Latest Posts at Permaculture & Regenerative Design News
- Try a Trike
- Pedaling to the Future
- After 500 Years Indigenous Permaculture Rises Agai...
- 300 Year Old Food Forest in Viet Nam
- Urban Food Growing in Havana, Cuba
- Know Your Lifeboat - Brock Dolman
- Whole Earth Catalog
- Workbikes, Bike Trailers & Add-Ons, continued...
- Links I Like...
- Be Aware of Falling Food.....
- Rob Hopkins at TED
- Conclusion? - Consume MUCH LessBloomington Preps for Peak Oil
A Farm for the Future
But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.
The following from Tree Hugger:
Film Maker Explores Post-Oil Farming
Last week I wrote about a BBC documentary which I hadn't seen, but the green scene in the UK was all a flutter over. A Farm for the Future explores nature film maker 
Rebecca's work (who incidentally is also responsible for a plastic bag ban in her home town!) is not just remarkable for the content she is covering - but the venues in which it is being aired too. To have a half-hour documentary devoted to peak oil, agriculture and alternatives like forest gardening and permaculture appear on prime time BBC is a telling sign of the times. But to also have an article in the Daily Mail - hardly the bastion of environmental radicalism - is dynamite.
But it will work only if we have a lot more growers. Some reports estimate it's going to take as many as 12 million, although currently we have 11million gardeners. A food-growing system based on natural ecology appeals to my naturalist side. But the farmer's daughter in me needed a bit more convincing. Could permaculture feed Britain? I asked Patrick Whitefield, Britain's leading expert in permaculture.'Good question,' he said. 'A better question would be, "Can present methods go on feeding Britain?" In the long term, it is certain that present methods can't because they are so entirely dependent on fossil-fuel energy. So we haven't got any choice other than to find something different.'
The more permaculture people I met, the more hopeful I became that we can find a way out of this mess if we start preparing for peak oil now.
Along the way, Rebecca also meets Ben and Charlotte Hollins - the brother and sister team who now run the innovative Fordhall Farm in Shropshire - and talks about their nature-based no-till pasture system; she talks with peak oil experts Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell; visits Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust and explores the small holding of Chris and Lynn Dixon - who have pioneered their low input, biodiverse permaculture-based land management techniques in the hills of Wales for years.
For folks like me who have long followed permaculture and other sustainable, but often marginalized, food movements, it's really incredible to see voices like this getting a wide and receptive audience. Now we just have to see how many folks are willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and start planting.
Permaculture solves problems - got any problems?
These are some of the services offered by well-trained, skilled and practiced permaculture designers. The following example introduces a variety of projects / services offered by friend and fellow designer Larry Santoyo and the consortium of designers that work with him via Earth Flow Design Works.
The Home Ecosystem
New construction and renovation projects. Designs that integrate the function & beauty of interior environments with the function & beauty of the exterior environments. Consulting & Design includes green interiors, edible landscaping, natural cooling & heating, alternative energy, roofwater collection, greywater sytems and more...
[Most landscapes, buildings, and life circumstances are (often literally) dripping with possibilities and yields that most people completely overlook. You may be wealthier than you think....Talk to someone trained to notice these things....Even better, get yourself trained! K]
Green/Real Estate Development...
Our green building consulting services use unique and rigorous Permaculture Design Guidelines, along with the US Green Building Council's LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Ecological and economical investment opportunities in sustainable homesteads and acreage, green homes and commercial properties are available.
[Most homes can be enormously improved by reevaluation and redesign. A good Permaculture Design team could save you buckets of federal "reserve" notes. K]
Permaculture Design Certificate Courses
& Advanced Permaculture Design Training...
Our teaching team includes the most experienced Permaculture Instructors and recognized leaders in the World-Wide Sustainability Movement. Our Courses are conducted all over the world, in cooperation with citizen groups, government and non-government groups, universities and environmental organizations.
[More permaculture teachers these days are working with colleges and universities, municipalities and, in a few instances, national governments. After almost 30 years Permaculture is making a difference on a fairly large scale. Stay tuned.....K]
Land Search
Place to Practice & Practice to Place...
