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In the scheme of permaculture food production, harnessing the most out of nature whilst using its own attributes, creating plant guilds ranks pretty high up there. Most of us know them in simplified forms such as the three sisters—corn, beans and squash—or companion plantings like carrots and onions or tomatoes and basil. While these combinations are great things to be familiar with, the larger lesson is learning to create more systemic guilds on our own.

Obviously, it is much more beneficial to us, as growers of food and designers of edible landscapes, to recognize the pattern of plants that group together nicely as opposed to learning a few complimentary sets. In essence, wouldn’t it be great to simply know how to make our own, personalized guilds, to be able to effectively combine plants suitable to our respective environments rather than trying to plant an apple tree guild in the tropics or bananas in Canada?

Well, I’m quite certain that Big Bill and Dapper Dave, the co-originators of permaculture, would shout enthusiastic “yeas” in response to this question. The idea has always been to take what works—the guilding system—and translate that around the globe. Let’s leave bananas to the tropics and apples to the temperate, but we can find them climate appropriate plants with which to mingle. So, then, from that perspective, what makes a good guild?

THE CENTERPIECE

In the largest scale of things, a guild starts with a centerpiece, a tall and often widespread overstory tree. These are enormous trees that tower of everything. Though it may take several years, perhaps a decade or more, they produce food on an equally massive scale. They are the very trees that, in the end, will be the ceiling of the food forest, and it is with their success in mind that the guild is being created.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permaculture, Climate & Survival

October 23, 2015

Permaculture, Climate & Survival

SUMMARY: From 15th Annual International Permaculture Convergence in London, September 9th, 2015: “Cool Talk” by Albert Bates from The Farm in Tennessee. Albert interviews Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins. Australian permaculturalist Rosemary Morrow tells us Western permies are the minority, compared to East Asia, India, Africa, and the Pacific Islands.

WELCOME

If you don’t know what permaculture is when we start, you will by the end of this intensive radio feature.

Download or listen to this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (56 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)

Or listen right now on Soundcloud!

ALBERT BATES

Albert Bates is the author of books like “The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change” and “The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook: Recipes for Changing Times”. He is the host of “The Great Change” blog at peaksurfer.blogspot.ca.

But that just touches the surface. Formerly an environmental lawyer, Bates is one of the long-time residents of the Tennessee intentional community “The Farm“. That’s where so many great alternative ideas and low-tech solutions are created. We last had Albert on Radio Ecoshock for an interview on January 29th, 2014. Find the blog for that show here. Or you can download or listen to that previous interview here.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Flowing Toward Abundance

October 22, 2015

Flowing Toward Abundance

Over the last year or so, a neighbor has stocked up eight or ten piles of firewood in his yard, probably fifteen or twenty cords. What’s he going to do with it all? The house has a wood stove, but the family mostly uses the furnace, and burns wood only occasionally to get that cozy, fire-heated feel. It’s going to take them a decade or more to go through all that wood. Some of it is split and stacked, while much of it is strewn over a substantial chunk of their yard.

The wood comes from another neighbor’s multi-acre eucalyptus grove. Some of the trees are huge—three or more feet in diameter, a hundred feet tall. The landowner, Lyn, can pull out seven or eight properly chosen big trees each year and still replace all that biomass in the next year’s growth. It strikes me as a sustainable yield. Several neighbors rely on her for their winter wood; the lot pumps out a good fifteen cords a year, and in our mild climate, you can heat a 2000-square-foot house using only wood by burning about a cord and a half.

The point of my little tale is this: My neighbor with the giant woodpile is thinking that the most secure source of wood is the store of it in his yard. But—to put it in systems language—that’s focusing on stocks over flows. We tend to do that in this culture. However, the real wood storage is the woodlot in Lyn’s yard: the standing, growing trees, getting bigger each year, healthy and enlarging rather than rotting and getting punky on the ground.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permaculture: Regenerative – not merely Sustainable.

October 21, 2015

Permaculture: Regenerative – not merely Sustainable.

Introduction.

September 2015 saw the International Permaculture Conference, held in London followed by the Convergence, which occupied 6 days at Gilwell park, on the Essex-London border, where practitioners of the discipline gave presentations and workshops on various aspects of this growing art, which is a sustainable design system intended to emulate the principles of living ecosystems. While it has been emphasised that such terms as sustainable development, and sustainable agriculture, are really oxymorons, since neither untrammeled growth nor our present form of industrial food production can be maintained in perpetuity, permaculture has a value-added factor that extends beyond what might be merely maintained or sustained, which is the quality of regeneration.All sustainable solutions are unsustainable over the longer term, if they are not also intrinsically regenerative.

