Is permaculture viable?
 

Permaculture is a hot trend right now(at least in theory). Finding a 100% spot on definition of it is hard. At it's most basic I believe it to be, designing a food producing area of land that mimics that which you would find in nature. Is this truly a viable method of growing food for a sustainable living?

Does anyone here have a permaculture type setup in their backyard with pics/details they would like to share. It seems most people talk about how great it is, but actually finding documented examples of them is a different animal all together.

Here are some of my issues with permaculture.

1. The time it takes to design such a setup - A permaculture setup will be heavily reliant on native perennials. Many of which you can't find in stores.
2. The cost involved - perennials aren't cheap.
3. The complexity of such a setup - Where do I even start?
4. THE AMOUNT OF AREA NEEDED.

I caps #4 because I think it is by far the biggest hurdle to make permaculture viable. Ill be the first to admit I don't have a permaculture setup and it seems VERY few do. But I just can't forsee getting the same amount of output from a permie setup as you would from a traditional farm/garden layout.

What are everyone else's thoughts on permaculture?

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I am a huge fan of the concept. What you do depends on your land. My double lot version is integrating laying hens, gardens, and small fruit from a tiny orchard to grapes and berries into a win-win situation for all members.

The hens get food and protection and give high quality egg protein, clean up weeds and bugs, turn the soil, and fertilize. The trees, bushes and vines get care and give fruit.

On larger properties much more can be done. A pond stocked with fish and laying ducks like khaki campbells who give about 300 eggs a year and eat bugs too. (Black Australorpe hens hold the laying record at IIRC 364 eggs a year, but neither is shabby.) A nut tree forest as well as a quick growing firewood forest. Some larger animals, be they sheep, pigs, goats, or cattle.

Hens cannot lay that much on just what they forage, though they forage about half their food, so heavy layers need additional feed, which my double lot has enough space to grow if I needed to. I calculated it for 24 hens because 25 is the least you can order, but I really only want 12 hens and 1 rooster so I can breed chicks. If I order straight run the sweetest disposition rooster would stay and the rest become meat.

I found I could not kill an animal that trusted me, so I might give them to a friend who can. I realize that is a weakness I may not be able to afford, but we found the eggs were all the protein we needed, and fresh eggs from hens that get plenty of greens are delicious.

Anyway, that little system here works. I can't grow coffee or make cheese, but we would not starve. Hopefully I will retain enough income to buy coffee and cheese.

In the winter I would grow kale, swiss chard, and brussels sprouts for the hens and us. My brussels sprouts never got sprouts, but they thrived all winter and got some cabbage worms on some leaves which we would harvest for the hens who love the worms best and the leaves after. We kept the plants going to provide that treat for the hens each day. Well, eventually we had eradicated the worms, so the treats were over. We were glad as we did not want worms on the cabbage later. If you hand pick tomato worms off your plants, hens love them too. It is all very symbiotic, except for the bugs, who get eaten and become eggs and garden fertilizer.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Here is my contribution.

AMfor PM, this was a highly moral, and yet productive statement:

"I found I could not kill an animal that trusted me, so I might give them to a friend who can. I realize that is a weakness I may not be able to afford, but we found the eggs were all the protein we needed, and fresh eggs from hens that get plenty of greens are delicious."

I confess that I am similar. I dislike betrayal full-stop, hence I consider others as I would myself feel, if in that position.

I believe there is no set way to set up 'your' perma-culture. I am into it in a small way, and what I have to offer is by no means the real deal. In fact, my set up is, well, regarded as a joke by the professional and orthodox standards. But it is designed to suit myself and the environment.

The vine fruit that loves heat and can also shade, grows over the patio. I have a worm farm, so all the chooks get is their favourite grain, and that is the hardy, locally prevalent and indigenous wild Oat.

What proliferate native stuff grows in your area, that humans dislike, yet chooks love?

Water is a big thing, and having it nearby, so that if there were a SHTF scenario,you could easily deliver water to the produce, without electricity and
refraining from huge amounts of walking.

Climate is another crucial aspect.

What plants and fruit like lots of sun and what does not? Organise your set up accordingly. The positioning of the sun over your set up, can mean bumper harvests or, more disappointingly, a total annual failure.

Hope this helps.

