Permaculture Course - Video 6

Well the holidays were great for us and I did manage to watch a number of the videos from this series although I haven't yet documented them. I've not gotten a lot of feedback on these reviews so, although I will still be reviewing them because more than anything this blog is still for me..., I will not be doing any real in depth analysis of them other than to just kind of order some of my ideas here in a pseudo formal setting. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, regardless of if or how you celebrated it.

This video was primarily focused on the design process... or at least that was the gist of it. I have enjoyed each of these videos quite a bit, but I do have the singular criticism that Dr Hooker is quite wordy and prone to tangents and I think some really valuable subject matters tend to sometimes get glossed over from time to time. This class was one of those to a certain degree but still had a bunch of great information.

To start things off, we went through he scientific process. In essence, and in case you are rusty in your Middle School science topics, the scientific process is basically - Observe, Hypothesize, Test, Analyze results and come to a Conclusion. There were also a number of other methods that he went over, such as the Koberg/Bagnall Process (From the Universal Traveler) and the "New Age Process". Over all they all come down to the root of pay attention and observe what is going on on the land already before beginning any design process, Come up with how you best think you should proceed based on those observations, put it in to action and analyze what happens. Afterword, conclude whether it is working and modify it accordingly. I agree with this process completely and have found it to be the correct way to go through much experience.

Observation
The first part of this process is to observe. Collect data regarding your property by observing it casually, as well as by using the physical tools available to us that have been proven throughout the years. (I will get more into some of these tools in a later dedicated post at some point.) Tools such as Topographic maps, pegging the slope, weather data and such.

One particular tool that he puts into use during his design process phase is called a Sector Analysis. The sector analysis is a way of documenting what Dr. Hooker calls the "wild energies" coming into a property from all sides. Those wild energies may be wind, sun, or people energies. Also documented in the Sector Analysis are views, access points and such, as well as the differing sun inputs based on the solar seasons. This will be one of the first things that I do when I begin designing in detail my garden here on my new land.

Another great tool that he goes into with some detail is a sort of North arrow compass rose that he integrates into all of his design projects. What it does is to document, in relation to the property and it's orientation, the path of the sun and the light coming into the landscape.

Probably the best thing I got from this, honestly, was a wonderfully simple explanation of how to determine and calculate the amount of sun coming in at a particular angle based on the season and the angle of the sun. I understood the concept as a basic part of passive solar heating and cooling, but didn't quite have my head wrapped around the math behind it. This math can be put into use when determining placement and design of any landscape features that may affect the plantings in the garden.

The final portion of this class was to show how a landscape analysis drawing gets put together and how it illustrates all these factors in one place. This will be an invaluable process in our design phase. I will definitely go into this with much greater detail in the future.



It really was a pretty darned informative class. I realized exactly how much so as I reviewed my notes and re-watched portions of it as I went through creating this post. It was well worth the watch.

Now that the holidays are over I will be trying to get these video reviews up a little more regularly. Although, I do have some really cool new news that I will be sharing with you here very shortly that will take a portion of my scarce free time. It will be well worth it though!

Talk again soon.
P~

Permaculture Course - Video 5

Hi again... For all my friends in the US, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I took the last couple of weeks off to complete a couple of house projects that we needed to get done before having out 15 guests over for the Thanksgiving holiday. I did watch video 5 however, and a few others as well, and have begun video 6 so I guess I best get caught up with this reviewing process. This lecture was about Trees and Forests and their impact.

Dr Hooker first started off with a talk about Biomes, as discussed in the last lecture. He showed an illustration of the worlds biomes that I found really interesting. It was a little different than this one from the USDA but the information is essentially the same.

I found it really interesting to see how the same biomes are repeated around the world. I think it's a good tool to think about as we plan our garden designs to think about the foods and plants that are grown in the similar biomes to our own in the different parts of the world. Because of these differences between the various biomes, Dr hooker makes the very valid point of saying wherever you are, or end up starting your garden, take a permaculture class in that region as it will have the most pertinent information for you. This biome difference got me thinking about trees that I could plant on my own land that I could use for food, fuel and soil enrichment.

