Permaculture

[teonanacatl]

I have a dream (like many Im sure) of a large property with large food forests, animals and peace. Ok so thats me fantasising, lets get down to the nitty gritty. Ive read Mollison's book and researched a lot around permaculture and here is the thing, I see many many problems and very very few excellent examples.

- Mollison's view of producing food forests is a great idea, where there is considerable land available. In a small space I think a conventional market garden would outperform it.

- Despite its claims permaculture does require a lot of work. Permaculture properties rely on a lot of volunteering, interns etc.

- Permaculture properties/ groups seem to make their money from running expensive permaculture courses and consulting on permaculture design, not from selling produce or living self sustainably.

- Permaculture properties/ groups use market style gardens when they have to produce food for $.

- A lot of aspects of permaculture are made out to be cheap when in reality there is considerable cost.

- Despite claims of a closed system blah blah, there are considerable inputs required.

To me gardening sometimes seems like fishing for food. People spend so much money on bait, tackle, fuel and time that they may as well get their fish from the shop. I do understand its a hobby etc and thats why people pay. Me I have a 50m drag net that cost $300, in which I can catch 30kg+ fish at a time and fill my freezer.

I garden as a hobby so Im willing to spend money on it but in reality I hold no false beliefs. My staples are crops that grow well with little maintenance and that dont suffer from pests. In the end Ill trade and buy many plants before I find another that I can add to my staples.

Im wandering from the point. Anyway if you know of any good permaculture properties that disagree with what Ive said please point me to them Im keen to see

Edited July 21, 2013 by teonanacatl

[Statakak]

Yeah I got that book too, but I didn't finish reading it. It wasn't realy what I was looking for. Too idalistic and not so practical.

Like you said, it seems to be more about selling the concept. The word "Permaculture" sounds like a broard term to encompas the diffrent asspects of environmentaly, economicly, and socialy sustainable agroculture however it is not. The word "Premaculture" is just the name that some guys gave to very specific, fairly impractical, and highly idealogical concept that they had made up.

-OK that may seem a bit mean, but realy that's how it is.

On the other hand if you have a block of land that you do want to practice environmentaly, economicly, and socialy sustainable agroculture on then you should checkout "Agroforestry". Although the name may make people think 'timber plantation' it's not. Agroforestry is the practace of growing a mix of plant species (and even animals) including trees, espesialy in a way that ulilizes charictoristics that enhance eachother, such as companion planting and soil improvement etc.

The main ideas behind Agroforestery are sustainability, improving productivity, acheiving a fair degree of self suficeintcy, and the production of some salable products.

This modle is based on and includes most non-industrial (and pre-industrial) farming practices but explores the utilization of many and varied ways that these practaces can be improved on and tailored to diffrent climates and social situations. See wikipedia, and there's heeps of good info in the net.

As far as Permaculture working you and I both bought one of their books so it worked on us

p.s sorry to anybody who's offended, I don't meen to be obnoxious towards permaculture, and nodoubt many people have been inspired by it, but

after investegating the concept I feel that its merit is limeted (however others find it more interesting and inspirational than i did) and...um... well... sorry

[ThunderIdeal]

some interesting thoughts you have.

i guess permaculture has already come along and had a big influence and needn't necessarily be viewed as some singular entity/doctrine. the more hands on stuff was only a gathering of useful techniques from around the world anyway, i would think of it as some techniques to take or leave as you see fit in fact the books actually say "your property might be completely zone one..... or zone one and zone three...."

to rigidly impose a standard permaculture plan onto any peice of land without considering what's available and what your needs are would be disobeying the overarching principles that permaculture stands for.

while a permaculture property can obviously produce money i never considered that it might be used in a proper commercial capacity, the regular farmers are basically much more price competitive and probably have government assistance so you couldn't hope to produce common goods cheaper than them.......... unless that is, environmental chaos sets in and your heirloom varieties and small protected garden plots are suddenly the only crops still growing.

you're probably right about the serious permaculture properties being more of a wanky example than somebodies actual means to survival. i know if i had the chance, my property would probably look like it's own thing but would definitely be inspired by the books.

the courses are only expensive compared to subsidised courses. considering they aren't subsidised the price is probably in the normal range. i'd rather give my money to a permaculture mob in exchange for advice/consultation. if somebody feels like they will need skills and they'd rather not use a book, they might choose a few appropriate tafe modules to fill in any knowledge deficits.