SH







.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

In some of my permaculture research awhile back I came across this image/layout. This image alone is what really made me think "wow permaculture is awesome"

Permaculture means something different to everyone. This edible landscape would certainly qualify as a permaculture type setup to me.

http://spike/pics/Garden/Edible%20La...-landscape.gif


1. Ornamental cabbage in fall; violas in spring
2. Edging of pot marigolds
3. Sweet woodruff (shade tolerant)
4. Marjoram
5. Daylilies
6. Lingonberries (evergreen and shade tolerant)
7. Iris or garlic
8. Iris or chives
9. Dill
10. Ornamental hot pepper
11. Butterfly weed
12. Bell peppers
13. Variegated leaf sage
14. Stepping stones with creeping or lemon thyme
15. Blueberries
16. Cherry tomatoes
17. Honeyberry
18. Red currant
19. Dwarf crabapple
20. Black currant
21. Cherry plum
22. Dwarf apple
23. Dwarf pear
24. American plum
25. Chokecherry
26. Red raspberries
27. Oregon grape-holly
28. Gooseberry or Elderberry

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I think the concept of permaculture is a good one. There may be some problems with the idea but organizing your garden/farm to let nature do as much work for you as possible is always a good idea. On smaller plots a mixed set up with some of the area set up with perennials and some area done in a more conventional manner is probably the way to go.

Although not strictly a permaculture idea, recycling of human waste into fertilizer is a good idea. For smaller plots it would probably be essential in order to keep up fertility. One point brought up in the urban farming thread was that without outside inputs you would eventually deplete the lands fertility. If you are recycling human waste though then you are pretty much solving that problem.

The only loss of nutrients would be from human consumption. In natural systems fertility is not lost, but the manure and such isn't piped off into river systems either. In fact if you were not 100% living off your land but were maybe buying some staples like wheat you would be bringing in more nutrients then you would lose.

Another thing I would like to set up once I move to my permanent retreat would be an extensive drip irrigation system. Currently I only have a small raised bed set up and watering is one of the biggest time inputs I have noticed. A drip irrigation system fed off of some sort of water storage system on a timer would alleviate much of the effort you have to expend. It also would allow you to leave your land for a few days during dry spells without having crop losses.

Small livestock and orchards also seem like a no brainer to me. You are going to want to keep the grass/weeds down anyway and the manure will fertilize your trees.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

gardener friend of mine has a drip irrigation rigged to his computer through x10 hardware. He can remotely ssh into his computer from work and turn the water on/off. If I had the money it sounds like a pretty fun thing to setup.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I have what I like to eat - venison, pigs, goats for meat. Potatos, green beans, and onions, brussel sprouts, cabbages. Wild garlic. A small apple orchard for hard and soft cider. It's all wild and looks after itself when I am not there for a couple of months, as it has done for a long time before I owned the place and it was wild. I just fence off the good stuff, that I need to keep the other good stuff away from! And some "guerilla-planted" MJ even though I don't smoke it, for barter. Some tobacco as well, I'm a smoker.
The place was already a permaculture, I am the intruder.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Permaculture tends to grow wings

When you include the word "neighbor."

Think out of box.

No garden is an island.

And to have each individual family recreate

The entire food universe is counterproductive.

Is there a dependency doing it this way? Yes,

Absolutely.

What I have noticed over the last couple decades

Is that mutual trust and respect among neighbors

Has damn near disappeared.

However, the horsetraded net yield is much greater

When you practice neighborhood permaculture.

I call it the Zucchini Effect.

scyth

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

You have wild potatoes, brussel sprouts, and green beans?

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I'll address your original questions... I think permaculture is definitely viable even on small plots of land. permaculture is more of a mindset than a set of hard rules. It doesn't take much to start. Read a good book or go to a permaculture class and you can get started even in a suburban residential home lot with some fruit trees, a small garden, a pond, solar panels, chickens or rabbits, a rain barrel, and a couple of trees to help with firewood. If you have several acres, then each area just becomes bigger, especially zones 4 and 5 where you grow a woodlot and wild area.

Permaculture is about inputs and outputs. you try to minimize the inputs that come in from the outside (like store bought fertilizer) and you keep as many of the outputs on the farm (like food and manure and waste). The inputs that do come in, like rainwater and sunlight, are used to their maximum potential.