Trees are like the lungs of the earth. As they respire, they add oxygen to the atmosphere, but even more they transpire water that has been pulled up from the deep soil. That water adds to the atmosphere as well and has a measurable influence on the hydrologic (precipitation) cycle as well. In addition to this, Trees in our garden, create predictable and stable micro climates by shading the soil, breaking the wind and, depending on the type of species (Leguminous), can add fertility as well. Also, as I mentioned in passing earlier, they can obviously provide food in a completely different vertical arena than our low growing annual vegetables and can provide renewable fuel as well.

"Trees are,for the earth, the ultimate translators and moderators or incoming energy." ~Bill Mollison
Trees can create edgse in our gardens. As they capture energy (Sunlight, wind) they provide safe places for different species to take hold. Capturing wind driven seed, providing a place where both sunlight and shade meet allow for greater bio-diversity than monoculture areas. As the leaves drop and decay over time, trees also help build soil by creating a thick blanket of mulch below them.

Not only do trees provide benefits for our gardens, but for our homesteads as well. By having trees around our homes we can help keep our home temperatures more moderated from the outside temperatures. The shade and evapo-transfer of water through the trees leaves dissipate heat in the heat of the day. Conversely, In the winter months, trees can help to hold heat closer to the house by capturing it under it's branches and holding it close to the soil.

This was not a hugely information dense lecture, but one I know I will keep in mind as I move forward with my farm plan. I look forward to the next lecture on design and site analysis. Assignments for Next week... (Lecture 7/8) is Gaia's garden chapter 3.

And I leave you with these words from Rosemary Morrow, _Earth Users Guide to Permaculture 2nd Edit_~ A forest cannot be precisely measured or costed. Neither can its destruction. However, we do know that removing forests results in water loss, nutrient loss, soil loss, salinity problems, river flooding, local drought, habitat loss and destabilizing the climate. How do we cost these?

Great new Geoff Lawton Video

Let me just take a minute to share with you a link to an amazing new Permaculture video that Permaculture Guru Geoff Lawton has made available just recently.

Geoff Lawton, if you're not familiar with him is a truly inspirational permaculture figure that in my book ranks right up there with Mollison and Holmgren. His work in greening the desert was nothing short of amazing. Search for it on YouTube.. really.. it's a miracle garden.

If you've been checking in for the permculture updates, take a detour and watch this video. You'll be anxiously waiting for the next installment I have no doubt.
Cheers.
P~

Permaculture Course - Video 4

Short run down on this video. It was one that, while it had a lot of good information, I didn't feel like an of it was really new stuff, mostly it was an opportunity for the instructor to garner a little "street cred" by showing off his personal garden and it's progression through their time there.

That said, it wasn't in anyway a brag fest or anything, and it gave the instructor a good opportunity to go over some of the ideas of permaculture, along with his personal take about it, in a visual form. Interestingly, it turns out that pretty much all the pictures on the cover of the latest publication of the Gais Garden book that's out are from Dr Hooker's house. He has been involved in permaculture for a number of years and has apparently become good friends with a number of the "big boys" of permaculture around the world.

As I said, not a lot to report on this video, it was enjoyable if a little light on new information. Next class promises to be interesting though, Homework assignment is to read chapter 10 in Gaia's Garden, which is all about Food Forests, And to watch _The End of Suburbia_. I've done both and I'm ready for the next class.

Just out of curiousity... anyone getting anything from these reviews? Better yet, anyone going through them as well?