[obtuse]

i have found "permaculture" to be bandied around as a bit of a catch all term to encompass a number of ideas.

And after flicking through the book, i realised it wasnt quite what i was looking for, and in reality some of it was just a common sense approach to management.

I really appreciate these posts, as i havent had a whole heap of experience with "permaculture" per se, and have been considering investigating it deeper, so its nice to hear some criticisms.

But i do wonder to what degree misuse of the term permaculture has caused general confusion with people in general.

[worowa]

It can be a bit of a "cult". I've worked for some Permaculture groups who ignored the 3 ethics which are supposedly the basis of Permaculture-i.e. Care for the Earth, care for the people, return the surplus". Beware of fancy marketing...

There are some awesome examples of Community Permaculture all around the world, focused on helping people and problem solving. Then there are the profiteering marketeers selling themselves.

From my perspective it is a design tool/process, well intentioned and thought provoking. Borrowing good ideas and adapting them to your situation in an organized fashion. More about work minimization than profit maximization. Of course there is work involved. The scale depends on the situation.

Here is a free course http://www.permaculturedesigntraining.com/

[whitewind]

With all due respect, most people without a background without or any prior experience in farming do go into it, however I do see many people jump into permaculture with basically no prior knowledge of how systems really work, so many attempts fail because of some basic thing they didn't realise - like a no weed system means that you can't have a large amount of weed species on the other side of the boundary fence and a huge weed load existing in the soil.

Existing soil types and water availability are often a problem, especially for people who don't have a huge amount of money and experience to find a good plot.

Basically, people are often starting an area from scratch (via some wonderful books) which requires a lot of hard work to become "profitable" whereas many farms have been in existence for a long time, experience and systems already in place, and only minor tweaks or seed variety changes on a year to year basis.

That's my understanding of why permaculture doesn't work. Just remember the problems many of the first organic farms had, and they were just changing the types of chemicals used.. not the entire system.

[whitewind]

Farming is so much more simplified, it's growing one crop on a large scale, on flat land. Easy to learn everything there is to know about growing corn after a while. However, permaculture is extremely multi-faceted - many types of crop, many different landscapes, water sources, aspects, and pests and disease knowledge must be far greater. It's a great system, but really needs a much more knowledgeable type of person to run one effectively. Realistically, one needs to do a degree in horticultural management and an extensive background in horticulture (less so farming) to manage a permaculture system, maybe even a little knowledge of arboriculture too. Permaculture is highly evolved, acting much more like nature's multi-patterns and webs, rather than a simple one size fits all approach of monoculture. It's a brilliant system, therefore it needs brilliant minds, but it's still in it's infancy and we can expect more failures than successes at the start.

[ThunderIdeal]

^ yeah hey

if you're going to have a go at working a quite large area of land you'd seriously want to look into keyline plowing and dam placement. i mention this every time a permaculture thread appears. http://permaculturenews.org/2013/02/22/before-permaculture-keyline-planning-and-cultivation/

[paradox]

i think bill mollison is a very intelligent businessman & my main doubt aboout 'permaculture' is that the institute is a very successful business because it owns the word, in which you have to buy into to apply the word to your own practices. i mostly got over that though & just see it as intelligent business which isn't a bad thing really.. i think the theory is very sound & always was meant to be a very broad interdisciplinary practice with infinite room for evolution & incorporating almost anything.. the concepts are there to be used & improved upon at will

all bill mollisons business aside i really do think the principles are very sound & only limited to our own creativity.. that said, i think a lot of people's interpretation's are cringe worthy..

the style of writing is a bit optimistic & not that easy to read but mollisons manual has a lot of practical technical info that is interesting & possibly quite useful. it's only scratching the surface of whats possible though i think & it's only one blokes perspective on practices that have been developed by humans for probably thousands of years

i agree that you need space for a decent food forest, a few acres really for it to even qualify as a 'forest.' in an average suburban back yard a conventional market garden would definitely out perform it.. perhaps not over the long term though.. forests take up space & light so diversity is harder to achieve in a small space. small spaces you need to be as diverse as possible & maximize light to all layers to be productive..

i think an diverse annual/perennial veg crop incorporating small fruit trees, micro climates for plants with different needs & intelligent use of three dimensional space.. instead of creating a food forest you could effectually create a food forest clearing with fruits, legumes & mulch plants etc around the outside (larger on south side) & dotted around the garden & a diverse vegetable/herb/berry/root crop understory forest glade, & generally apply ecosystemic principles.

