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Permaculture

Ready to dive into learning about permaculture and permaculture principles? If you’re already an organic gardener and are looking for more advanced information and techniques, permaculture may be for you. This page will help you start your own permaculture garden in alignment with permaculture ethics, and permaculture principles!

Permaculture

Permaculture blends the words “permanent” and “agriculture”. It is a design science that uses and blends together the best ideas for living sustainably and sustainable development and has been described as “beyond organic gardening” because it can be used to design entire systems rather than simply gardens. Rainwater harvesting is a great example of this!

Permaculture design

Permaculture design uses ecological principles to create consciously-designed systems which mimic nature while also producing a yield. Systems are designed to be open and yet self-supporting, producing food and other resources while continuing to thrive on their own. Here is a basic description of permaculture, including how the design process works and how permaculture knowledge is transferred.

What is permaculture?

Permaculture was developed by Bill Mollison, in collaboration with David Holmgren. Permaculture is a design science that collects together and combines the best ideas for sustainable living. Effective strategies and tactics from different disciplines including agriculture, horticulture, engineering, and landscape architecture, are blended together to create a home and lifestyle that is optimized for system health and production.

There are three key Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share. All permaculture design is guided by the three ethics. The three ethics help designers keep the overall goals in mind while working out the finer project details.

The Earth Care ethic is focused on nurturing the environment, the People Care ethic is focused on meeting the needs of humans, and the Fair Share ethic is focused on sharing abundance with others. These ethics underlie all permaculture design, ensuring that differing priorities are taken into account.

Read more about what permaculture is in this detailed article.

Permaculture principles

There are 12 permaculture design principles. They originate from David Holmgren in his classic book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. Here’s a nice overview of the 12 permaculture principles on Wikipedia if you’re not into reading the whole book.

Permaculture zones

Permaculture includes a framework for dividing a given area into zones. The zones are used to delineate the distance from the main house on a property. The house is Zone 0 and is where the most time and energy is spent. Each outdoor zone beyond the house (Zones 1-5) requires less and less time and energy as the distance from the house increases. The permaculture zones close to the house are actively managed while the area far from the house is wild.

Permaculture zones are a concept rather than a hardscaping feature. The permaculture zones of a property may not look like perfect concentric circles around the house, and the boundaries between the zones are often fuzzy. Using the zone concept in permaculture helps a gardener create an efficient site layout.

Permaculture zones:

  • Zone 0 – The house
  • Zone 1 – Easily accessible from the house on a daily basis. This might include a kitchen garden that you could walk to in your slippers to pick fresh strawberries in the morning.
  • Zone 2 – Accessed less frequently than Zone 1 (and requiring less maintenance). This might include a perennial garden, small fruit trees, and a compost bin.
  • Zone 3 – Farmland beyond Zone 2. This might include fields of crops, pasture for animals, or large fruit and nut trees.
  • Zone 4 – The half-managed, half-wild area beyond Zone 3. This might include timber woodlots, wild forage for farm animals, and access to useful wild plants.
  • Zone 5 – The wild. This includes all unmanaged area that is free from human intervention, including forests, marshlands, and other natural ecosystems.

The permaculture zones above are more of a concept than a physical barrier. A small urban lot may only include Zones 0-2. Zone 5, the wild, does not need to be on the property to be accessible. Public wilderness conservancies, parkland, and creek access can be wonderful places to observe natural ecosystems.

Curly frog farm entrance | home for the harvest gardening blog

Permaculture courses

Permaculture courses include short courses on specific topics which can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The classic permaculture course is the Permaculture Design Certificate or PDC.

There are courses offered by permaculturalists all over the world (as well as online options). There are also niche-specific classes offered for more advanced permaculturalists.

Additional Reading: Online Gardening Courses: 40+ Garden Classes To Take At Home

Perennial plants

Perennial plants are an integral part of permaculture. Here are some lovely perennials:

Flower garden

Flower gardens are both beautiful and useful. Your flower garden can produce beautiful flowers to attract beneficial insects, and pollinators, as well as cutting flowers to bring indoors during the growing season. Some flowers are also grown for their use in cooking or DIY beauty product recipes.

