#permaculture handbook

[bumblebeeappletree]

Sasha Duerr uses just about anything to dye clothing: from kitchen waste (coffee grounds, avocado pits, and onion skins) to invasive "weeds" (wild fennel, oxalis) to the leaves, fruit, or petals of nearly any tree or plant (maple, pear, cherry, fig, acorn, fern, dahlia, poppy, lavender, etc).

Inspired by permaculture, Duerr believes in a slower approach to textile dying- she founded the "Permacouture" Institute to help advance Slow Textiles- both as a way to respect the environment, but also because she believes that plant-based color is more beautiful and truly alive.

"Natural dyes harmonize with each other in a way that only botanical colors can,” she writes in her book The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes(*). “A natural dye, a red for example, will include hints of blue and yellow, whereas a chemically produced red dye contains only a single red pigment, making the color less complex... The unique qualities of naturally dyed textiles can often make the color vibrate or glow, which is truly magical."

The colors produced by plants may be magical, but the process to create them- believes Duerr- is really quite simple. To prove just how accessible the organic botanical color really is, she helped create the Fiber and Dye Walk at the California College of Arts and Crafts (where she teaches). In a simple walk through the campus, there are over 30 plants and trees that can be used as dyes, including, apple, aloe, bamboo, cherry, eucalyptus, fig, ivy, olive, juniper, lily, rosemary, and wisteria.

This isn’t new information, as Duerr points out, during World War Two our grandparents were using things like red cabbage as a dye, but quickly the knowledge is becoming lost. When Duerr began to educate herself in organic botanical color sources, she turned to farmers and indigenous communities in an attempt to catalog what was once more common knowledge.

Duerr doesn’t want to teach the world to create color from our surroundings- in a sense Slow Color- simply so we’ll all become better stewards of nature and our shared culture, it’s also for us as human beings. “Much of what has become problematic in our modern lives,” she believes, “is related to our having forgotten how to connect with simple rhythms of nature”.

In this video, Duerr takes us for a tour of all the dye plants in the garden of a home she happens to be housesitting; she brews up a few batches of natural color from the leaves of a fern and fig and loquat trees; she gives us a tour of her natural-dyed wardrobe (including pieces from her bioregional knitwear collection Adie + George, created and run with partner Casey Larkin); and finally, she dyes a secondhand silk shirt for that evening’s event using the loquat leaves from the tree outside the house.

* Her book’s complete title is The Handbook of Natural Plant Dyes: Personalize Your Craft with Organic Colors from Acorns, Blackberries, Coffee, and Other Everyday Ingredients.

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

Adie+George: http://adieandgeorge.tumblr.com/

Sasha's book: http://www.timberpress.com/books/hand...

Originally posted on YouTube on February 13th 2012

[natinalpartisan]

Survival Skills: A Beginner's Guide to Exploring Homesteading

Survival Skills: A Beginner's Guide to Exploring Homesteading is your essential handbook to embark on this rewarding journey. Discover the art of living off the land and gaining independence through sustainable practices. This comprehensive guide equips you with the fundamental survival skills needed to thrive in a homesteading environment. Learn how to cultivate your organic garden, raise livestock, preserve food, harness natural resources, and master DIY projects. Explore permaculture principles, alternative energy solutions, and emergency preparedness techniques. Unlock the secrets of self-reliance, while immersing yourself in the fulfilling homestead lifestyle. Whether you dream of a small backyard farm or an off-grid haven, this guide will empower you to confidently begin your homesteading adventure.

[culturesofresistancefilms]

Want to start a sustainable garden in your backyard? Dive into the world of agroecology with “Siembra Boricua! Handbook of Agriculture in Harmony with Nature," published by our friends at Plenitud PR. This guide offers the wisdom of successful organic farmers in Puerto Rico alongside insights from academics and researchers in the fields of agriculture and biology. From permaculture design to soil enrichment, rainwater management to food production, this manual covers it all. It even includes delicious recipes made from fresh harvests!

Plenitud PR is a community-based organization dedicated to food education. Through our sister foundation, the Cultures of Resistance Network, we have been proud to support them! Learn more at:

https://culturesofresistance.org/groups-we.../plenitud-pr/

Get your copy of their agroecology handbook here:

https://es.plenitudpr.org/siembraboricua...