Best
Paul~

Permaculture Course - Video 3

Well, it's been a little over a week since the last post and I've been hard at this course I'm trying to work through. As I get into it, I am beginning to think that this whole course, if it continues as it has been, will likely take me nearly a year! There is so much information to absorb and I've been making the additional effort to complete assignments that were given to the class as best I can as well. I am thoroughly enjoying every bit of it though and it has me thinking non stop about the future of our new home-scale farm. And speaking of the new farm, I've been trying to think of a name for it; all farms need a title right? I was trying to think of something I liked just out of thin air, but just didn't seem inspired by anything. I thought it would be best to just wait until the land whispered in my ear a little and hinted at her name. I'm not sure I'm hearing correctly, but I'm getting something about the two foxes that call her home. Maybe Two-foxes Farm? Foxwood Farm? I don't know... any thoughts?

OK, enough small talk... let's get to Permaculture!!
This Video installment was the third video, and the first half of the Second lecture and it was also full of information. Homework assignments for this were to watch _In Danger of Falling Food_ with Bill Mollison on YouTube and to read the first two chapters in _Gaias Garden_ by Toby Hemenway. The Former was very interesting, if not a bit dated and a little cheesy, and the latter is shaping up to be a real favorite. First off, this lecture talked about Permaculture as a way of thinking. Dr Hooker says that while many people take the principles of Permaculture as pure "gospel", that we shouldn't. There are pieces in it for everyone. Take what you can incorporate and keep it's principles in mind as a way of looking at the world as you design your gardens and farms. Originally conceived in Australia, Permaculture traditionally looks at things through the lens of "forest gardens" or "food forests", but as the principles have spread throughout the world, it has found that within each biome, or climatic region, there are plant/animal/human relationships that meet the permaculture principles.

Garden Ecology: Ecos - from the Greek for "house" and ology from the Greek for "to study". Ecology is the study of the relationships that the living organisms within an environment have with each other. These relationships and these organisms, best estimates put that at around 30 million species, only exists withing the earths biosphere. That's a term I've heard and I pretty much understand, but the professor makes a really good point when he talks about how large it may seem to us, but in relation to the whole earth it is but a mere sliver of life that we have to live on. It makes you think.

One of the homework assignments, as I mentioned, was reading through chapter 2 in Gaia's Garden. I've really, really enjoyed it so far and intend to, as I have time available, finish the whole book. The author, Toby Hemenway, uses wonderful analogies to make points about typical gardening techniques and how, although they are rooted in well meaning and came from legitimate problems that were trying to be solved, go so completely against what nature has in mind for the earth. We are, in effect, fighting nature at every turn. A couple of good examples of this are weeds and natural succession. Weeds it seems, and I think we can all see this, are natures pioneer species. When the earth is disturbed, and particularly when it is laid bare, weeds are sent in like they were the front line troops in a fight against the elements. They cover ground quickly, prevent over drying of the soil, hold soil fast against erosion and creating a bio-rich area for future plants to move into. The more we weed, clear and till our land, we are asking for weeds to show up. I thought about what my Master Gardener instructor had told us about pruning fruit trees. We think of pruning as saying "don't grow here, don't grow here and don't grow here..." The tree hears "Grow here, grow here and grow here..." We need to get our language on the same page. As for natural succession, nature first covers ground in weeds and grasses or, as she sees them... pioneers. Their deep roots bring minerals and nutrients to the surface, hold moisture and when they die they build fertility in the soil for larger more permanent plants to move in. In our typical suburban yards, we have essentially created young landscapes of grasses lined with "forrest areas" of larger more decorative plants or trees. Then, as the soil fertility builds and tries to allow the tree roots to take hold or new larger plants to move in... "weeds"... we use chemicals or machines to artificially return it to a youthful state, i.e. grass. It's a never ending cycle because we are feeding the grasses and making them do what they do, and then when they try to pass on to the next succession, we beat them back again. Madness!!

The lecture took great divergences into the trophic levels and an actually pretty interesting bit of theory on the relationship of faith (theology) and our place in a position outside the trophic levels that I thought made a good point in basically saying that if we see ourselves as masters of the word and outside of the cycles of the natural world it is much easier for us to manipulate it because it becomes in essence just "materials".  We need to re-integrate ourselves into that natural cycle.