Consulting & Design services assist homeowners, ecoVillagers, land managers, farmers and ranchers with Sustainable Development Guidelines. Finding and developing the "best use" practices for any given site -and- for matching "ideally suited" properties with proposed practices, saves time, money and natural resources.
[Get yourself connected to land and earth, even if it's pots on a balcony or rooftop gardens. Remember, a concrete wall can be a huge trellis for grapes.....or kiwis........K]
Localize Enterprise!
Green Business Development...
Consulting and planning services assist developers and business owners to create facilities, practices and products that strive for excellence with a "Triple Bottom Line" approach: the Economic, Social and Ecological factors that enhance prosperity, empower local communities and re-generate natural resources.
[See APPLE (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy - Bloomington, IN) K]
Deep Green & Natural Building...
Ancient Methods for Modern Elegance. Mud and straw, sand and stone are the time-tested building traditions of people on nearly every continent. Updated techniques are examined and explored through hands-on workshops, and demonstrated through design and construction services.
[Many people don't know that they could build their own houses relatively cheaply from local materials. The Permaculture Design Course opens up many of these options. K]
Village Permaculture...
In association with The Permaculture Institute (USA) and Pattern Literacy, EarthFlow works together with Peace Corp Volunteers, NGO's, local farmers and government officials. The focus of Permaculture projects in Jamaica and in the Maya Mountains of Southern Belize is education, community development and sustainable agriculture.
[Often, when it comes to living sustainably, we can point to many cultures FAR MORE stable and adaptable than American culture. Maybe we should learn more about this before we wreck any more foreign lands and cultures with Our Empire. I think we should start seeing other people....K]
Back to the City Permaculture...
Los Angeles, California has become our training ground for implementing City Permaculture strategies. Making cities more sustainable is the best way to ensure the protection of all wilderness and conserve natural habitats world-wide. EarthFlow Design Works promotes urban and rural enterprise links to help create food & resource security.
[Cities have abundant resources when they are not squandered and degraded...principal among them is people. Empowered people can revision, redesign, and revitalize their cities making them cheaper to run and maintain and more fun to live in. You can learn these things.....uh, better hurry. K]
Restorative and Regenerative Agriculture...
Sustainable and organic agriculture efforts are dramatically enhanced by Permaculture & Keyline Design Guidelines. Management and land use practices conserve water and build soil. Helping growers transition from a chemical-based monoculture production to integrated polycultural systems is key in recreating global health and moderating climate change.
Swan Song for the Lawn...
Edible and Incredible Environments. Workshops assist Homeowners and train School Teachers how to convert resource-consuming lawns into ever-evolving food and resource systems. Culinary and nutritional information is also provided.
[The nation needs about 10,000,000 new farmers in the next decade to supply the shortfall when food becomes too expensive to ship all over the world. Many millions of people will lose their jobs in the next few years. We NEED to turn at least some of them into managers of small-scale highly intensive diversified urban and suburban polycultures. Are you up for it? TAKE A PERMACULTURE DESIGN COURSE for starters. Rise up against the forces of Lawn Order...K]
Peak-Oil/Energy Descent...
Working for a Fear Free Future!
Networking seminars offer practical information and strategies for organizing and empowering local community groups to help transition from a consumer lifestyle to a more localized and sustainable conserver lifestyle.
[Get a LIFE...style.....try out a 'conservatism' your kids might admire...Remember the FIRST permaculture principle.....,"Get help!" K]
The MicroVillage Network...
Connecting People to People and People to Place. A Product, Service and Skills Bank for local community groups to find green businesses, create local currency networks and provide links to contacts and information for Land Access and Land Partnerships.
[I think we're grown up enough to tell the truth about money....WE'RE the currency. We need a few systems to manage the enormous variety of exchanges possible between people. We actually need far fewer federal "reserve" notes than we think! (IF we think.) K]
EcoVillage & Community Design...