Find out more about Plenitud PR at:

[sergiosantos]

Books read in 2022

All the books I read in 2022, with a ⭐️ next to my favourites. You can also check my lists for 2020 and 2021.

Fiction

We - Yevgeny Zamyatin ⭐ The Last of the Masters - Philip K. Dick The Carpet Makers - Andreas Eschbach ⭐ Death's End - Liu Cixin The Ark Sakura - Kobo Abe His Master's Voice - Stanislaw Lem The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis - José Saramago Seeing - José Saramago La Diagonale Alekhine - Arthur Larrue The Man Who Planted Trees - Jean Giono The Castle - Franz Kafka The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin ⭐️ The Cyberiad - Stanislaw Lem

Non-fiction

Blockchain Chicken Farm - Xiaowei Wang ⭐ On Anarchism - Noam Chomsky A Civic Technologist's Practice Guide - Cyd Harrell The Anarchist Handbook - Michael Malice Nea Kavala, Nea Kavala - Frederico Martinho The DisCO Elements Selected Writings - Mikhail Bakunin Bobby Fischer goes to War - David Edmonds & John Eidinow Play Winning Chess - Yasser Seirawan Kraftwerk - Uwe Schütte On Tennis - David Foster Wallace Capitalist Realism - Mark Fisher Judgment of Paris - George M. Taber Voices from the Valley - Moira Weigel & Ben Tarnoff Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? - Linda Nochlin Soft City - David Sim The Motorcycle Diaries - Ernesto Che Guevara Rebel Ideas - Matthew Syed Wine and War - Don Kladstrup Four Thousand Weeks - Oliver Burkeman ⭐ The One-Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka Movement - Thalia Verkade ⭐ The Permaculture City - Toby Hemenway The Race Against the Stasi - Herbie Sykes The 99% Invisible City - Kurt Kohlstedt & Roman Mars The Captive Mind - Czesław Miłosz Consider the Oyster - M. F. K. Fisher The Kronstadt Uprising - Ida Mett Post-scarcity Anarchism - Murray Bookchin

[turtlesandfrogs]

So a lot of permaculture ideas are very old ways of doing things that indigenous peoples have been doing forever, and sometimes other people popularize the ideas and profit off of that without even sharing credit, so just something to keep in mind. Also, a lot of people only consider the agricultural component, but the idea is to design systems that work for people, so that includes living spaces, travel, etc.

I would suggest really looking into your local area, and see how things were done before colonization. How was agriculture done in your area? Forest gardens? Waffle Gardens? Did they use catchment and check dams? How were living spaces built? Then check traditional practices in other areas that share your climate type and see what they did to meet the challenges of their area. That will give you some background to see if particular ideas are possibly a good fit or not.

Bill Mollison and Shepp Holzer both wrote books that might be a good start to understanding what people often mean when they talk about permaculture.

I personally like reading Masanobu Fukuoka's 'One Straw Revolution' and Dale Strickler's 'Compete guide to restoring your soil' together. It's an experience, but I'm also a soil nerd so it might not be so cool to other people.

I think everyone should get a foundational understanding of the nitrogen cycle, and read the Humanure Handbook. I also really like 'Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond', and the website has a lot of good info (or at least did last time I checked it).

The permaculture forums have a wealth of discussions on them, though the guy that started them can be something at times. Also, it's a mixed bag at times, and ranges from hard science to very much not depending on the source, so keep that in mind. But also, sometimes people find things that work, and science doesn't figure out why until later.

I'm sure there's lots of other suggestions people will add!

Permaculture folks, can you recommend me reading/accounts/tell me more about the field? I’m really keen to know more 💚😊

[davidstortebeker]

Taking Care of Business 1 – Humanure Composting with a Bucket

What can we do with our human wastes?