there are a lot of initial inputs & costs but if designed well, costs & inputs will dramatically drop off over time & human ingenuity can also surmount a lot of costs, again it's only limited by our own creativity

i'm personally not that interested in small scale. or in going too big, 5 to 50 acres i reckon & intelligent & conscientiously designed earth works are key

[Stillman]

Personally I dislike permaculture gardens. I think the concept is great however they are never done well particularly the community based ones, as most of these places are loaded with posers not gardeners. They are always a mess and full of chaos with outbreaks of various diseases and pests most often yielding very little in comparison to a small scale market garden. There's a few here in Brisbane. All they grow well is Yams , Taro and Cassava ...sorry but who can't do that in my climate. Don't get me wrong I'd love to see a well thought out, nurtured true permaculture based garden farm I just don't believe the hype.

[teonanacatl]

Thanks for the replies! This is productive. I wasnt aiming to offend anyone with my original comments just expressing the weaknesses Ive seen and asking if I was correct in my assumptions.

There are many things I like about permaculture, most have already been brought up here; the creation of a somewhat self sustaining system, ecological practises etc. I do see a use for it. I also see it as what a lot of successful and good farmers and gardeners would have already been doing.

One thing though, I understand but it does annoy me that it can be so broadly defined as anything that works, in order for anything to get better it has to accept and work on its weaknesses. Case in point: Stillman because they are so easy to grow, low maintenance and not to susceptible to pests people would say yams, taro and cassava make a great permaculture garden. Though you eat yams, taro and cassava every day and you'll not think its too great.

Permaculture type gardens are already found through the world, new guinea comes to mind, where they knock down a patch of forest and grow a garden eventually allowing the forest to re grow and the garden slowly disappears.

[whitewind]

The forest garden is an interesting point. It's very different with a society where ownership of land and resources is so critical, a permaculture garden must be self-sustainable as it is impossible to move or evolve greatly once in place, and unless surrounded by and co-existing with the surrounding bush inputs must be made, like water, plants, nutrients etc. because they can't flow in naturally from outside.

Many of the plants touted as sustainable aren't native either, which means a considerable change of soil structure and content and may create a weed problem.

Edited July 22, 2013 by whitewind

[paradox]

i too think most 'permaculture' gardens i've seen are pretty pathetic.. over enthusiastic, clueless urban hippies with not enough space comes to mind but maybe thats just mean.. as long as they're learning something & enjoying themselves. too many clueless cooks always tend to spoil the broth.

it's annoying how words get latched onto & come to equate to something mediocre. it seems to happen to almost everything..

i'm pretty over the word permaculture for that reason & for what a lot of people have said in this thread.

& yeah similar farming practices have been used all over the world for centuries. if you travel around the mountains of Indonesia it's almost nothing but diverse food forest with various livestock foraging in the understory & diverse vegetable crops dispersed throughout.. to say it doesn't work is ridiculous, just don't get turned off by a bunch of white fella's marketing of a word for their own gain..

theres a lot to learn from these traditional farmers & lot that can be improved upon with modern understandings of biology, ecology climate science & botany in general

[Scarecrow]

Permaculture seems like a lot of work when it's small-scale and individual-based.

What I'd love to see is the start of an actual community based on permaculture. Imagine having a little island with a community of likeminded people, all just making a sustainable living for themselves, and helping each other out whenever necessary.

That's the dream for me!

[paradox]

nice dream, until the politics, power struggles, conspiracies, love triangles, sex scandals & back stabbing kick in.

[waterboy 2.0]

I just mash a few permie principles and systems, modern farming, agroforestry,bush rehab, manage game and browsing animals and such to live a bit more in harmony with my environment. Its still agriculture just a different way of meshing systems, and its still hard work.

I enjoy the lifestyle and helps me work part-time, and at times make a bit of "beer" money. Not gunna make me rich, and wont be able to "drop out". Permaculture isn't an end game for me , just to leave the land in better shape and more productive than when I had set roots on it .

I've nearly killed wannabe "permies" in a single weekend ...lol

Got to be clever about what resources the land has to work with, remember even flat , arable land has limitations. Need land with diversity and water, and to kick a lot of things off you need the resource called money. You do need a broad understanding of a lot of things to get a good crack at permaculture, Yet to see a a complete "ecosynthesis"....

