Journey to Permaculture - A Win-Win Solution

Merry Teesdale is a field biologist and permaculture designer who specializes in win-win solutions. She manages OwlWood Wildlife Refuge and OwlWood Garden, which displays and encourages the development of sustainable food production within the community.

Part 1

It has been said that permaculture will save the world and at the very least it will design a greener, healthier planet. The great attraction is its positivism because, wherever the techniques are implemented, they lead to benefits for us as well as other living things. Furthermore, anyone can practice it.

The applications of permaculture regard everything as a positive resource. They build rather than deplete, strengthen systems rather than weaken them and create sustainable human environments. Permaculture concepts can be applied anywhere anytime, whether it is someone’s house and yard, or the design of a village, urban area or even on the grand scale of countryside.

Where applied, permaculture principles reduce energy usage, capture free energy, reuse and recycle surpluses, limit or end pollution and even create leisure time for the population. These principles were developed in 1980 by the founder of permaculture, Bill Mollison, to reclaim dryland areas in Australia.

With a keen understanding of how natural soils and systems develop, Mollison harnessed the powerful techniques of nature itself to do his reclamation work. Because of his insights, which are now being used worldwide, be it in tropical, temperate, rainforest or desert climates, permaculture sites and systems are restoring soils, biomass and supplying the energy and food needs of the people who live on them.

While Mollison designed his practical concepts for agricultural and land reclamation purposes, his student David Holmgrin later expanded and reorganized them in a philosophical approach which can be applied to any lifestyle design.

This article considers Bill Mollison’s principles. Deep understanding of them is gained from permaculture workshops, which usually consist of 14 long days of intensive study at an established permaculture site. The classes are occasionally offered and can be pricey.

Sometimes students design and create a new permaculture site as their study project. Because of the benefits these concepts provide, it is well worth the money and effort spent to acquire a greater understanding of them and their various implementations. Examples of the principles are mentioned later but I recommend taking a class if you can, or at least reading a book or two on permaculture to attain a fuller insight into the scope and importance of each principle.

Principles of permaculture:

1. It’s the connections between things that matter.

2. Each element performs multiple functions (at least three).

3. Each function is supported by many elements, many energy paths, job redundancy, and each is failsafe.

4. Energy-efficient planning — Concentrate beneficial and scatter hostile energies.

a. Zones — Place elements on a site according to how much we use them or how often we need to visit them.

b. Sectors — Analyze the effects of energies (sun, wind, rain, etc.) that come from off-site. Place design components to manage incoming energy to our advantage.

c. Elevations — Use gravity to advantage.

5. Use biological resources to save energy, produce needed materials and perform work. The key is management based on timing.

6. Energy cycling and recycling. Catch, store, use and cycle energy before it degrades.

7. Appropriate technology — Make the choice of tools work for you. Design things that are life-enhancing, low-cost, durable, producing net energy, safe in production, use and disposal.

8. Design small-scale, intensive systems.

9. Stack and pack your system.

10. Create diversity and edge within the system. Increase the sum of the yield of a system and spread the yield over time.

11. Observe and replicate natural patterns.

12. Ethics and attitude matter.

a. Turn problems into solutions, everything is a positive resource.

b. Make the greatest change for the least effort: work where it counts.

c. We are only limited by a lack of information and imagination.

d. Work with, not against nature.

e. Everything gardens: everything has an effect on its environment.

f. Care for the earth, care for people and care for the community.

g. Distribute the surplus, limit consumption and population.

h. Every living thing has intrinsic worth.

Creative problem solving: Ask the right questions. The problem is the solution. (Example, waste equals unused resource, work equals unmet need.)

Excess yield is a pollutant and creates work. Capture and cycle it again.

There are quite a few permaculturalists in our midst. To give you an idea of what living a permaculture life is like, I will take you on a printed visit to the home of Bellinghamster Brian Hindman who has, in the last 10 years, transformed his lot in town from a flat green monoculture lawn to a jungle of fruit trees, berry bushes and edible understory greenery woven together by paths accessing certain favorite plants and looping around the attractive centrally located chicken coop.