Nature offers the ultimate example of a design that is both sustainable and regenerative, and it is logical to appeal to natural principles for solutions to many of our current problems. This is sometimes taken to mean that we need adopt more “simple” lifestyles, abandoning our technology in the process, but the reality is more complex. Within a broader perspective of Regenerative Design, permaculture identifies the elements of sustainable living which are harmonious with nature. Discordant practices which lead, e.g. to soil erosion fret the environment, and are neither sustainable nor regenerative, but degenerative.

Regenerative versus sustainable.

That which is sustainable maintains what already exists, but does not restore (eco)systems that have been lost. The word “sustainable” strictly means “self-sustaining” but is often understood, particularly in the media and by the general public, to merely mean “able to last” or “the capacity to endure.” This has been represented, humorously, by the example of two men talking together. One asks the other, “How’s your marriage going?” To which the other man replies, rather dejectedly, “Well, it’s sustainable.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Burning Down the House

October 21, 2015

Burning Down the House

“To address the risk of catastrophic wildfire and improve air quality, the District has teamed with other public and private stakeholders to … sequester carbon from biomass waste in a highly stable biochar, and produce renewable energy from the energy-rich byproduct syngas. “

It is no secret we live in house on fire.This December in Paris world leaders will meet for the 21st time in 22 years in an ongoing attempt to form a bucket brigade and put out the fire. Each time the fire is larger and less easy to control, and each time they end up going home without throwing a single drop of water. Among the issues are where the buckets are, who will be at the front of the line and who at the back, whether those less responsible for starting the fire can opt out of the work, or even rekindle the fire if it starts to lag, and whether, on a cost-risk-benefit analysis, it might be better to let it burn for a few more years before taking time away from profitable economic activities.

At the outskirts of this debate will be those of us in the UN Observer community who are yelling at the muddled delegates standing around watching the fire to please, will you, just do something! Of course, among the screaming rabble will be those who are quite certain there is no problem and doing nothing is the right course, and those who have placed their fate and the world’s in the hands of an all-knowing bearded Superman who can be relied on to save His chosen, even if everything else goes up in smoke. Their voices will blend with ours to make the cacophony even harder to parse.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Toby Hemenway: Scaling Permaculture Principles To Other Systems

October 19, 2015

Toby Hemenway: Scaling Permaculture Principles To Other Systems

Offers promise for energy, social & economic systems

When Chris was out for our event with Robb Wolf in northern California last month, we paid a visit to Singing Frogs Farm along with a group of Peak Prosperity members. Adding to the outing’s embarrassment of riches, permaculture expert Toby Hemenway joined in.

We saw much that day that inspired us about the regenerative and productive impact humans can have on their farmland when using wise soil management techniques and leveraging natural systems.

Now, of course, not everyone has an 8-acre farm in the country to apply these practices to. Does that mean that permaculture is only relevant to rural farmers?

Not all all, says Hemenway. He has just released a new book, The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience which explains how individuals, as well as society as a whole, can apply the same principles underlying permaculture to improve most if not all of the systems our way of life depends on:

There have been advances on several fronts, and one is that we are starting to get good data now. There were a lot of claims made in permaculture that were based on more theory in the early days, 20, 25 years ago. We thought this should work it is a great idea and people would sometimes talk as if it had worked when we really didn’t have good data. Now we know a lot more about what does work. We have toned down some of the rhetoric and are trying to be more fact based.

But another one of the huge developments is the big understanding that what we have learned in the garden: When you design ecologically sound systems for food you learn the same principals and the same guidelines for designing pretty much anything else using ‘all systems’ thinking.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Inspiration through practice: How to start a regenerative farm

October 14, 2015

Inspiration through practice: How to start a regenerative farm

Digging ditches and planting trees across the middle of your fields? Most farmers would think you’re mad. But Nigel Griffiths is a man on a mission and not afraid to challenge farming orthodoxy. A year ago he moved to the 30-acre Landews Meadow Farm on the North Kent Downs and started by investing in a wind turbine – the first step in his vision of a sustainable self-reliant farm.