Probably one of the most important questions addressed by Permaculture is not the one about where things come from (food from our garden, water from the rain, energy from the sun, etc.) but where they go once we are done with them. Since the mere idea of trash (junk, garbage, rubbish, refuse, waste, but also pests, weeds, and bad people) contradicts everything Permaculture is about, a completely different approach is called for. Referring to the same things as scrap, raw resource, or compost, is a good start. In this way we start seeing the same things as solutions rather than problems.

image source

When it comes to human excrement, it doesn’t take more than a bit of an effort to view it as a rich source of nutrients (which almost sounds like food) rather than the pile of crap we’ve learned to treat it as. Clearly, in its original state it is nothing more than a nasty, smelly problem, and a potential source of further problems, such as insects and infections, if not taken care of properly. Unfortunately, some seemingly “proper” treatment methods are responsible for even bigger problems.

image source

The Bucket Chuck-it System

Doing a search on composting toilets will give you a good variety of ways to deal with our feces. The basic idea is always the same: covering our excrement with carbon-rich material will give it the optimal C:N (carbon : nitrogen) ratio for composting, while preventing the exposure to the air, thus keeping the smell and bugs in check. Probably the most common system for this is the two-chamber solution, where a full chamber has time to decompose while the other one is being filled over months. It is a good system, though it requires some construction work to set it up. But where would you go in the meantime? Or suppose you've just arrived on your newly acquired piece of property, without any structures whatsoever, and want to do an observation over the next few weeks. The bucket system is the ideal solution.

Probably the humanure composting system that requires the least infrastructure is the bucket. It’s just as simple as it sounds: a five-gallon bucket with an optional toilet seat on top, and a bag of sawdust on the side. Because of its minimal size, it is inevitable that it must be emptied once a week, at least. Initially, this might seem like a disadvantage. However, taking the bucket to the compost, dumping it out, covering it with some more carbon rich material, then rinsing out the bucket and dumping the water on the pile, can all be done in under ten minutes by one person. And because of the shallow depth of the bucket, it’s fairly easy to ensure that everything is 100% covered, at all times. For this reason I have found this bucket solution to be cleaner, less smelly, and less frequented by insects than the elaborate two-chamber composting toilets. So much so, that it’s even a practically feasible system for indoor use, as it can be seen on this photo of my friend's composting toilet in Hungary. Isn’t it pretty?

And Once the Bucket is Full...

Don't wait till it's full! It's much easier to carry and empty it out if it is only about ¾ full. And yes, it needs to have a composting pile prepared, with more carbon-rich material on the side, such as straw. I’ve once had the pleasure to build a so called “Humanure Hacienda,” straight from Joseph Jenkins’ Humanure Handbook, a highly recommendable source on this subject. There the bucket can be emptied on the pile in the left chamber and covered with straw from the dry section in the middle. When that chamber is full, which should take at least a year, the right one can be used while the left side is left alone to decompose. After the second year, the first chamber is ready to be emptied. This compost is safe to use on plants whose edible parts don’t come in contact with the compost, such as fruit trees, hazelnuts, or even corn.

Of course it should be noted, that before the two years are up, the compost should be given its proper respect. Don't mix it with other compost, have a certain sets of tools (shovels pitchforks, etc.) designated for the humanure compost only, and even once it is ready for use, don't fertilize your carrots or cabbages with it.

image source

All in all, I consider this the most flexible and most efficient way of dealing with one of our most ubiquitous products. It can be as simple as a bucket and a compost pile, or it can be as fancy and high-end as the structures in the photos. Of course, they are not the only type of sustainable toilets around, so stay tuned for more insights into humanure composting.

sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

[whatifsandspheres]

Those books, the Western Fertilizer Handbook and Teaming with microbes... I'm probably going to have to buy new copies of them. They were among the books I bought for my last stint at Community College, before it was interrupted with an illegal and unjust event that has basically made life nearly impossible. Details on that if anyone is interested, but to stay on the same page-- I was assured I would be compensated for those books if I bought them, "as long as you're in school, we will support you." Well, they didn't, support me or pay me back for those two semesters' books or other expenses.