As we ramble through this food forest, we pick leaves from plants and weeds and toss them to his brilliantly colored hens who devour them. These chickens are key to a permaculture system in that they provide Brian with eggs, manure, insect control and groundcover clearing. They are also gorgeous birds with fascinating behaviors and vocalizations.

Occasionally, Brian will fence them onto a different patch of vegetation and put the newest edible plants he’s found in the area that the chickens have prepped and fertilized. Most of the chickens’ food is supplied by plants, seeds, insects and worms living on his land. Refer to principles 1, 2, 4a, 5 and 9.

I follow Brian with a tape recorder through his surprising jungle of edible weeds and plants. The shrubbery affords him almost complete privacy in his yard. We are foraging for supper.

(Me) “Hey, I see some chard growing down there.”

(Brian) “I didn’t plant that; it planted itself because I let it go to seed. (Chard is a biannual, flowering the second year.) Looking back under my bushes, I see some dandelion greens. They’re a little on the bitter side this time of year but still edible. Look how huge and green they are from growing in the shade of the Jerusalem artichokes! We’ll kind of wander a little over here and look, Oh, wow, here’s something I haven’t seen in a while — collards.

“And over here, this looks good; it has a few aphids on it but — protein. (We graze our way through some raspberry bushes taller than me.) … and back. Here is French Sorrel, one leaf will do it and over here is a major jungle, where back in the depths we find these really large leaves — plantain. Plantain is a good one.”

(Me) “What! That grows in my lawn! English plantain! It’s edible? Let me try one … chew … It’s not bad. ... Well, it’s not good but it’s not bad, ha, ha.”

(Brian) “Now I’m going to go back in here and get a nice gigantic leaf of a horseradish!”

(Me) “Oh, let me have a bite of that!” Horseradish leaves taste peppery, I find.”

(Me holding the microphone to a chicken) “Would you like to say hello?”

(Chicken) “Buck buk buk buk buk.”

(Brian continues) “And you know dianthus flowers are also edible, and there’s a sage flower — beautiful. Oh look, there’s some alfalfa, you don’t want to eat a lot of this every day. And as you are gathering, you can hack out some weeds. There’s some more rosemary and this is lovage (perennial celery). Malva … and here we go, some chicory. Check out this lime, or linden tree I just got (known as basswood in the USA) — the leaves are edible. And here’s our dessert, delicious black cherries. Yum.” (Big tree full of cherries.)

(Me) “You planted this cherry 10 years ago? I am enamored with this cherry tree!”

(Brian) “Well, I have enough greens now, let’s cook them. We’ll just grab some oregano, too.”

Cooking and chopping, Brian assembles the dinner of tortilla shells, cheese, greens and fresh fried eggs. “Here’s the typical permacultural dinner, easy to do, nutritious and filling. And we’ve already had our dessert of cherries, raspberries and mulberries. The tortilla shell cost about 10 cents and whatever the cheese cost makes for a really healthy and inexpensive meal. Here you go, carbohydrates, greens, protein and dairy.

“It smells wonderful.” I take a bite, “it tastes wonderful and it’s mostly from the garden. You know, if you have friends who make tortilla shells you can trade with them.”

I ask Brian about how he has applied permaculture principles to his land.

He replies that principle 12b states: “Make the greatest change for the least effort and work where it counts.”

“What was the greatest change you made here?”

“Mulches,” Brian answers, “Sheet mulch is not very much effort at all, not as much as digging out the grass. Nobody digs grass any more, it’s the hard way.”

I ask, “Do you have surplus to distribute?” (Principle 12g.)

He answers, “One of the best products I have developed is dried greens. Dandelion greens. Powdered. Full of chlorophyll. Dried nettle greens, add them to eggs, soup, chicken. Drying is easy to do and low maintenance. You can dry any greens.”

I say, “Your yard is full of flowers, too. So many different species. It’s fun to look around and learn about them. Where did you get all these edible plants? I find it hard to find edible perennials at the local nurseries.”

“Well, I ordered a bunch of them; I did the research and found them.”

We’ll revisit Brian’s place in future articles, check out his plant resources and discuss his applications of permaculture principles in more depth.

