Permaculture

[D Rusak]

Being in a bit of financial straits this past summer, and not really anticipating much for the future, I've been thinking of ways to save some money in a environmentally conscious manner. I always have liked gardening, and see lots of open space, even within the city here, that could be used. Reading Dmitry Orlov's works over at survivingpeakoil(dot)com (yes, I know, but these are useful articles, I think) got me thinking about gardening, communities, and the way we garden, so I've been reading some books on the concept of permaculture.

from Bill Mollison, the father of permaculture:

Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.

Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all forms.

The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and of allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolutions.

This seems to me to not only adhere to general principles of being sustainable and environmentally aware, but to be resonant with ideas presented about STO/the 4th Way. Some ideas that are presented include the concept that everything in the garden must function in at least three ways; there are different zones related to different activities; general conservation principles; attention to each space/situation as a unique entity.

Anyhoo, here's some books I've read recently with short reviews:

Permaculture: A Designer's Manual. Bill Mollison, 1988. This is probably what one could term the "bible" of permaculture studies. Written by the inventor of the concept, this is a textbook manual that covers both planning and concrete examples. The first few chapters discuss design concepts, and then strategies for various ecological systems (climatic types, soils, urban/rural, etc.) are covered. I found the last chapter, "The strategies of an alternative global nation" to be quite interesting. He actually comes up with suggestions on how such a society would be set up- eg organization, money/"banks", politics, etc. I'd recommend reading this chapter if nothing else. The rest of the book may be bit unwieldy for those without a background in the sciences.

Earth User's Guide to Permaculture- Rosemary Morrow, 1993. A shorter book, this is excellent for someone looking to learn the basic concepts and apply them to an area in which they hope to garden. I like the questions at the end of each chapter that encourage one to observe one's environment, then apply principles learned in the chapter to designing their actual garden/house space. This seemed much less overwhelming than the Mollison.

Getting Started In Permaculture: 50 Practical Projects to Build and Design Productive Gardens- Ross Mars and Jenny Mars. Pretty self-explanatory. This book gives actual examples of permaculture concepts that are easy to install or initiate. It helps get the creative juices flowing!

The Permaculture Garden- Graham Bell and Sarah Bunker. I'd say that this book is a cross between the last two, with theory discussed, and many concrete examples. Again, a very good read for the novice.


I hope you find these (and other books) interesting! I cantt wait to get started on the garden for next year!

 

[cindyj]

Good for you! Thanks for sharing your reviews with us.

I heartily recommend books on Permaculture too. If we want to be able to really help each other out in the future, the more people who have these skills, the better! Plus, you can really save money growing your own food and sharing it with others. And it's a gentler way of living :)

Some other books of possible interest to those just getting started:

Bill Mollison's shorter book, "Introduction to Permaculture" Tagari Press - many good drawings and diagrams for those who are more pictorially oriented. Much easier to work through than his Designer's Manual (although I've got that one too)

Toby Hemenway's "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture" Chelsea Green Publishing - far and away the easiest for me to use as a casual reference. I was even just looking for it right now, but I think I've leant it out again!

Also, David Holmgren's "Permaculture Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability" Holmgren Design Services - more theoretical, detailed land design / energy considerations, but perhaps not for the beginner.

A few years ago, I also took a two-week Permaculture Design course which was very in-depth. A great jump start for anyone with the resources and/or interest to start a project on their own land or in their communities. Available courses can be found all over the web-- I just looked to see if there was a good central site, but it seems not. Anyway, good stuff to learn!

 

[thorbiorn]

I found the last chapter, "The strategies of an alternative global nation" to be quite interesting. He actually comes up with suggestions on how such a society would be set up- eg organization, money/"banks", politics, etc. I'd recommend reading this chapter if nothing else. The rest of the book may be bit unwieldy for those without a background in the sciences.

Agree chapter 14 is worth the whole book, and I read it first. I would not say the book in general requires a lot of science, just one goes slowly, if chapters are difficult, or skip them for later.

We eat food everyday, but how much do we appreciate the creativity that nature unfolds to create this food? Or how much nature gets abused in the efforts to extract and control this production, as is often the case? This book explains it very well. So even if you have no plan to go gardening or do permaculture, but just would like to understand the mechanics behind, then this is a beautiful book, plenty of illustrations, one can get a lot from reading these. There are useful introductions to every chapter and summary points at the end, which means that it is not strictly necessary to read through the whole book to benefit.

After the book one can go to any place on the planet, look around, observe nature and get more information from these observations. And if it comes to the push or if one is inclined one could grow something.

Now that we have all the upheavel about the food prices rising and so one, there is a page in the book where he notes how much money, fertilizer and chemicals gets spend on maintaining lawns in the USA. It is of course shocking. Since the figures are 20 years old, perhaps it is better now than the 30 $ per square metre. Or did I misread or misprint?

link to page with resources: _http://www.permaculture.net/resource_list/index.html

 

[Griller]

Toby Hemenway's "Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture" Chelsea Green Publishing - far and away the easiest for me to use as a casual reference. I was even just looking for it right now, but I think I've leant it out again!

I red the second edition of this, one of the first book candidates, although I would had wished the emphasis on this single notion I took from Bill Mollison's big book: Hemenway's book gives very much good leads for a beginner though, on how to proceed. There's a lot of preparation one can do even if founding the actual garden is still months or even years away, one main thing is being getting yourself the seeds and tree saplings, since trees take longer to grow. Thus I've been thinking what species to add to my future garden and done brief research on them, and bought a seed saving and germinating book which I'm about to read right after finishing the big book. Suzanne Ashworth's Seed to Seed -book seemed like a good choise after checking some reviews in amazon.

Things I didn't really get without doing my own research on what people actually grow in this latiture, is that you can grow here not just apple trees but also some plum and mulberry trees. This is good information for anyone living in the cold parts of the world who's interested in setting up a garden. I wonder if there's any good books on growing stuff this way in the Canada/Finland latitudes and climates, I hear the Four Season Harvest or Winter Harvest book by Eliot Coleman might be ones.

 

[light worker]

Hello!

There was long silence in "permaculture" topic at this site, so I think that we should start conversation again about this topic. I'm aware that books can give us knowledge but real experience in the field would show us what we have learn.
I look again movie about permaculture where is talk about "food forest". My first contact with these movie was two years ago. From then I 'm collecting info about plants, and now I have very good plan to plant food forest at some 1000 square meters.
I suppose that lot of people don't know what difference is betwean permaculture and "modern agriculture".
In few sentences I will try to explain what is for me "modern agriculture" : this is type of food production where man need to invest lot of energy pear square meter for producing not so healthy food. Here man need to use lot of horse power (energy) for producing equipment, seeds, nutrients, plant protection etc.
Permaculture is for me way of "old agriculture" where with minimum power man is producing healthy food.
Permaculture are gardens in our backyards, where are we planting lots of plants (vegetables, medical herbs, aromatic herbs) and creating mixture, where plats are planted in one big harmony.
Permaculture is and "food forest". This food forest is interesting, because every region on Earth have different plants in forest. So..... what plants should I plant and create in next few years for stable system?
There is one thing that I couldn't find - list of plants which I can use in my region (central Europe - Balkan). Because of that, I started to gather information for central Europe Food Forest.
If somebody have good plats to recommend, please, write here.

When first part of Ice age melt, I suppose that I will start with planting Food forest.

Have nice day!

Light worker.