So it's a bit of a consistent string of unreliability and deception that has followed around those particular books. The last I saw of them I had them on hand along with some notebooks with sketches and plans for permaculture design and house renovations, etc. So... They're probably considerably moldy and rotting in a dark, dank little room with poor ventilation, at at worse they're somewhere else or trashed due to someone being allowed entry without my consent or knowledge. A sort of anniversary has passed for me, surviving that illegal deportation attempt by corrupt elements of the "State Guard." They broke my leg and practically forced me to crawl back to my house. After that date, there's the nine years since surviving a knife to the heart and police in San Diego attempting to ruin my life, something I have always known isn't on an official motivation-- it's a private person's, possibly civilian, obsessive vendetta. Now the date is approaching for when I had my leg broken outside my house in Coamiles. It didn't matter that the house was legally in my name and only my name, my parents manipulated me and showed the corruption and stupidity of the local government by virtually dragging me out of my home and them prohibiting me from returning-- even almost threatening my safety if I were to attempt to. They also made a bunch of promises if I were to return here to Tijuana to this house. They haven't fulfilled a single one of those promises and have even tried to turn them into other contexts and meanings. The common thread seems to show a consistent theme-- return to the USA. Give up. Anything you work on will be taken, destroyed, or ruined-- and your conservative family will only revel in humiliating you through it and aggrandizing their egos. In 2020 and 2019 they signed paperwork to have me forcibly locked away in these "rehabilitation" centers, where human rights abuses were regularly comitted, building codes not being met was the least of their abuses. They beat people, including myself, they refused me first-aid, they stole my personal belongings and rummaged through my things, they regularly verbally and psychologically abused me and others. The list goes on. My parents. They PAID MONEY to have me put in those places. Any time they would visit and I asked them to take me out and let me go, they made up excuses.

[breelandwalker]

Home Agriculture Books

For anyone interested in learning about home agriculture and permaculture for urban and suburban environments, here are some books I’ve been reading on the subject, along with a couple of titles on canning and preserving your harvests.

The Backyard Homestead

Mini-Farming: Self Sufficiency on a Quarter Acre

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

Greenhouse Gardening (part of the Urban Homesteading series)

The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, 2nd ed.

The Vegetable Gardener’s Container Bible

The Farmer’s Kitchen Handbook

The Homestead Canning Cookbook

(Yes these are Amazon listings, mostly for convenience and reviews. They should be available elsewhere as well. Also make sure you look for additional sources from farmers and experienced home gardeners. Enjoy!)

[rewritingtrauma]

Permaculture Design Course

We dialled in from living rooms, bedrooms, caravans and gardens across 11 different time zones, from Abu Dhabi to California (with Brazil and Berlin somewhere in between). Our reasons for being here were all unique and yet all similar; concerns for the future; for the mass extinction event and loss of natural habitats; hoping to learn how to live sustainably; how to grow food naturally; how to produce more than we consume; how to change career; how to live without doing harm; and how to co-create a better world for our children and future generations to grow up in. In the context of one of the biggest worldwide pandemics in living history, this group of strangers met in the timeless hinterland of the online meeting room to explore, share, and learn about positive solutions both now and for our futures... 

I stumbled across The Permaculture Design Course quite by accident (as I was looking for ways to make my struggling garden thrive rather than merely survive) but, over the course of a month, this unexpected experience changed my life completely... For the first time in 35 years I feel that I have been given access to a toolkit for living - a set of frameworks, processes and principles which speak entirely to what I feel and know to be real and right - for how to be and live in the world in deeply connected, holistic and sustainable ways... At a moment when I was feeling incredibly helpless and overwhelmed by global and personal circumstances, the PDC and this group of wonderful, disparate strangers, appeared “as if by magic” and turned around the whole way I understand myself, my power, and my place in the world. On my ‘rewriting trauma’ journey the PDC has been an invaluable turning point and has provided me with the maps and materials I most need (though may not have been looking for) for going forwards... 

Since finishing the course I have been asked numerous times by friends, family and neighbours “What IS Permaculture, exactly...?” And I have responded with numerous answers (according to who was asking, their reasons for asking and the context in which the question was asked) but I would like to take this opportunity to address that question, in the best way I know how, through the precious and manifold ideas and conversations which came up throughout the course. I want to respond to the question “What is Permaculture?” in this way (rather than offer a singular narrative) because I believe this embodies and reflects much more of the essence of what Permaculture is : a set of principles, processes and frameworks for living which can be tailored to the particular and specific answers and solutions each one of us seeks in our own, unique context. 

Word bubble formed from the PDC reactions to the question “How do you define Permaculture?” 2nd June 2020

“You can’t have sustainable food production without sustainable everything else.”

