people and making sure everyone gets their fair share.
Permaculture encourages us to spend a long time observing a site before starting to design it. New homeowners should wait a year through all four seasons before making any changes. This can be hard, but it speaks to the need to really understand something before trying to change it. Design should proceed from patterns to details: Focus on the big picture first, then fill in the rest.
The system also promotes the value of diversity. Solutions should be small and slow. Integrate rather than segregate. Catch and store energy. For example, harvest rainwater from your roof to use in the vegetable garden and utilize the free and abundant energy generated by the sun to line dry your clothes.
Permaculture also believes that the landscape should generate yields for humans — an acknowledgement that abstract ideals are not always enough. Many of us will be more motivated to put in work maintaining sustainable systems if they generate yields for us, and that yield can be food, beauty, medicine from plants or firewood.
The system also values stack functions — the idea that one design element can (and should) serve several different purposes. For example, a wide hedge at the property line can provide us with berries, fruits and nuts. Flowers at bloom time provide nectar for pollinators. Dense growth provides privacy. Coppicing appropriate species in the hedge can yield biomass for burning in a wood stove in the home. That’s four functions in one design element!
The idea here is density of function, species and dense plantings. Produce no waste. Instead, the waste of one system should be an input to another element in the system. Ideal permaculture systems take in few inputs once they’re established.
A vegetable garden and a compost pile are one example of this. Scraps from the garden get placed on the compost pile. They turn into compost, which is then placed back into the garden to add fertility. This, at least in theory, is a closed loop.
Vegetable gardens and chickens work in a similar vein. Vegetable scraps can be fed to the chickens, whose high-nitrogen poop can later be added to the garden for boosting yields (plants like nitrogen!) The eggs you get from the chickens are a bonus.
The Value Of
Circular Thinking
With permaculture, waste is minimized, and interdependency is increased. Diverse systems are more resilient. Backup systems are encouraged. Renewable resources and services are always preferred. Shop at thrift stores, get your next piece of furniture in your local Buy Nothing Facebook group, bike or walk when you can.
If you’re building a new house, use the principles of passive solar design, which help heat it using the energy of the sun. This will reduce your heating costs and make the house more sustainable. You can also install a rocket mass heater — a next-level wood stove that uses insulation and radiant heat — on a slab in the middle of the house. It’s said to reduce heating costs by up to 90% and is much less specific about the dimensions of the firewood it takes, so you can use it to burn your yard waste. In addition, the higher-than-normal heat generated by the stove’s insulation ensures that the exhaust from the heater is cleaner than that from a wood stove.
If you don’t want to build a rocket mass heater from scratch, consider the Liberator rocket heater, a fully approved and certified model available for purchase. (This heater doesn’t include the “mass” part of the rocket mass heater, but you can work with a builder to set that up.) Home-scale biodigesters can serve as an alternative to a compost pile that also produces safe natural gas you can use to cook with. Solar ovens use sunlight to cook food — there’s no need to turn on your electric induction stove or gas-powered range.
Many great solutions already exist. I hope this introduction excites you, gives you hope and inspires you to learn more. The next time I write about permaculture, I hope to discuss larger-scale ideas and solutions that go beyond the home yard.
Boris Kerzner is the owner of Grow Our Food, an all-service gardening company helping people grow their own food & beautiful native plants. We service the Greater Philadelphia area. Reach us at 267-415-6076 or www.growourfood.com/contact.