Nigel and his family began farming with no previous experience. They were inspired by what they heard on a permaculture course and by examples from Mark Shepard of New Forest Farm and Joel Salatin of Polyface farms. A year on, they are producing high quality free-range eggs, woodland-raised rare breed pork, pasture-raised chicken and duck, and honey. More products are lined up for the future. This type of ‘regenerative’ agriculture aims to increase and sustain productivity by restoring and enhancing ecosystem processes – in contrast to most modern farming systems, which rely on external inputs. Within the context of organic farming, regenerative agriculture is designed specifically to build soil health and to regenerate depleted soils. With increasing awareness of widespread land degradation, more farmers are realising that the health and productivity of their farms rely on soil fertility and they are seeking methods to address this.

To hear more about Landews Meadow and the example it sets, I went on the Regenerative Agriculture Start-up – Systems, Processes, Sales and Marketing workshop and farm tour organised by RegenAg UK. The organisation was set up in 2011 to connect experts in regenerative practices from around the world as well as around Britain with farmers and smallholders across the country. It runs a range of courses and events about soil health and farming methods, which are accessible for the expert and novice alike.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beautiful 1-Acre Small-Scale Permaculture Farm

October 7, 2015

Beautiful 1-Acre Small-Scale Permaculture Farm

A tour of Limestone Permaculture Farm in New South Wales, Australia. The 1 acre property has been developed into a productive permaculture farm that is currently helping to feed around 50 families. The tour includes a look at the orchard, caravan farm gate, chicken and duck areas, and the shade house.

Limestone Permaculture Farm is a highly productive small acre property, designed & operated on permaculture principles & located in the beautiful Stroud Valley NSW.

Here you can undertake workshops & courses on a farm that exhibits practical examples of most permaculture techniques, along with chemical free market gardening, farmgate sales, passive building systems, health, happiness & much more..!

Our Farm... The Early Days 2010 / 2011 — Our Farm…
The Early Days
2010 / 2011

Our Farm... 2014 / 2015 — Our Farm…
2014 / 2015

They have just entered their sixth year on our wonderful property showcasing what is possible in a short time frame whilst working fulltime.

Brett is running a Introduction to Permaculture course on his site. For bookings and details please click here.

For more information about the work Brett and Nici are doing please visit:

Limestone Permaculture Farm

On Facebook,

Limestone Permaculture

Two Men and a Pumpkin Farmgate (name is based on two small acre farms supplying the farmgate)

Happen Films on Youtube

Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment?

October 5, 2015

Aquaponics01

Can a Tableful of Food be Produced Economically in an Urban Environment?

The reality has always been that it takes land to grow crops…no matter the type of crop. People need certain nutrients (protein, carbohydrate, roughage, and others) to thrive and all come from crops that are presently grown on arable land. The problem is that as the population increases, the amount of land available for crop production decreases. But, more people also mean the need to produce more food. It is a circular problem and it requires a solution.

Since land is needed to grow crops, it has been difficult to produce what is needed in urban areas. According to United Nations estimates 66% of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050. These people will need a means of producing some of their own food because more arable land will be used for housing.

Aquaponics is among the possible solutions to this problem.

WHAT IS AQUAPONICS?

The term is the portmanteau of “aquaculture” and “hydroponics”. Fish snails and various types of crustaceans have been farmed and harvested for many years. A farmer builds a small pond, introduces the animals and induces growth with proper nutrition. The ponds are naturally aerated and waste is disposed of via runoff. Hydroponics is a means of using water as a growth medium for plants rather than soil. When the two are combined, the waste products of the fish become plant food (with a little help from naturally occurring bacteria) and the plants serve to help aerate and filter water that is recirculated to the fish.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Resilience and Collapse: Notes from Cyprus Part Two

October 5, 2015

Resilience and Collapse: Notes from Cyprus Part Two

In early 2014, I interviewed my cousin, Sofia Matsi, a newly minted permaculture designer and sustainability/resilience activist who lives on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. Last year, Sofia related her experience of the all-but-complete collapse of the Cyprus economy in 2013 and her attempts, with others, to spark a movement for resilience and local self-reliance.

In this follow-up interview a year and a half later, Sofia describes how the explosion of interest and activity in permaculture, natural building, sustainability, resilience and relocalization in Cyprus is giving her renewed hope for the island’s future.