                                                                                                           Graham Bell,                                                                                            Online PDC, June 2020

June 2020 was an astonishing and deeply challenging month in so many ways… Personally, I was forced to face the vulnerability of my own situation; my reliance on shop bought food and uncertain income streams when, at the very outset of lockdown, literally all of my work dried up, my partner was made redundant and access to food was scarce and difficult. Then there was worse to come. In the late hours of the 16th of June, my cousin Beth died. The news arrived during one of our PDC sessions. She had been battling secondary and primary breast cancer. This is a heartbreak and a loss I am still trying to understand and process (but one which, had I not been held by this group and this experience, would have been so much harder to deal with). 

Meanwhile, on the international stage, people were facing so many additional threats and challenges posed by the Coronavirus Pandemic. The death statistics highlighted the social and economic inequalities, both at home and abroad, particularly along lines of race - with a disproportionate number of deaths and redundancies in people from BBIPOC (Black, Brown, Indigenous, People of Colour) backgrounds. We saw deaths in refugee camps sky rocketing. These statistics were a bitter salt in the wounds of exhaustive and institutional racism which we saw enacted again and again from the refugee crisis in Syria and Yemen to the police murders of George Floyd in Texas, Israel Berry in Oregon, Tracy Downe in Florida and many more besides… Some of us white folx, in waking up to the scale and pervasiveness of institutional and embedded violence towards our African, Asian and South East Asian Diaspora friends, that we (I) started to understand our (my) own white fragility and the systems of dis/advantage which many of us have been complicit in. And it was amidst this context of great uncertainty and upheaval that the PDC took place... 

Over the course of the month of June, with three day-long zoom meetings a week and a handful of break out/additional sessions in between, we explored (amongst many things); the ideas and inspirations behind Permaculture; the centrality of Observation; Non Violent Communication; Patterns; Input & Output Analysis; Wild Design; Trees and Soil; Guilds - what they are, how they work, making our own; Arts and Culture(s); Landscape; Climate; Planning for the future; Alternative Exchange Economies; Food and Water; Six Coloured Thinking Hats; Plant Families and Nomenclature; Sociocracy; Healing; Cooperation vs Competition; Zones and Sectors; Needs, Wants and Offers… And many more things besides and between. 

Though I was not aware of it at the time (though I might have been, had I read the curriculum and course handbook in advance!) almost the entire first half of the PDC was taken up with the co-creation of a safe and productive learning space and culture.  

One of the first questions posed to the participants was from Kate Everett who asked “What makes learning work for you?”

I struggled to identify what had worked for me in the past but could instantly conjure what made learning not work: I thought of GCSE revision, 20 cups of tea a day, desperately cramming information into my head… I thought back to how long it had taken me to learn how to tie shoe laces or to put up a tent because of how much heat and anger there was from my father and his father that I couldn’t just do it… I thought of those feelings of shame, humiliation, stress and of shutting down when I was told I was an idiot and a failure… But then, interestingly, so many others in the group articulated similar experiences - “stress, school, competition”…Some people described themselves as lone wolves, others learnt better in groups, some benefited from working together over a problem or by sharing what they were learning… But what all of us agreed upon was the inhibiting effects of stress on learning and the need to enfold experimentation, play, overview and failure in order to make our learning journeys productive and engaging...

                                                 “Learning is love”

                                                                                                           Graham Bell 

Little did we know it at the time but all this information about our individual learning experiences was being observed, gathered and harvested… as we learnt about ourselves and one another we were also learning how to create the best learning (and hence growing) conditions for us as individuals and as a collective. Though we may not have fully realised it as it was happening, we are all in the “inverted classroom” : we had all become the teachers, as well as the students and would learn more from the collective than any single teacher or pedagogy could ever bestow...

Quotes and prompts I collected throughout the course 

“A person who doesn’t make a mistake probably doesn’t make anything” 

                                                                                                            Graham Bell

Mark Shiperlee introduced us to the concept of the Culture Board and we begin brain storming what factors are important to measure our course culture against. The factors we decided were of most importance to integrate into, and develop throughout, the course were;