Finally the lecture wrapped up talking about energy flows; the way that embodied energy flows from our only true power source... the sun... into everything on earth. I had never heard the term embodied energy before, but it makes sense to me. In everything we touch, eat, consume, or in how we travel around there is a certain level of energy embodied in that object or action. Permaculture teaches that as designers we should base designs on maximizing this energy by using it from the highest point down the ladder so that all energy is used productively and not wasted. Just as light moves through the forest canopy; much is taken up front by the canopy trees, what remains moves down to the lower shrub and small tree layer - the plants that can only tolerate partial sunlight - and finally what little ambient light remains goes into those shade loving plants that live in the understory and thrive in that shadiness. At each level a different piece of the energy is used. This maximizes the productivity and efficiency of the forest and it's a way of thinking about energy use that can help us to become more efficient and lower consumers as well.

The last piece from this lecture that I will pass on is his "Tricks for Creating Ecological Gardens":

• Soil Building
• Perennials - vs- Annuals
• Multiple Stories
• Plant Communities "Guilds"
• Stacking Functions

It was a great lecture and I look forward to sharing the next one too. I also look forward to more comments from you on your experiences and thoughts.
Namaste.
P~

Permaculture course Video 2

I've watched a second video in the Permaculture series and it was great! After the slow start of all the class business that needed to be covered the instructor, Dr. Hooker, really just jumped right into the thick of things. After giving an idea of why he feels permaculture, and more specifically sustainability, is important now he got into some of the big ideas.

Dr Hooker first off spent a bit of time talking about cycles and the "systems" that we live in. One of the main ideas of permaculture is learning to design systems. Understanding our part in those systems and designing accordingly. Currently most people live in a cycle that takes resources from one place, changes it (manufacturing), and then disposes of it into some sort of "sink" or landfill essentially. That isn't a cyclical system, it's a pattern of consumption. A system, at least from what I got from it, takes into account the different ways that a resource can be used, reused, then redirected into the next system that may build upon it. There is no waste in nature.

He also spent a bit of time talking about the Gaia theory. I have not done a lot of reading on this - it's on my list - but I do subscribe to it from what I understand of it. During his talk on the Gaia theory he made an interesting comment. In talking about our beliefs and how many, most actually, are of the "When I see it I'll believe it" mindset, he decided some time back that he would take the opposite path and believe it, and see what he sees. That belief changes your perspective; I liked that. Take this challenge that he gave as an assignment. This week, believe that the earth is a living, sentient being, then see what you see while walking around on this living being... It's an interesting way of looking at things.

The final part of this lecture was just sort of covering the main differences between the Basic Principles of the permaculture "founders" Bill Mollison and David Holmgrens, as well as his own "list" of permaculture principles that he's distilled on his own from what he has learned from both of these men as well as from others. I thought I'd list the principles here for our reference.

Bill Mollison's Permaculture Principles:

1. Relative location
2. Each element performs many functions
3. Each important function is supported by many elements
4. Efficient energy planning
5. Using biological resources
6. Energy cycling
7. Small scale intensive systems
8. Accelerating succession and evolution
9. Diversity
10. Edge Effects

Dvid Holmgren's Permaculture Principles:

1. Observe and interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services.
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from pattern to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change

Dr Hookers Permaculture Principles:

1. Observe and interact
2. Relative location or connections
3. Energy cycling
4. Each element performs many functions
5. Each function is supported by many elements
6. Efficient energy planning
7. Small scale intensive systems
8. Use edges and value the marginal
9. Accelerate succession and evolution
10. Use and value diversity
11. Using biological resources

Dr. Hookers list is, as you can see, basically a mash up of the two different ideas, but I think it's genuinely a good mash up. The last half of this lecture Dr hooker went into details of the different principles on his list. If you'd like, I can go more into those details, but honestly if permaculture is something that you're interested in implementing in your yard, homestead or garden I heartily encourage you to watch this video installment.
As I said, if you'd like me to go into more detail on the principles I'd be happy to, but I don't think I would do it justice in just a blog post, plus I don't know how much interest there is in hearing my opinions of it anyway. If you are working on implementing permaculture principles and would like to share an of your information, please do so. If you have questions or comments, I'd love to hear them. Ultimately the greater the discussion we can generate, hopefully the better we can all learn to understand this intricate and complex philosophy.
Till next installment.
Namaste
P~