Cyprus is a tiny nation, but when its banking system collapsed from overexposure to Greek debt, it sent a chill through through the world economy: for the first time in living memory, a percentage of bank deposits were confiscated as part an agreement with EU leaders to bail out the country. This precedent threw into question not only the viability of the Euro currency and the European Union itself, but of the security of bank savings for ordinary people across the world.

Cyprus is comprised of an 80 percent Greek, 18 percent Turkish population; it has been de facto partitioned since the Turkish army invaded in 1974, taking over the northern 40 percent of the country. In 2004, Cyprus became part of the European Union.

Over the past 40 years, the intractability of “The Cyprus Problem” has puzzled and and confounded generations of peacemakers and diplomats, as recurring talks between representatives of the two sides collapsed, again and again.

Recent developments, though, have raised the hopes of many residents on the island; new negotiations between Cyprus president Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akinci, have been described by some observers as the most hopeful since the invasion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Groundwater Recharging

September 22, 2015

Groundwater Recharging

It’s a rainy Monsoon day.

Today, it’s water, water everywhere, but soon there will not be a drop to drink. Think forward to April & May. Dry times ahead. And for some, water problems could come as early as February & March.

Every monsoon, Goa receives around 3000mm of Monsoon rainwater.

That’s a lot. In fact, it’s plenty, and more. So why are we faced with dwindling water tables, empty wells, the “need” for damaging bore wells to compete with all the other wells, and the resulting mafioso-like sale and tanker transport of fresh water?

Water is one of the most important resources we have. It is the beginning of all life, and if poorly managed, can lead to drought or devastating floods, bringing life to an abrupt end.

Often the instant reflex to water falling on land is, “Quick! Get rid of it!”. Every effort is made to keep the property “dry”, to prevent water from entering the property from higher points, and ensure the speedy drainage off the property on lower points. You can see this applied in apartment blocks in urban settings where the spaces are entirely paved, in gated complexes, in single-family homes, gardens, and surprisingly, even across paddy fields and other agricultural lands. A glaring and painful example is the paddy field in front of our home, that had a long ditch carved into it a few years ago to carry so much of the water away.

But what happens next? Does the water just get rerouted to another place to cause havoc? Or does it continue racing down and out through nalas (storm-water drains) and other drains, across fields (many fallow), into bursting rivers and straight out to sea, where it’s of no use to people, land or animals?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Food Crisis: Problem is the Solution

September 14, 2015

Food Crisis: Problem is the Solution

(Subscribe to World Policy Journal here)

From the Fall 2015 Issue “Food Fight“

PARIS—Nestled in a valley in the northern French countryside of Normandy, the Bec Hellouin farm, once the first permaculture farm in France, produces some 800 varieties of fruits and vegetables. In 2004, world travelers and teachers, Perrine and Charles Hervé-Gruyer, decided to turn their energies and talents to farming. Their acres of intensive polyculture fields, two greenhouses, two mandala gardens for growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers coexist with orchard-based agroforestry providing berries and fruits on this property. The farm landscape includes several ponds and a river, as well as Mérens horses, a hardy race from the Pyrenees; mini Shetland ponies; sheep from the island of Ouessant; donkeys from the Cotentin Peninsula near Cherbourg; pigs from Bayeux; and an innumerable assortment of rabbits, hens, geese, ducks, and guinea fowl.

But the real experiment that carries enormous promise for global, small-scale agriculture came over a three-year period ending last year. A garden area of a quarter acre was carved out and planted using the most advanced permaculture techniques. In a single year, this plot produced €52,000 ($57,200) worth of output for 1,400 hours of work, for an effective salary of €20 ($22) an hour. With this kind of output globally, there would be little or no threat of hunger no matter how rapidly the population of our planet expands. It raises many questions obviously, and one that especially concerns me—whether microfarming is a solution to the global food problem.

This experiment could seem esoteric, limited to a few insiders or lunatics, yet it is united by the deeper consciousness it reaches and the issues it addresses. The foundations, however, rest on some deeply involved individuals, each looking for answers and a method to tackle new issues. The answers, the methods they uncovered, have turned into deep convictions supported by their experiences and innovations.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Permaculture as a Method for Ecological Healing

September 9, 2015

Permaculture as a Method for Ecological Healing

MAUI CASE STUDY WITH NATIVE PLANTS AND STREAM RESTORATION.