One week later, at my place, I am enjoying a summery evening meal, munching tomatoes, onions, zucchini and basil plucked from the garden only minutes before and lightly stir fried. My mouth is full of amazement at the flavors of the living foods that grow in my yard. (Freshly harvested food has a living quality, which quickly dissipates, and those who buy stored food — from a store or market — may not have experienced eating this quality.)

As my body is revitalized by this simple meal, I appreciate for a moment the beautiful colors, textures and shapes of the plants who share this space with me and I remember the blank canvas that was here only four (short) years ago.

I moved to the Owl Farm on September 4, 2003. Fruit Harvest was in full swing, evidenced by the spicy applesauce scent of Gravestein apples resting on the ground and big yellow pears dangling like Christmas ornaments. I purchased this land because it beamed of potential and its comfortable welcoming essence invited me to belong with it.

After a few months of settling in, I realized that growing my own food and some extra to trade for needed things would save me a lot of money and also save time running back and forth to the store.

The out of print book, “Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way” by Peter Chan (1985, ISBN 0-88266-389-5) was a fortuitous find. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I had access to the knowledge of 3,000 years of Chinese farmers and gardeners. Their method is inexpensive, surprisingly simple and after the initial construction, pretty much labor free, requiring practically no work except to turn the soil and add amendments before planting and then mulching.

I positioned the long narrow planting rows on top of my drain field (principles 4a and 10). After removing the sod, the rows are dug deeper and amendments such as compost and manure are added (one may have to purchase these at first). The aerated soil plus additional humus create a three-foot wide raised bed about four to six inches above the ground level.

Narrow walkways on either side of the planting rows allow access, so the rows themselves are never walked upon and the soil improves year after year. Constructing the beds the first year is the hardest work that needs to be done — after that it is easy. One can determine one’s true friends by having a sod busting party. It took my boyfriend, my brother and I a mere hour and a half to remove sod and dig three beds 25 feet long by three feet wide, after which we celebrated.

I was not yet aware of the permaculture sheet mulch method, which lets worms and insects do all the work. The Chinese raised beds are perfect for shallow rooted annual foods, companion planting and short season crops but not for perennials or deep rooted plants which might ruin a drain field.

Soon after, I added another three rows and ringed the whole garden with a 16-inch strip of carpet laid on the grass and topped with wood chips. Now this was permaculture, the barrier between the lawn and the garden eliminated weeding any encroaching grass, recycled carpet and deterred slugs. For further slug control, I planted spicy hot salad greens on the edge facing the shady slug source.

To finish the garden, my brother and I installed a counter and sink from the RE Store complete with running water. Placing a compost pile nearby made it possible to harvest, trim, wash the vegetable bounty and recycle the trimmings outside all of which saves me time and avoids a “garbage in-garbage out” situation in the house.

The sink turned out to be perfect for washing fruit when making cider. There’s also a spigot under the counter for a garden hose. (Permaculture principles applied, 1: connections, set up working relationship between plants, people land and structure, 2: multiple functions, 4a: zones, 7: appropriate technology — low cost, durable, 8: small scale system, 10: edge, 12: turn problems into solutions (solves what to do with the carpet, slug control and dirty vegetable messes in the kitchen).

After building the Chinese raised bed garden, I switched to the permaculture way of constructing edible perennial beds, which I’ll describe in detail in the next article.

My gardens now provide me with greens all year long, fruit from strawberries to November, and a multitude of other vegetables, enough for about 12 people. It’s beautiful to look at, to walk around in and doesn’t require much time or maintenance.

The surprising aspect was when I realized how much actual satisfaction I get from doing each project the permaculture way. I get real pleasure from taking a waste product or a piece of wood and finding a second or third use for it in an imaginative way that will benefit someone. Planting a tree or shrub that will someday feed friends/family creates lovely memories and guarantees fulfillment in the future.

After planting the peach tree, I waited 16 months to bite into its first exquisite fruit, which was an experience not to be compared with any peach eaten either before or ever again. Yes, personal fulfillment is the side effect of the permaculture lifestyle. Truly, the quality of the time one spends living, functioning and sustaining oneself is what is important.

Further reading: “Introduction to Permaculture” by Bill Mollison with Reny Mia Slay, copyright 1991, Tagari Publications, Tyalgum, Australia. §

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