Green and natural building techniques for EcoVillage infrastructure layout, design and construction, as well as strategies for community economic security. EarthFlow also conducts workshops for effectively dealing with human dynamics, and the all-important "social architecture", to help ensure community responsibility, security and longevity.
[Hint...Many of the ecovillages of tomorrow are already built...they're called neighborhoods. What's missing is a bit of organizing, cooperating, planting and sharing...oh, and take down some of the fences...and collect water....and...and...and... K]
Food Forestry: a BioDiversity Imperative...
School Yards, Backyards, City Streets, Farms and Orchards can all become "Forests of Food." Integrated multi-level production, even on the smallest scale, can provide food, fuel and fiber, create wildlife habitat -and help cool the Earth.
[Think about it...schools, churches, corporate "parks", land everywhere becoming fruitful to provide for those that use the facilities...Duhhhh!....What's stopping us? K]
Biodiversity Nursery
Specializing in Rare and Exotic Fruits and cool summer climate edibles and herbs from the highland Cloud Forests and beyond. Yacon, Achira, Pepinos, Celeriac, spineless fruiting Opuntia and more...
[translate / transpose for your particular region / climate zone. K]
Transforming Your Urban Backyard
Transforming Your Urban Backyard
Many people living in the suburbs and cities would like to ‘have a go’ at living a more sustainable and satisfying life and yet are daunted by what they view as lack of space and appropriate surroundings. It is easy to say “I just don’t have the space here!” or “Oh, my soil is terrible - I couldn’t grow a thing!” One of the enjoyable aspects of permaculture design is the challenge of recognising ‘problems’ and turning them into solutions. Sometimes all it takes is a shift in perception to turn a frustrating obstacle into a much needed asset.
by Mal McKenna and Phil Dickie
Most of us would probably prefer to impose our designs on grand vistas of idyllic acreage. However, most of us also have to make do with something much smaller, like a suburban backyard. If this is a matter of great regret remember it is also a peculiarly affluent First World perspective - we live in a world where many have no choice but to live off far less than a quarter acre and many for whom even this is an impossible aspiration.
How do you make the best of a backyard garden? Ultimately, it is your experiment; there is no universal backyard plan. As every yard will be different it is totally up to you or your family to decide what you would like to create. You may wish to begin with small projects such as creating a suntrap to give you a warm place to sit and have your breakfast on chilly mornings - even to provide your breakfast if you grow the right species. You could also plan a shady nook for those hot summer days, maybe in the form of a shade tree, maybe a small pergola covered in juicy grapes. The following tips and inspirations, derived from experience both tragic and comical, might help in whatever backyard transformation you may choose.
Starting Out
In this society, gardening is a big business burdened with experts telling you what you need to do and most importantly, what you need to buy, spray, spread, plant and so on ad infinitum. Balls! - It is your backyard and gardening is not about feeding the economic machinery. Think of gardening as contemplative fun, productive and meaningful labour and a place to escape the manufactured stresses of everyday life. Go and sit in it, and get a feel for it. Before you know it you are starting to evolve the plan.
The Plan
Elements to consider include aspect, climate, your time, budget, needs and future plans and, most important in the city, your neighbours. Shade is often a constraint in built-up areas - give some thought to the extra shade you will create when all those fruit trees grow.
Consider the existing structures and features. Are you happy with their placements? Are they productive and useful - or are they dysfunctional and a maintenance hassle? Translate your ideas and feeling onto a piece of paper or several pieces of paper. Draw in what exists and what will stay, as well as such constraints as windblown or shaded areas. Then allocate general areas for trees, annual vegetables, animals, access paths and other needs such as clothes lines and play areas. Don’t go overboard on function - humanity has aesthetic and spiritual needs as well. Exotica such as herb spirals, mandala gardens, banana circles, ponds and bird baths can be a combination of the aesthetic and the functional.
If you need ideas there is a wealth of knowledge in books, magazines, and other people’s experience to help you draw up a plan. Send away for seed catalogues, visit local nurseries. Talk to your friends and neighbours, find out what grows well in your area. Visit other lots and take note of the structures and gardens. Observe why the connections between some components work well and others don’t. Note where your friends spend most of their time in their lots, and why. Observation at this point is the key.