It may not seem readily apparent when viewing scenic photos, or strolling along the beach shoreline if you’ve been there, but something like 90% of Hawaii’s species are invasive. In other words, a species had no chance of getting to these isolated islands–and adapting to its new environment to become a new species over time–unless it could swim, fly, crawl out of the water, or hitch a ride on something else that could do so.

But first, we should talk about the difference between invasive species, native species, and endemic species.

Endemic species are those who evolve alongside other species gradually, to develop symbiotic relationships and interdependence with other species within its climate. They are oftentimes found solely in niche ecosystems, dependent on the unique conditions of that unique region.

Native species are those brought to a region by human cultures as they roamed and settled long ago, and have long adapted to the climates they are known to be, well, natives to. The relevance of native plants to the indigenous culture is that they are generally central to its politics, and integral to the culture and social structure.

One may be wondering how native species and invasive species vary if, indeed, there are examples of both that are culturally important, both historically and today. The difference lies in the careful balance the ecosystem maintains.

Invasive species generally take over the landscape quickly and choke out other species, leading to a stark imbalance and deprivation of species that are critical to the life systems of other species. They tend to share characteristics such as adaptability to change, hardiness, dominance, and a prolific method of spreading and exponifying their numbers. They also tend to show up uninvited where humans have disturbed and modified the landscape–roadsides, parking lots, your lawn, etc.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Permaculture City: Cities as Complex Systems

September 8, 2015

The Permaculture City: Cities as Complex Systems

The following sections are excerpted with permission from Chapter 1 of Toby Hemenway’s new book The Permaculture City, published by Chelsea Green.

When a permaculturist sees words such as “function” and “synergy,” it sets off lightbulbs in his or her head. Function, for example, indicates a relationship, a connection between two or more elements. A road functions to move traffic, thus the road has a relationship with vehicles, and it mediates the movement—that is, it makes connections—between the traffic, its origin, and its destination. Knowing a function, in turn, leads us to identify the items and processes necessary to fill that function and also points to the yields created when that function is filled. Thinking in terms of functions, then, is a powerful leverage point, because it identifies needs, yields, relationships, and goals, and it helps us spot blockages, missing elements, buildup of waste, and inefficiencies in the various flows and linkages that are part of that function’s workings.

This means that when we look at cities, their residents, and the other components of urban life in terms of their functions, we can spot the factors that influence how well they are able to perform those functions. Then we can study, understand, and direct those factors and influences in ways that will create and enhance the functions and properties of cities that are beneficial, such as community-building public plazas, parks, and structures; open and supportive marketplaces; and habitat-creating green space; as well as human elements such as responsive policy processes. We can also spot and damp down the negative factors. Once we’ve done this, the next step is to evaluate, to see how well our changes have moved us toward a more livable, and life-filled, environment. That is the heart of design.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How To Make Your Own Dairy-Free Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt

September 6, 2015

How To Make Your Own Dairy-Free Milk, Cheese, and Yogurt

It’s not always the most popular subject to broach within public and/or permaculture circles, but the fact of the matter is that in many, many recent studies dairy is being linked to several chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular issues, cancer, and digestive woes. It’s no wonder, really, as we are the only animal to regularly consume the milk of another, and the only that ingests milk (or milk products) into adulthood.

Of course, dairy has long been a part of the Western diet, and many of us cling desperately to things like cheese and yogurt or a splash of cream in our coffee. Truth be told, the majority of people who are devoted to dairy, especially those with animals specifically raised for milk, won’t soon be giving it up, but perhaps it’s time to start recognizing some of the healthy alternatives out there.

Even if a 100% dairy-free diet isn’t in the cards, knowing how to make all-natural dairy-free milk, cheese, and yogurt can’t hurt, and it provides a new multitude of flavors and dishes to bring to the self-sustainable table. The following recipes are healthy, homemade alternatives that use a variety of sources to create dairy-free “dairy” products. They are not an indictment of anything but simply a new way of looking at something familiar.

DAIRY-FREE MILK

Porridge and milk (Courtesy of Rachel Hathaway)

What we are after can really aid in deciding what kind of milk will work best. Is it cream for coffee? A smoothie? Baking? Each base, everything from nuts to grains to legumes to coconuts, performs a little differently, just as the varying types of milk (skim, 2%, full fat, cream) operate differently. Essentially, though, whatever the foundation is, the same techniques apply: The base is ground into a powder and mixed with water, often with something to add a tinge of sweetness.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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