Positive Solutions

Long & Short Breaks

Gift Economy

Time Keeping

Mutual Respect

Fun

Creativity

Task Setting & Reporting

Inclusion

Group Work

Connect With Nature

Throughout the course we would check in on the Culture Board regularly to determine what stage these various factors were at i.e. Seed; Sprout; Leaf; Flower; or Fruit. For me this was a valuable tool in understanding where the group felt our learning journey was at - which areas were working and which were not. It made this an easy, fluid and almost anonymised process and helped to address both the successes and the failures as we went along, understanding where energy needed focusing. This was one of many visual tools, along with The Life Ethics venn diagram, Six Thinking Hats, OBREDIMET, Looby’s Design Web, Input & Output Analysis, PMI (Plus, Minus, Interesting) Analysis, Importance/Urgency Matrix, and Relative Location which I have continued to use in my own Permaculture Life/Design Processes…  

My LIfe Ethics Venn Diagram - i.e. the three main ethics of permaculture”Earth Care”, “People Care” and “Fair Shares” Where they all intersect is the core of Life Ethics 

During the course we were also given our own break out Guild groups with whom we had to develop ad present a Permaculture Design Project with (below is ‘an artist’s impression’ of our Guild The Four Acorns - Lynn, Siobhan, Lucy and myself.

“Though the problems of the world are increasingly complex, the solutions remain embarrassingly simple” 

                                                                                                             Bill Mollison

By the third week of the course, with each one of our guild feeling exhausted by various life stresses (illness, work, family, bereavement, etc) we decided the best and most effective design we could work on was one for supporting each other as a guild whilst we embarked upon our permaculture journeys (the one thing which united all of us was that we wished to continue beyond the course). 

We started applying some of the tools and processes we acquired throughout the course to our own visions for the future. We started off with Holmgren’s Permaculture Design Principles;

Principle 1. Observe & Interact

We began our guild process by gradually getting to know one another, developing  & discussing  project ideas that would tap into all of our needs & aspirations. 

Principle 2.Catch & Store Energy

As we were all feeling a bit burnout we realised we needed to do something that would hold space and energy for us as individuals and a collective i.e. catch and store energy by making and holding space for one another. We wanted to encourage each other to feel safe enough to start exploring with new eyes and to assist each other’s courage in the face of major life changes.

Principle 3.Obtain a yield

We all wanted to carry on our development beyond the course and to share permaculture with others - so we asked the questions “How could we support one another in this?” But, in addition “What renewable resources and services did we have that we could use, share and apply?” and “What could we create - the main yield - within this guild?” We decided that the yield we could create in the present, but carrying into the future, was a space full of loving-support, inspiration, challenge and abundance.

Principle 4. Apply Self-regulation & accept feedback & Principle 5. Use & Value Renewable Resources and Services

As we began using permaculture tools to explore our individual designs, these processes enabled us to support and affirm one another; to share wisdom; tell stories; hear, value and integrate one another as individuals in a guild; become energised and strengthened by our diverse experiences, perspectives, knowledge(s), points of view; and to be challenged and strengthened by processes and making compassionate space for learning through failure too... And believe me, we did fail... 

Mind Map at the outset of my own Permaculture Life Design exploring my assets, helps/opportunities, limitations, needs, aims and potential tools & processes to employ

                         “It takes shit... literal shit... but then you get humus”

                                                                                                                   Siobhan

On the last day of the course all of the individual guilds presented their design projects and it was amazing to see the wealth, depth and diversity of those ideas and the tools and processes (which we had been given throughout the course) put into action. There were design solutions that addressed; food scarcity; social isolation; mental health issues; segregation; alienation; loss of habitat and species; water shortages; poor health; access to education; job losses; seed sharing; community spaces; and so many more big issues. It was staggering.

In such a short space of time this small group of strangers had come together and, with the support of our guides and course leaders, co-created a network of support from across the world, positively enriching one another and the larger ecosystems each of us are a part of. It was a little island of paradise which cultivated an abundance of new perspectives, hope and courage. By showing us what might be possible and - rather than getting too mired in the negative/things we cannot control - looking to appreciate what we have, what we can be and what we can create together, the PDC taught us how diversity and collaboration can help us, both as individuals and a society, develop resilience in the face of the overwhelming challenges of our times.

It was an experience I will never forget and which I hope to keep alive as I go into the future (remembering to regularly use, sharpen and adapt those valuable tools)... 

[bumblebeeappletree]

In 20 minutes I share everything I wish I knew before I started designing my permaculture food forest.

This video covers strategies for capturing and storing water, improving and feeding your soil, creating a baseman for capturing your observations, swales, contours, guilds and layering your food forest and working with succession as well as some syntropic agroforestry techniques that you can use in your backyard.