Also remember ‘the problem is the solution’ philosophy. Perhaps your lot is concreted and you do not wish to jackhammer any of it to dig in a pond. The solution? Make use of an old bathtub or build your pond on top of the concrete using bricks, rocks and an old tractor or truck tyre.
The Soil
Soil is fundamental but don’t despair if yours is not ideal. Most Australian soils lack something. You can, if you wish, spend hundreds of dollars on soil tests. Alternatively, check out your soil yourself - is it full of life, particularly of the wormy variety? If it is not - it needs organic matter at the very least. Soil pH, or the acidity or the lack thereof, is also important enough to test for because it determines the availability of minerals. Bare soil is a no-no in the tropics and the subtropics, so mulch is important in these areas. Growing your own leguminous mulch is one of the best methods of soil improvement anyway. Think about improving soil quality through what you put on top of the soil and let the earthworms incorporate (an ancient practice going under such modern brand names as sheet mulching, no dig gardening and the magic of mulch).
Loosen compacted soil with a garden fork. Drainage is also important, as most trees like good drainage. Poor drainage may be a matter of poor soil texture (which can be improved) and/or topography (which might be difficult to change). Clay soils might appreciate the addition of sand and vise versa, but it is also hard to go wrong (in the longer term) with the addition of organic matter (general panacea for all soil problems). Rock dusts (quarry wastes) or even soil from somewhere else may supply the minerals that your soil lacks. Soil from elsewhere may also contain microorganisms missing from your soil - if you chance upon a tree growing better than your own of the same variety, take a handful of soil from underneath it and if you are lucky you may have acquired some beneficial bacteria and/or fungi. To a large extent if you look after your soil, your plants will look after themselves.
Getting It All In
In a small area, the main concern is space. Following the recommendations of your local agricultural inspector or the directions on seed packets might leave you just enough room for one small tree and a lettuce plant in a small backyard. However, small areas can be intensively planted as they can be (relatively) intensively cared for. Getting it all in is a matter of going up, going down, going sideways, and going with the flow (the McKenna theory of lateral gardening).
Going Up
This is a matter of using your vertical or high spaces as a growing support (or creating some where they do not exist) Consider even the roof; around the world many do. Overhangs can be the location of hanging trellises. High fences are natural trellises, as are houses and retaining walls, ‘feral’ or pioneer trees, balconies, chook houses, garages or even old clothes lines past their prime. The vine is the plant category invented to take advantage of natural or artificial trellises, to insulate, to shade, to beautify and to cool. Chicken wire, spread over surfaces, hanging down, pinned up or on any type of framework is the substance created to give the vine a home.
Plants of various heights, a balcony, or pots of various heights, can make the most of a scarce commodity like sunlight or horizontal space. Mounds, and such constructions as herb spirals also make the most of space by incorporating a vertical element into an otherwise uninspiring horizontal surface. Trees intent on taking over the yard can be kept small and productive (and their fruit within reach) by being potted, or tip and/or root pruned. Vertical stacking is the technical term for the art of putting things on top of each other - sheet mulching on concrete, vines on trees, beehives on roofs, ponds on top of spirals, gardens on roofs, bureaucrats in big tall buildings in city centres. Often the main limits are a lack of imagination and the willingness to experiment.
Going Down
Underground is the unseen dimension. Some plants feed deep and some feed shallow and so can be planted close together. Not enough soil depth? Why not dig out paths to subsoil level and build up topsoil elsewhere with the soil? Ponds are an obvious way of going down productively; a flow can be created between ponds at different levels. Ponds can also be terraced internally to suit the differing depth requirements of various plants. Water can be an extremely productive medium; rather than persist with a drainage problem area, why not turn it into a water-based garden, digging some areas down to create ponds and raising better drained mounds in other areas. Likewise, where drainage is poor but there is some slope, a chisel plough or like implement can be used to direct subterranean water from where it is not needed to where it might be more useful.