Fall cleanup - home for the harvest gardening blog

Lawn care

Lawns are definitely a part of the permaculture garden! Lawns are great spaces for children to play and for generally enjoying the outdoors. Permaculture lawn care involves working with nature rather than against it to create a lush lawn.

This means that the blades of grass shouldn’t be mowed lower than 3″ so that the grass blades can shade the grassroots and help keep the soil moist. This will reduce watering requirements and increase the health of the grass.

There are some more great natural ways to approach lawn fertilizer without resorting to synthetic chemicals. Read about feeding organic lawns here.

Free range chickens at farm | home for the harvest gardening blog

Sustainable agriculture

Sustainable agriculture is a collaborative system in which farmers raise plants and animals by following practices that allow farming to continue into the foreseeable future. This includes inputs to the farm and the health of areas that supply or are otherwise affected by farming activities. There are many types of sustainable agriculture, including organic farming, permaculture farming, and biodynamic farming.

Learn more about gardening by the moon cycle here.

Urban farm | home for the harvest gardening blog

Market garden

A market garden is a small-scale farm in which produce is sold directly to consumers. A market garden may produce vegetables, herbs, fruit, and even flowers. Market gardens typically sell this product directly to the public at a farm stand or farmers market, or directly to local restaurants.

Market gardens are distinguished from farms both by their small size and by the abundance of different crops growing in a small space. Market gardens can range in size from a small yard to a few acres of land. Many market gardeners focus on growing a variety of high-value crops that consistently sell for a good price in their local area. The crops are generally harvested and packaged by hand rather than with agricultural machinery.

Organic farming

Organic farms range from large market gardens all the way to industrial large-scale organic agriculture. Some small organic farms may look just like big market gardens, just with larger portions of land dedicated to each crop. Small organic farms may sell at a farm shop, farmers market, or sell directly to wholesalers, restaurants, and grocery stores. Many smaller organic farms are starting to offer CSA programs (community-supported agriculture), in which customers pay a flat monthly or annual rate to receive a weekly share of fresh local produce.

Some industrial organic farms operate in a similar manner to conventional agriculture. Organic alternatives are substituted for synthetic chemicals, but many of the processes remain the same. Large industrial organic farms often use mechanical cultivation and harvesting machinery. They are also more likely to use mechanized packaging than small farms. Lastly, industrially-produced organic produce is often sold directly to wholesalers or grocery chains where it can be distributed around the world.

Permaculture farming

Permaculture farming is based on the principles and ethics of permaculture. Farms can look quite different than conventional organic farms. Permaculture encourages fostering mutually beneficial relationships between different plants, so it’s highly unlikely a permaculture farm would have a large uniform field with only one crop growing in it.

Many permaculture farms are designed into the existing landscape to take advantage of natural resources such as fresh water and sunlight. They often incorporate many perennial crops to reduce the amount of planting labor as the farm matures.

Check out this list of gardening and permaculture experts for more information on large-scale permaculture farm design.

References

Mary Jane Duford
Mary Jane Duford

Mary Jane Duford is a quintessential Canadian gardener. An engineer by trade, she tends to an ever-expanding collection of plants. In her world, laughter blooms as freely as her flowers, and every plant is raised with a dash of Canadian grit.

Mary Jane is a certified Master Gardener and also holds a Permaculture Design Certificate. She's also a proud mom of three, teaching her little sprouts the crucial difference between a garden friend and foe.

When she's not playing in the dirt, Mary Jane revels in her love for Taylor Swift, Gilmore Girls, ice hockey, and the surprisingly soothing sounds of bluegrass covers of classic hip-hop songs. She invites you to join her garden party, a place where you can share in the joy of growing and where every day is a new opportunity to find the perfect spot for yet another plant.

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