Have you heard the term “permaculture” but aren’t sure what it means? What does permaculture have to do with a homesteader growing their own food and becoming more self-sufficient? Here’s a quick introduction to permaculture and suggestions for further study!
Perma-What??
Today, Homestead Lady welcomes Mr. Levi Meeuwenberg from Realize Homestead! Levi has graciously consented to give us an introduction to permaculture, which is part art, part science.
Without further ado, here’s Mr. Levi and his Introduction to Permaculture!
An Introduction to Permaculture
You might be asking yourself, “What is permaculture?” Permaculture is a term that gets thrown around in foodie/homesteading circles a lot so I thought I’d share a bit of what I’ve learned about it.
Firstly, for those not in the know, the textbook definition of permaculture is:
“…a branch of ecological design, ecological engineering, and environmental design that develops sustainable architecture and self-maintained agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems.[1][2]
“The term permaculture (as a systematic method) was first coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1978. The word permaculture originally referred to “permanent agriculture” [3] but was expanded to stand also for “permanent culture,” as it was seen that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system…” [Wikipedia]
When I discovered permaculture, it totally altered the direction in my life. It opened my eyes to see how damaging the modern way of life is to the living ecosystems of the earth.
That’s what inspired our farm, Realize Homestead, in Northern Michigan where we’re putting all these lessons into practice.
Permaculture in Action
Our aim is to cultivate a more responsible and harmonious relationship with the natural world around us. We still drive a car almost every day, but our lifelong dream is to be able to ditch it and meet our needs from the land, and neighbors around us.
Permaculture is one of those topics you can study and study and study and still not feel like you’ve scratched the surface. That’s because it incorporates so many fields of expertise:
- animal husbandry
- large scale earthworks
- natural building
- aquaculture
- tool use and repair
- soil biology
- plant ecology
- food preparation and preservation
And more!
But after reading a dozen books on it, watching hours of videos, and visiting many permaculture demonstration sites, I think I got a pretty good gist. Here are a few different ways of describing what it is.
Permaculture is…
- Working with, rather than against nature, by observing and coming to understand the patterns and cycles of the landscape.
- Thinking not only in terms of individual elements at your homestead, (Ex: tree, compost pile, cat) but focusing on the relationships between elements. Ex: tree shades house, house eave shelters compost bin, cat climbs tree, rock stores heat
- Designing a human-centric ecosystem to live within.
- Meeting our needs in a way that is not only sustainable, but actually restores healthy, abundant ecosystems.
“Perhaps we seek to recreate the Garden of Eden, and why not? We believe that a low-energy, high-yield agriculture is a possible aim for the whole world, and that it needs only human energy and intellect to achieve this.” – Bill Mollison
Permaculture Examples
Here are a few more helpful articles on this topic:
Plan a Permaculture Homestead Layout
Permaculture Zones on the Homestead
Stacking Functions on the Homestead – How a Chicken Can Be a Multi-Tool
Create a Vegetable Plant Guild in 7 Steps
Below is just one simple example to consider, as well.
Make Your Own Mulch
Mulch is a huge benefit to have, whether your mulching your garden beds, or your perennials and herbs. The mulch (typically leaves, woodchips, or straw) is a thick layer of dead organic matter used to cover the bare soil.
- This helps to hold in moisture, suppress weed growth, and reduce erosion from the impacts of rain and wind.
Living near cities will usually provide you an abundance of mulch materials for free. Often tree-service companies will drop off huge loads of woodchips if you can get the arrangement.
Or drive around neighborhoods in the fall and collect the bags of leaves people place on the sides of the roads.
Grow Your Own Mulch Materials
But permaculturists are always seeking to reduce the outside inputs to their site, so why not grow your own mulch!
- You can grow your own mulch by planting dense beds of plants that produce huge amounts of organic matter and regrow when cut.
- It’s best to use plants that are nutrient accumulators; ones that mine for nutrients deep in the soil and pull them up into their leaves like comfrey, or nitrogen fixing plants that build nitrogen in the soil, such as goumi or goji berry.
- These plants will slowly release their nutrients and fertility as they decay.
- Really any plant that regrows after being cut will work. Got an annoying plant that just wont go away? Use it for mulch!
As for placement, it’s smart to plant a dense bed of these specifically for mulch purposes around your compost bin, downslope of manure piles, or between your neighbors yard who sprays toxic chemicals on their lawn.
The mulch bed will even filter these out! Just be careful of where you plant them, because they’ll probably be there for a few lifetimes!
Chop N Drop
Once your mulch crops are grown up and full of leafy material, it’s time to chop them down. Many plants, like comfrey, will regrow more leafy material before the season is over. This gives you multiple mulch crops!
This method of cutting back the biomass material and laying it down to decompose on the soil’s surface is called Chop-n-Drop. The best time to Chop-N-Drop is in the morning or in the evening.
It helps if the mulch can get a good rain or a good watering after it starts to decay. This is to prevent the mulch from drying out and blowing away, prevent fire hazard, and the mulch helps hold in the moisture that accumulates.
The water also speeds the decomposition of the mulch.
Attainable Sustainable can teach you about 12 Great Plants to Grow for Green Mulch.
There’s a GREAT DEAL more to learn – this truly is just an INTRODUCTION to permaculture! There are more articles on this site to read, the book below, as well as taking an online visit to Realize Homestead!
Further Reading for Your Introduction to Permaculture
A Short Introduction to Permaculture Resources
How to Start Homesteading with Permaculture - Understanding the Land [VIDEO]
Planning Your Garden: The Companion Planting Guide with Printable Download — All Posts Healing Harvest Homestead
How to Build a Swale in the Home Landscape [+ Free Download]
11 Green Manure Crops You Can Grow for Your Garden
If you’d like to know more about how to implement permaculture in your garden or on your homestead, please check out the permaculture section of The Homestead Garden chapter of our book, The Do It Yourself Homestead. Don’t have your own copy? No worries, we wrote one just for you – get your copy here. To learn more about the book, click below.
Tessa and Levi, this is an excellent intro to permaculture. It is such an important concept for sustainability, but too few people are thinking about it! Thanks for helping to get the word out on it. I hope to do some writing on that topic, eventually, too. Sharing this in my FB page.
I wish I could take any credit but its Levi and his lovely wife that are the geniuses here! Thank you for sharing because more people really do need to consider these methods. I know that I do! Still learning, learning, learning…