The goal is to try to achieve a balance between the inputs and outputs that works for your land.

example:
garden -> bugs -> chickens -> fertilizer -> garden

permaculture is also about dividing your space up into zones and sectors. The zones are just a helpful way of managing the relationship between you and the different aspects of your space, and again, its more mindset than hard rules and it can be applied to extremely small tracts of land. The zones can be any shape too, they don't have to radiate out in a set pattern. Sectors are about using nature to your advantage and understanding the winds, weather and such that affect your land.

My favorite quote about permaculture:

Someone says "I have too many ticks on my farm". The permaculturalist replies, "You don't have too many ticks, you have a shortage of guinea fowl !!!".

That's the kind of mindset that typifies permaculture.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Connect with local permaculture networks in your area via internet. Sharing is a vital part of the permie ethic, and that includes sharing seeds, cuttings, etc.

Start by observing. Observe what is already growing in your backyard or local abandoned lots. What is edible? A good bit I am sure, even though you may not recognize it as food just yet. Collect seeds or whole plants, as you know these will do fine with minimal inputs in your location. The complexity of your system will grow over time. It isn't going to happen in month or a year. Think in terms of decades or centuries.

Permaculture isn't only perennials. All the permies I know grow a mix of perennials and annuals. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I take the religious attitude: the bible plainly says "Kill and eat!"

It's ok to love them, but don't forget why you have them.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Kill and eat, yes. It's the way of the world but remember that wasn't how the garden started out. It is the result of man's failure. In the case of chickens I don't think a survivalist can afford to kill and eat, it takes more to raise a chicken for its meat than for the eggs and the eggs pack plenty of nutrition. Just look at the fundamentals. When you clean any bird you end up with a large proportion of things you can't eat like bone, feathers, claws, beaks, many organs, all that stuff. An egg is entirely edible except for a thin shell. Remember the story of the goose that laid the golden egg, it was written by people who actually survived on what they produced.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

The amount of space required is going to vary wildly dependent on the climate/growing season, rainfall, quality of soil, energy needs. I think the easy answer is to double or quadruple the amount of land over and above what appears to be needed, and let the excess stay as a woodlot or grazing area unless/until needed.

I think the big key will be the ability to produce both sufficient food even in bad years, and sufficient to excess energy to meet all needs. I see conservation, solar, wind and biogas combined as the solution for the latter, and recycling of wastes via graywater reuse into a greenhouse and the biogas into fertilizer as helps for the former. I also think you'd be foolish to EXPECT or bet your survival on being able to meet anything near 100% of either. I think the solution is to think like the pioneers and use current technology to improve on it, ie have plenty of preps in case of problems, and at the same time keep trying to make forward progress towards near total independence.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

new-fangled word for a very old concept.

deep ecology and common sense farming have a lot of overlap.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Well I don't know a whole lot about raising chickens but I know a thing or two about turkeys and hunting them. A given patch of ground can only support a certain number of birds. You can produce a lot more egg than bird on that same patch of ground. If you have enough rich land to support all the meat you want to eat that's a good thing, I'm just talking about efficiency.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I agree with that. It's just like deer. If you strategically cull the surplus population the whole herd(or flock) will benefit.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

FWIW -


I'm working my 5 acres in the Pacific Northwest

To the same end.

I'll never live to see the ultimate result,

But I have the joy of building it,

In my own life.

scyth

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

I love that you call it "joy"! Too many people equate it with work.

Re: Is permaculture viable?
 

Only in its strictest definition.

Its about cyclical living. Ideally there is no waste, because what many consider to have no value is usable by something in the life cycle. Your poo is a fly's fine dining, and those flies are attractive to your fish, which produce wastes that your corn loves. As a survivalist your goal of self-sufficiency is obtainable with a cyclic system, though the smart survivalist takes advantage of and plans for other opportunities, such as hunting and the smart storage of surpluses.

If you can do all this with the plants, animals, and insects native to your area, that's fantastic, but it isn't always possible or even desirable.

As a permaculturist you'd have uses for all of that; eating is only one part. Feathers, claws, organs, and beaks can be left out for the flies that the other chickens will eat; you can grind the bones into meal as a soil treatment. Feathers can be composted (the Bokashi method brought up recently seems ideal). As a survivalist you should see that there is no waste. To be sure, it is a lot more effort to raise that bird for meat than for eggs, but the occasional chicken dinner will not leave you in the lurch.