A permaculture food forest requires upfront work, but the long-term rewards are huge! That is why I believe it’s the easiest way to grow food. No annual tilling, no toiling under the hot sun year after year, no need to purchase inputs once your forest is established. Once you set up a successful system, it will thrive for generations to come.

Links mentioned in the video:

Want to experience the magic of Goldifarms? Visit our Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Goldifarms

The following are Amazon Affiliate links and I may receive a small commission if you purchase through these links:

Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins

https://amzn.to/441FP9w

Restoration Agriculture by Mark Stepard

https://amzn.to/422yG7k

About Goldifarms:

My name is Erin. I started Goldifarms in my backyard in January 2020 as part of my journey to heal myself and restore this land. I follow permaculture design principles to create regenerative abundance here on the Central Coast of California in zone 9a. My intention with this YouTube channel is to provide inspiration to connect with nature, grow your own food and medicine, and help create a more beautiful world together.

Thank you for all your support, I hope these videos will inspire you to follow your heart and pursue what lights up your life ✨ 🌼💛

Sending so much love to you on your journey. Thank you for watching 🐝💛🌻

Want to experience the magic of Goldifarms? Visit our Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/Goldifarms

For a brief history of Goldifarms, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u5z7...

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Chapters

00:00- Intro

00:33 - Start with Why

01:20 - Imagine

03:03 - Observe

04:09 - Create a Basemap

05:18 - Design for Water

09:45 - Get that GoldiGlow!!✨

11:04 - Feed your Soil

13:52 - Layers and Succession

18:38 - Design Iteratively

[spreadcasts]

The Original Transplants Podcast Episode 53: Homesteading for Food Security The Original Transplants Podcast Episode 53 explores food security and supply chain logistics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Will explains swarm-trapping for apiary expansion, and Will and Sarah discuss preventive and supportive therapies for low-intervention chicken flock health. Sarah shares favorite recipes for preparing dandelions and fiddlehead ferns foraged from the edible landscape, and updates listeners on the progress of vegetable seedlings and orchard pollination. Sarah and Will discuss invasives management and lessons learned while morel hunting, including proper identification, dangerous look-alikes, and the importance of ethical harvest. Episode 53 closes with articles from Lancaster Farming featuring farmer perspectives on food security and supply chain logistics during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Notes (below the jump)

Exton Bee Company http://extonbeecompany.com/

Tom Seeley et al. - Bait Hives for Honey Bees https://ecommons.cornell.edu/handle/1813/2653

In the Name of the Kind: A Dungeon Siege Tale (film reference) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460780/

Gail Damerow - The Chicken Health Handbook https://archive.org/details/The_Chicken_Health_Handbook_Complete/page/n2/mode/2up

Samuel Thayer - Nature's Garden https://www.foragersharvest.com/store/p3/NaturesGarden.html#/

Mushroom Appreciation - Morels - Identification and Hunting Tips https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/morel-mushrooms.html

Robin Wall Kimerer - Honorable Harvest https://www.upaya.org/2014/06/guidelines-honorable-harvest/

Lancaster Farming Farmers Market Gets Creative to Deal With Covid-19 https://www.lancasterfarming.com/news/southern_edition/farmers-market-gets-creative-to-deal-with-covid-19/article_69f987df-ca5c-5540-a23b-ba690726821e.html

Foodservice Decline Leads to Flock Culling https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming/poultry/foodservice-decline-leads-to-flock-culling/article_7b952f8a-d50c-5329-a1f5-ff1673f7d0c3.html

Dairy Industry Seeks Ways to Donate Excess Milk https://www.lancasterfarming.com/farming/dairy/dairy-industry-seeks-ways-to-donate-excess-milk/article_ec34d93b-21a7-53ef-81b9-614729eae62e.html

Redding Outlines Steps Taken to Secure Food Supply, Address Food Insecurity in Pennsylvania https://www.lancasterfarming.com/news/main_edition/redding-outlines-steps-taken-to-secure-food-supply-address-food-insecurity-in-pennsylvania/article_2fe6cfb0-856b-11ea-a141-5b3accc6a0b0.html