A look at a good multiple enterprise farm is not simple to manage I will add, and if I was a farmer I'd probably cry... a lot. My locals are formally better educated than me. When you see a farm using modern agronomy and cutting edge technology it will open your eyes. One trick enterprises are not farming....

...and my book comes out in November, just in time for xmas ...lol 10%discount for SAB members

Edited July 22, 2013 by waterboy

[Scarecrow]

nice dream, until the politics, power struggles, conspiracies, love triangles, sex scandals & back stabbing kick in.

haha... yeah. it's a "dream" for a reason.

[paradox]

never give up on a dream! learn some mind washing & neural re imprinting techniques, you can be a false guru , by-pass those issues & slam hot hippy chicks every day.

or just look damn hard for intelligent & wise enough people to make the undertaking halfway feesable in the long term. not an easy task!

[teonanacatl]

I am kinda living my dream, only thing I want is a better garden. I live in a remote area, by a beach which is pretty much uninhabited till its over run by tourists Jun-Oct. I hunt for meat (pork and beef mostly) and get crayfish from my front door. Crabs, oysters and fish are easily accessed also. I live completely off grid on solar and a generator and pump my water from a soak in the ground.

Literally the only thing I want to add to that is a nice garden. Living on a beach the soil is sand. The two season are wet and dry; the wet season is very wet; the dry season is very dry. Ive got two 4x10m raised garden beds (still filling one with soil) one is full of mulch that has been broken down, the other is half the same with a top layer of low nutrient laterite. The advantage of the laterite is it wets easily whereas the other soil turns very quickly to a hydrophobic black sand. Being sandy below water and nutrients dont hang around long. One garden is full of perennials the other annuals. During the wet most things grow well, other annuals grow well in the dry but by the end of the dry I run low on water and the weak die.

Being where I am I cannot just walk into shops to buy manure and mulch, I have to get it all myself.

I look around me and in terms of a garden I guess I want something that probably is not possible.

[paradox]

organic matter & heaps of it should be your number one priority i reckon man. breakdown is so rapid in the tropics you need to have a ready supply of good mulch to put to ground as it breaks down. perennial crops & trees are definitely the way to go in the tropics as they lock up nutrients before they leech & recycle them as mulch. you need plenty of mulch to account for the fast nutrient cycling & leeching in the rainy season & plenty of mulch during the dry season to retain moisture, encourage healthy fungal webs & bacteria which in turn help to minimize leeching..

[teonanacatl]

Yup I mulch heaps, the mulch is low in nutrients and breaks down to form a hydrophobic soil.

I grow mungbeans, sugarcane and bananas as mulch as well. Lots of mungbeans and other legumes as cover crops. I piss in a watering can and use that on the garden and Im working out a vermiculture toilet to use my waste. After storms I collect seaweed, Ive got pigs that I collect manure from and if Im super keen I can collect about 20L of cow/horse shit a week driving roads.

Ive sprayed heavily with a fungal and bacterial innoculant and have a worm farm that I use the worm juice from.

[waterboy 2.0]

thought aside teo on coastal sand, you should be able to tap into a local aquifer with a simple shallow spear bore to get additional water during the drier period.

The "soak" sounds promising, possibly just the watertable falling when drier(?)

Edited July 22, 2013 by waterboy

[teonanacatl]

There is a bore near here, thats where I get water from when the soak dries, the bore water is terrible and nothing grows. The soak has been dug out a bit this year and Im the only one using it so I reckon that should be alright. Yup water table, runs out under my gardens to the beach so once plants get their roots down its great.

[waterboy 2.0]

sounds like saltwater intrusion over the fresh, if you can get below the floating salt it'll be fresh. But without knowing the conditions it could an xtra 2 metres or 10+ then below the existing bores screen.

On the permie side again I had seen a presentation by Brad Lancaster on "dryland rainwater harvesting' in the US. The concepts are a bit like micro- keyline but have some interesting concepts on getting water banked in the ground. Pretty sure his books are something like Rainwater harvesting for Drylands

EDIT - http://www.harvestingrainwater.com/

yep, he has pinched a few ideas but there are some nice ones developed for keeping water from wet seasons about.

Edited July 22, 2013 by waterboy

[Scarecrow]

never give up on a dream! learn some mind washing & neural re imprinting techniques, you can be a false guru , by-pass those issues & slam hot hippy chicks every day.

or just look damn hard for intelligent & wise enough people to make the undertaking halfway feesable in the long term. not an easy task!