It is preferable to try and trap nutrients and water that naturally escape your system. You can use deep or spike rooted plants which can then be harvested as mulch - leucaena and comfrey are good examples. Water running down a slope to waste may be caught in contour depressions or into a hole to water a specific tree a short distance downhill. In sandy soils, where the water runs straight through, it may pay to bury subterranean water containers. And although it may be heresy to the local council, it is a fact that roof water and many needed nutrients are directed down subterranean pipeways to unproductive or destructive ends in river and seas. If possible this flow should be interrupted and the water tank and occasional piddle in the garden be considered useful subversion.
Going Sideways
This is the art of horizontal stacking, fitting more into less. Classic examples are the keyhole bed or its derivative, the mandala garden, where you get more access with less path; and the banana circle, where a single compost heap and watering point keep multiple plants happy. Edge is a useful concept here; wiggly edges - to ponds, garden beds and any ‘boundary’ - give more horizontal space, greater productivity and more interest to the system. Going sideways is also about connecting the elements and having them serve more than one purpose; as in Bill Mollison’s Parable of the Chicken. A mulberry is both chook and human food - why not plant it in the chook pen? A pigeon pea is potentially food, a mulch source and a soil improver - best incorporated in a garden as all three. It is hard to imagine a more multipurpose object than a chicken - egg and fertiliser producer, weed, pest and scraps eater, garden hoe, pet or, in a mutually exclusive use, Christmas dinner. In a small backyard, totally free-range chickens are usually garden destroyers; some form of confinement in a run is usually necessary.
Companion planting is an example of the same principle - nature seems to demonstrate that monocultures are preferred only by pests and modern agriculture. Background reading, observation around your area and some judicious experimentation are the way to find out what goes with what. Intensive vegetable gardens and mature trees do not generally go together so allow for each separately at the planning stage.
Going With
This is the Zen dimension, making the best of what is or turning problems into solutions. Very few of us inherit a blank slate with perfect soil, aspect and no problem plants, structures, conditions or neighbours. Rather than change the problem soil, why not find plants or uses suited to it, for example, blueberries in acid soil, ponds in poor drainage areas. Problem trees can be ready-made trellises, or can be brought down gradually through top and root pruning and turned into mulch as you go. Excess wind can be diverted to useful purposes as well as being blocked or impeded. Light or dark colouring, whether of leaves or walls, can reflect or absorb sunlight. As for neighbours, very few can remain hostile in the face of gifts of eggs, fruit or honey; this can be a beginning to co-operative actions on other fronts such as noise, traffic and community facilities.
Sometimes, it is just the mindset that is at fault; a whole destructive industry is based on paranoia about weeds, defined as plants we don’t want. However, weeds can also be thought of as soil protectors, indicators or improvers, many are food (for people, chooks, bees and pest predators) and most make good mulch and compost. An even more destructive industry is devoted to pests, seemingly defined as the entire insect population of the planet. Pests can be redefined as a vital signal of imbalance, as a tolerable nuisance on the way to generating its own solution if left alone, as predator (bird, fish, frog, insect and elsewhere, human) food, or as pollinators, scavengers or self motivated secateurs.
In transforming your backyard you may also like to create a recycling system. This may include recycling grey water, food scraps and/or excess produce. If you have space for small animals and/or poultry you will find that they handle most of the scraps, otherwise all scraps can be put in the compost. Chooks do not eat onions, garlic, citrus skins, tea or coffee. Most plain paper can be used for sheet mulching. Leftover cardboard can be used for pathways and other materials which are slow to break down can be ’slow composted’ in a banana or paw paw circle.
Continuing to Learn
This has been but a brief flit through backyard possibilities. Remember, a welter of additional information is available through books, courses and from other backyard gardeners. However, your greatest teacher is likely to be your own backyard - if you get down there and interact with all your senses. Much of the most productive time spent in a garden is not that spent digging and working but that spent sitting and contemplating.
Thanks for the invitation!
Just received an invitation to contribute to this blog. Thank you Flora. I'm spending a LOT of time in my greenhouse and, as the days grow warmer, more time in the garden. You can see pix of my greenhouse at
Winter Gardening in Southern Indiana
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