Permaculture

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that mimic the relationships found in natural ecologies. Permaculture was first developed in the 1970’s by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in response to their perception of a rapidly growing use of destructive industrial-agricultural methods. The purpose of this agro-ecological design theory is to rapidly train individuals in a core set of design principles to allow those individuals can design their own environments and build increasingly self-sufficient human settlements — ones that reduce society's reliance on industrial systems of production and distribution that Mollison identified as fundamentally and systematically destroying Earth's ecosystems.

Ethics of Permaculture

Central to Permaculture are three ethics:

Permaculture Principles and Ethics

Source: permacultureprinciples.com. Designed by: Richard Telford.

1.) Care for People: Recognizing that Earth is the source of all life. That Earth is our valuable home, and that we are a part of Earth, not apart from it.

2.) Care for the Earth: supporting and helping each other to change to ways of living that do not harm ourselves or the planet, and to develop healthy societies.

3.) Fair Share: (or placing limits on consumption) - ensuring that Earth's limited resources are used in ways that are equitable and wise.

Permaculture practitioners use these ethics to learn from cultures that have lived in relative balance with the environment and attempt to integrate these values and social norms into sustainable agricultural practices in modern times.¹

Holmgren's 12 Core Principles of Permaculture

1. Observe and interact - By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.

2. Catch and store energy - By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need.

3. Obtain a yield - Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.

4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback - We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.

5. Use and value renewable resources and services - Make the best use of nature's abundance to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-renewable resources.

6. Produce no waste - By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.

7. Design from patterns to details - By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.

8. Integrate rather than segregate - By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other.

9. Use small and slow solutions - Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.

10. Use and value diversity - Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.

11. Use edges and value the marginal - The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.

12. Creatively use and respond to change - We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.²

O'BREDIM Design Methodology

O'BREDIM is a mnemonic and acronym for observation, boundaries, resources, evaluation, design, implementation and maintenance.

Observation allows you first to see how the site functions within itself, to gain an understanding of its initial relationships. Some people recommend a year-long observation of a site before anything is planted. During this period all factors, such as lay of the land, natural flora and so forth, can be brought into the design. A year allows the site to be observed through all seasons, although it must be realised that, particularly in temperate climates, there can be substantial variations between years.

Boundaries refer to physical ones as well as to those your neighbors might place on you, for example.

Resources include the people involved, funding, as well as what you can grow or produce in the future.

Evaluation of the first three will then allow you to prepare for the next three. This is a careful phase of taking stock of what you have at hand to work with.

Design is a creative and intensive process, and you must stretch your ability to see possible future synergetic relationships. Remember to make a consciencous effort to harness all of the elements to their fullest potential. Pay attention to water flow, wind direction, the angle of the sun at certain hours of the day and how nature responds to these elements. Pristine nature is self sufficient for a reason, and if we mimic that we can be productive.

Implementation is literally the ground-breaking part of the process when you carefully dig and shape the site.

Maintenance is then required to keep your site at a healthy optimum, making minor adjustments as necessary. Good design will preclude the need for any major adjustment. But, especially in the beginning, adjustment will be a part of life. Nature adjusts all the time to balance ecosystems. Be observant to what nature is telling you and make adjustments accordingly.

Patterns- In nature there are patterns to everything. One key to permaculture design is to find those patterns in nature that successfully produce a yield while respecting the eco-system. All things, even the wind, the waves and the earth on its axis, moving around the Sun, form patterns. In pattern application, permaculture designers are encouraged to develop:

1. Awareness of the patterns that exist in nature (and how these function)
2. Application of pattern on sites in order to satisfy specific design needs.

The application of pattern on a design site involves the designer recognizing the shape and potential to fit these patterns or combinations of patterns comfortably onto the landscape. Two examples of patterns reproduced from those found in nature are herb spirals and keyhole paths.

Permaculture Zones

Under permaculture plans, land is divided into the home and five circular 5 zones surrounding the house so as to minimize energy consumed and maximize land and resource efficiency/output. The zones are as follows:

Zone Zero: The Homezone
Frequent daily visits - The innermost circle, or Zone O, represents the focal point of activity in the system. In a small farm this is usually the home. It is the “hottest” area of human activity, symbolized in our diagram by the color red!
If we are going to achieve energy efficiencies it makes sense to place those elements of our system that must be visited the most often within Zone 0: the house, attached glasshouse or shadehouse, as well as house integrated living components such as pergola-trained vines, potted plants and companion animals.

Zone One: The Home Garden

Permaculture Zones

Source: . Author: . Permission: .

