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Permaculture
is a design science
based on three simple ethics:
care for the earth
care for people
share the surplus
Permaculture also has core principles
They guide us in creating sustainable abundance
Nature is our model in Permaculture
The meander of a river
teach us how to design a path
We are always looking at connections and flows
designing relationships
looking where things are in relationship to another,
like putting the plants and the herbs that we need most often
close to the house
catching water, apply in the landscape
and storing it so it can gravity feed down
we favor biological resources
over the use of fossil fuels heavy chemicals
The low carbon footprint
The wheat bed will purify wastewater
and a living machine, like this one in Findhorn,
treats our sewage with plants and algae
Plants catch and store the sun's energy
and so can we
using the energy of sun
and wind
and we celebrate diversity
because diversity gives us resilience
and true abundance
but to see how these principles work in practice
let's visit a permaculture designer
meet Eric Olsen
using the classic designer's tool
the hammock
Eric is one of the key teachers for Earth Activist Training
and he also has his own company, Permaculture Artisans
Eric's own garden is based on flowing patterns and diversity
in it, every plant and every element serves more than one function
Calendula not only looks pretty but you can eat it
it attracts beneficial insects and is a medicinal plant
used in healing ointments and salves
and a core principle of sustainability
is to obtain a yield
Eric definitely knows how to do that
Here is a food forest he designed
on the terraced hill side in Sonoma County
It is based on many mutualy beneficial associations of plants, that we call guilds (guilds)
A forest has many layers of growth
from the canopy down to the understorey
the low shrubs and the roots
So, we are getting our layers, right?
So, this is gonna be upper canopy in this part of the food forest
this is lower canopy
and then we have our penstemon and our insectory
hummingbird attracting and insectory perennials, creating another layer,
We've got some lower layer, with this yarrow,
and then we have our clover,
a nitrogen fixing ground cover
which is pretty much a perennial cover
in most of the terraces
this clover is not getting any irrigation
except for surplus water,
that's coming from the irrigation system on the berms,
These were planted in February
So you work your soil correctly, you put the right soil,
you slow water down, you design correctly
and you gonna have... I mean when we got these... these trees,
and Laura can testify,
I've pruned them back to a stick
then we have: pine nuts, hazelnuts,
wallnuts,
we have asian peer, apple,
plums, peaches,
nectarines,
several species of blueberries, persimmons,
figs,
many other types of plants, cornelian cherry,
cherry, mulberry,
are all in this system,
Go see for yourself
On your farm, you always have a percentage of plants whose purpose is building soil,
because there are so many plants that are drying nutrients up,
then you are building with minerals accumulator, nitrogen-fixers
and here we have chickens, the swell composting system,
and we will have the clovers, so we'll see how is done this cycle,
which is a dialogue, a communication
and we will play on this concept and see how it works,
but I think that will work well,
especially considering that we will introduce the chickens
and will continue to see the kind of growth that we saw in the first year,
The goal is how do we transform this system
from having to introduce inputs each year
and do not want to have to bring tons of compost and wood chips each year
we want a system to provide the soil in nutrients needs and suppress weeds for itself.
Gardens
that function like a forest,
that generate their own fertility,
catch their own water,
systems that can meet human needs and regenerate the land around us.
That's the goal of Permaculture
When we see ourself as part of nature, when we work with nature, nature will work with us.