Permaculture course - Video 1

As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been really leaning towards taking a more permaculture-centric approach in the development of our new property. I know that I want to develop the property into a home scale agricultural business in some way, most likely by becoming providers to the local foods purveyors and farmers markets in our area, but quite possibly in other ways not yet defined. At the same time, I have a full time job and have no immediate plans to leave it, so anything that I do will need to be very sustainable as it moves forward. I hope that my investigation into permaculture techniques will help me as I work this year to develop a plan to move forward towards that goal to find ways of maximizing my work flow, providing for sustainable progress and bountiful yields in our future.
This past weekend, I watched the first of the 38 full length videos provided online by the Permaculture Media Blog. (By the way, I also noticed that the University of North Carolina who was responsible for creating the videos in the first place has them streamable online as well, although they do list these course videos as only for the use of students enrolled in the course so... I will henceforth not be "disseminating" the video materials that I found by googling "permaculture media blog 40 hr course" by linking to them unless I am able to find out that they are in fact free to be shared)
Anyway, the first video was, since it is basically a video of a college course, basically a preface of the class materials, an introduction to the professor, Dr. Will Hooker, and a little bit of class business that really doesn't apply in this situation. I have begun the second video and it really goes into more of the principles behind permaculture design. I won't go too much into it, but it looks like this will really be an informative journey.
I look forward to finishing the next video soon and breaking down my impressions for you.
Till next time...
P~

Beginning a Permaculture Investigation

Although I have not, and by all accounts will not, do much work on our new "Homescale Farm" this year. I still continue to focus a lot of back burner brain power on what it is that I'd like to do with it. More and more that brain power is pointing me in the direction of permaculture as the direction I'd like to at least focus my attentions. To that end, I've decided to go through a collegiate permaculture course via the internet in the hope that I can gain a more full understanding of it, as well as to hopefully begin to formulate some ideas about what, where and how I'd like to proceed on the back few acres.

The courses (link that I found by googling "permaculture media blog 40 hr course" has been removed so as not to further "disseminate" video materials) I have found and will be viewing were placed online by the Permaculture Media Blog. They have a full 40 hr lecture course that is on line in high resolution  videos. I'm going to go through them one at a time in the hopes of, as I said, gaining a better understanding of what permaculture really means, and how it can apply to us on our piece of earth.

I'm thinking right now that I'm going to go ahead an review - no, let me rephrase that, recap - the class lectures as I complete them in case you are interested, but primarily for my own reference.
If you'd like to follow along, or even participate, perhaps we can create a venue for some friendly debate and discussion. Let me know if any one's interested at all and we'll see if we can schedule something.

Either way, I look forward to it. I feel like it will be a good use of my winter free time, what free time I'll have that is with still having to finish my basement... busy busy...

Hope all is well with you all and I look forward to hearing from you.
Best.
Paul ~

Gitt'n buggy with it!

OK, I admit it, that was a really cheesy title. Gotta keep things interesting though right? Besides, what else was I supposed to title a post with a picture like this is it? Did I mention that I have a TON of Lady beetles in my yard? Yeah, I'm probably supplying the whole neighborhood with all the lady beetles that I have! That picture above is the remains of a Giant sunflower stalk that I removed the head from some time back. The pupa of the lady beetles are all over it. In that picture a rough guess of the number would put me close to 60-70 beetles and pupa. And that's just the top of one plant! They are all over.And they're really big and healthy too! This one is about the size of my pinky nail.
And when you get to watch this many beetles in your backyard eco-system, you get to see a lot of interesting things that you might not normally. Ever seen a lady beetle hatching?It's interesting, they come out and you can noticably tell that their wing covers (Elytra) were still soft and completely devoid of any spots.