Regular daily visits - Within 6 meters (20 feet) or so of the house, in Zone 1, should be placed those elements that require close observation, frequent visiting, high work input or continual complex techniques.
The aim of Zone 1 is to yield household self-sufficiency and climate control for the home. Zone 1 is also the first Zone that should be developed on your site:
Start at the back door and work out from there!
Once you have Zone 1 fenced and under control you will be providing much of your needs, as well as having established a pleasant living environment for yourself and your family.
And so, elements such as rainwater tanks, the lemon tree, other dwarf or espalier-grown multi-graft fruit trees, chicken laying boxes, small ponds, culinary herbs, worm farm for recycling of household wastes, intensive, fully mulched vegetable beds of quick growing annuals, seedling raising areas, and small, quiet domestic animals like fish, rabbits and pigeons can be kept very close at hand within the home garden

Zone Two: The Home Orchard
Attended every few days - Zone 2 is a little less intensively managed. Suitable elements to place here are spot mulched home orchards, longer cycle vegetables, main crop beds (for trading), and forage ranges for closely managed livestock such as poultry and milking goats or cows. Since they are visited daily for milking, feeding and supervising, the livestock and poultry shelters of Zone 2 often adjoin Zone 1. This Zone may be extended along frequently used paths through more outlying zones.

Zone Three: The Farm
Attended weekly to monthly - Broader scale commercial crops, and animals raised for trade, along with natural trees, dams, windbreaks and barns belong. This area is managed with soil conditioning, green manure crops and manure from Zone 2.

Zone Four: Managed Forest
Attended infrequently - Hardy, self-care forests and woodlots that are visited infrequently for wood collection, log harvest and wild harvest belong in far flung corners of the property, and can act as buffers to protect Zone 5 wilderness areas. It may also be used occasionally to pasture animals.

Zone Five: Wilderness
Visited occasionally for recreation and appreciation - This is the component of the site left for nature. It comprises natural forest and native remnant and rehabilitated flora and fauna and can be linked to the home garden by a wildlife corridor

The Zone concept can be applied equally well for the planning of neighborhoods, farming communities, schools and institutions; in fact, any human system. ³

Permaculture Guilds

Since the main ethos of permaculture is to mimic nature, within each zone, natural “guilds” are reproduced to maximize output while minimizing waste. In Nature plants are grouped in small, reoccurring but loosely defined communities that are often referred to as guilds. A full guild can be said to have seven layers-each specifically designed to use one aspect of both the sun and root strata. The layers are as follows:
In permaculture and forest gardening, seven layers are identified:

Layer 1 - The Canopy - These are your largest trees in the system which include both fruit/nut trees and often some non food trees as well such as certain varieties that may help to fix nitrogen or provide an abundance of organic matter.

Layer 2 - Low tree layer(dwarf fruit/nut trees) - These are planted often between the intervals between the larger trees and slightly to the font of them as well to enable better solar exposure. This tree layer also increases total yield over what could be produced with all large trees.

Layer 3 - Shrubs - The shrub layer then offers massive diversity for the permaculture system in many types of berries, nuts, fruits and even just

Permaculture Guild

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organic matter production. The shrub layer is one of the most productive in the system because it can come up to productive levels in a short time and generally is quite apt to spread almost on its own.

Layer 4 - Herbaceous - This layer includes just about all annual plants (other then rhizomes and cover crops) along with many perennial plants. The herbaceous zone includes actual herbs like the common parsley, oregano and basil as well as typical vegetable crops and any plants that don't really fit one of the other 7 layers.

Layer 5 - Rhizosphere (root crops) - Anything that produces editable tubers (for man or wildlife) would be included in this layer. Plants such as potatoes, duck potatoes, jerusalem artichokes are just a few of rhizome plants.

Layer 6 - Soil Surface (cover crops) - Any and all low growing plants that spread out and act as ground cover are included in this layer. Some may be editable and others may serve a role of simply acting as mulch and providing organic matter. Others may serve to attract beneficial insects or to act as feed for wildlife.

Layer 7 - Vertical Layer (climbers, vines) - Just as it sounds this would be any plants (perennial or annual) plants that climb and grow vertically. This can be climbing flowers such a nasturtiums or climbing legumes such as runner beans used for both food and fixing nitrogen. Basically if it climbs it is part of this layer.

The goal of this seven layer system is to replicate a basic forest system including the edges and meadows and clearings. Unlike nature man plays a role by providing irrigation, pruning to control growth and chooses varieties and species that are good for food or help to naturally support other plants. In the end you get man and nature working together rather than in opposition. While monocultures stress straight lines and rows of single crops, permaculture stresses allowing the above layers to grow as they would in nature so as to create a stable ecosystem that is self-sustaining. While working together to maximize output and minime water, coordination goes far deeper than resource use.

Each participant in the guild brings a wealth of diversity to the table. The tall tree may house small animals that distribute seeds for them, and the shrub layer may provide feed for birds that use the low trees for nesting habitat and feed on insects that prey on the large trees. Plants in the herb layer may fix nitrogen for all to use, and the “root” plants may seek out pockets of nutrients in the soil that are made available to others in the guild as their foliage decomposes. Some plants will attract pollinators, others predatory insects. Some will act as mulch plants by creating excess biomass that regenerates the soil, while their neighbors may act as fortress plants protecting the entire guild from the encroachment of outside species. The inter-connectivity is how nature works-nice tidy systems that sufficiently supply the community with all of its needs given water and sunlight and a proper climate.

Advantages of Permaculture

Permaculture is an all natural, all organic system that uses and re-uses all available natural resources and doesn't use harmful inputs like chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. Permaculture relies heavily on trees, which mitigate climate change by sinking carbon and drawing nitrogen into the soil.

With minimal access to rainfall, permaculture can even bring life to deserts.