Here's another closer look.

In this one you can see the wings out and drying. She's "hanging" around with a few sisters. I'm hoping to get out in the yard soon with a large mason jar stuffed with some straw and begin collecting the beetles into it. An interesting thing about the life cycle of the lady beetle - by the way, I'm pretty sure that these are Harmonia axyridis (Multicolored Asian lady beetle) just in case you were curious - anyway the interesting thing I learned about their life-cycle is that they hibernate over the winter by living off stored fats, just like a bear. Cool huh? My master plan is to have the ladies help me to naturally control next year, what became a very nasty aphid problem this year.

I worked this plan out sometime around mid-summer kind of by accident; let me lay it on you. When I came to grips with the fact that this years aphid outbreak was going to be a big one, I also noticed that because of the very healthy food source, my lady beetle population was also exploding. I figured that if I could encourage a really healthy lady beetle population this year, accepting of course the fact that I would have some crop damage from the aphids that they were feeding on, then next year I could use some organic methods like horticultural oil and kaolin clay early on to limit the number of aphids that hatch on my property. Between a hopefully burgeoning population of beetles and a reduced population of aphids I hope to be able to really be successful at keeping them under control for the foreseeable future, or at least for a year. Anyone have any experience they want to share in that area?

Now, totally unrelated but still pretty cool, I thought I'd show you these pictures of the mushrooms popping up through my mulch on the north side of my shed.

I took these pictures Monday and they weren't a great deal bigger today, but they are growing slowly.I don't know what they are, but it's good to know that the fungi are healthy in the yard too. They play a very important part in the natural decomposition of organic matter in the garden. I'm letting these finish their life-cyle at least to see what they become.

I love watching as the season winds down. Things change, cycles move to their next phases.
Hope the season finds you well.
P~

2008 Garden Activity Journal

In an effort to share my progress in the garden this year, I added a new section to the right side tool bar, appropriately just below the 100 foot diet logo. The new section is called the 2008 Garden Activity Journal. I have listed the name of the edible plants that I have put in the ground so far, and the dates that they were planted. I also placed "NEW" next to the few of them that are first time additions to the garden; there will be more NEW additions to come for sure.

My wife and I also talked about taking a page from the Path to Freedom play book and keeping a record of the number of lbs of food we are able to produce at home. I'll create some sort of banner for this to also go in the toolbar. Has any one else thought about doing that for this growing season, or have you done it in the past? I thought I might call it something like "Weighing in for change" or "Weighing in for choice". Any ideas?

Have a great day all.

P~

Permaculture

My wife asked me the other day about permaculture. I have only an basic knowledge of it, but I think that I agree with it's principles to a very great degree.
I cannot accept that all the things put on this earth, were put here to exists by themselves. We are, humans, plants, animals and earth, meant to interact and depend on each other. I believe that when we look at the environment that we live in, whatever that may be, there is some way that we can learn to harmonize with it. I guess that's what a lot of the things that I am curious about really come down to, learning a way of being responsible for myself and my families happiness, while not taking away from something elses. Growing a garden for instance, provides us with food and, I believe, a better standard of living. But my doing that doesn't take away from my neighbors happiness or standard of living, rather I hope it adds to it. It opens dialogue between us through backyard talks about what's working or what we're trying, encourages community through sharing the fruits of our labors and, I believe, generally adds to the neighborhood. It also provides a healthy ecosystem right in my yard where bees, lady bugs and other benefitial insects can thrive; and that's just gardening. I guess Permaculture as I understand it is not only a method for building sustainable, permanent agriculture, it's a idea about how to build permanent culture, cummunity and a way of thinking about our actions.

While I was reading on this tonight, I found a very interesting video on a project that was done in the middle east. They were able effectively de-salinate and re-hydrate the ground and begin producing edible crops in an area previously written off.
http://www.youtube.com/user/permascience

Enjoy, and share your thoughts if you like.
P~