TAGS #food security #food supply #covid-19 #coronavirus #pandemic #food #farming #agriculture #gardening #homesteading #gardens #podcast #satoyamahomestead #bees #beekeeping #permaculture #honey bees #apiculture #backyardchickens #chickens #coop #rooster #ediblelandscape #spring #weather #rain #homestead #plants #seedlings #invasives management #foraging #edible wild plants #morel hunting

[culturesofresistancefilms]

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Plenitud PR is a community-based organization dedicated to food education. Through our sister foundation, the Cultures of Resistance Network, we have been proud to support them! Learn more at: https://culturesofresistance.org/groups-we-support/plenitud-pr/

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[mmwm]

Continuing my highly personal notes on Peter Bane’s The Permaculture Handbook (2012), here’s Chapter Sixteen: Trees and Shrubs, Orchards, Woodlands and Forest Gardens. Any misrepresentations of Bane’s words or work are mine alone and completely unintentional. Notes on each chapter linked here.

*

“Some of the most cold-hardy wild fruits will not grow in regions much warmer than zone 4, but others stretch all the way to zone 9. I will not remark on those that should be removed from the list as we proceed southward, except to say that when you can grow figs, you become much less interested in cranberries, even if they tolerate your climate. Judge accordingly.” — Peter Bane

What? Figs? But cranberries are beautiful and delicious! Even these Viburnum trilobum highbush cranberries, which are different from Thanksgiving cranberries, which are vacciniums.

*

Trees provide us food, fiber, and energy.

“… when vandals strike (and they have been striking for as long as there have been grain-based surpluses), it is possible to grab your seed corn and flee over the horizon to live and perhaps to plant another day. Tree cultivators live by the virtues of their ancestors and work for the benefit of their descendants. Fire and the sword can undo in one season many generations of care, and recovery is slow. To embrace permanent agriculture based on woody perennials, we must enter into uncharted territory. Tree cropping is not wholly unknown: humans have been cultivating tree fruits for nearly 7,000 years[; the] past century, however, has seen an enormous explosion of scientific and agronomic research into the intensive cropping of grains, legumes and oil seeds, and secondarily into the mass production of a small number of livestock species. These crops have become the basis of industrial food. Adopting tree crops is part of a broadbased citizen initiative to correct the imbalance of research effort in our food system.”

Coppice: A way to “Cut and come again.” Using hand tools, can cut [non-conifer] trees to the stump and allow them to regrow. Trees don’t have to grow tall before their wood is harvested:

“Instead of allowing trees to grow to a mature height and girth, under coppice systems they are grown only to the dimension that meets the need of the products for which they are cultivated. If you need stove wood of three-inch diameter, it makes no sense to fell and split a two-foot-diameter tree. Better to cut the stems when they are the right dimension for the job.”

coppicing example from Bane’s book

Coppicing frees trees to cover their trunks, limbs, and branches with new cambium cells, so energy in the roots can create new growth; it resets the tree’s life clock.

Tree roots: Most of soil life and nutrients is in the top 12 inches of ground, and that’s where tree’s roots predominantly are, except in arid lands. Tree roots can spread 3x the diameter of the crown. For many trees, the branches on one side of the tree are fed from roots on the opposite side. Trees have structural roots, which anchor them, and feeder roots, which bring them food, and these latter roots are often sloughed off.

Ramial wood: Ramial wood is the young growth of woody plants. [I think we read elsewhere that the wood diameter should be no more than 3″.] It can be cut (it often is cut anyway, for pruning and such) and applied as mulch, breaking down into humus quickly, usually in less than a year. Woody plants are a prime source of fertilizer and mulch to maintain fertility in gardens and farm fields, especially those species that fix nitrogen and those with lots of leaves attached.

my ramial wood pile, April 2015

Some shrubs and trees to consider for coppicing and ramial mulch: “Willows are prolific wherever water is available. Poplar and aspen are fast-growing and respond to coppice. Elaeagnus species, especially the widespread autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) and Russian olive (E. angustifolia), are often seen as dispersive problem plants: make them work for you rather than spend energy trying to exterminate them. We had two autumn olives show up unbidden in a neglected section of our garden. We cut them back every year for mulch and nitrogen, and they have become fertility anchors for the crop species around them. They will eventually provide edible berries.”

swallowtail butterfly on an autumn olive, nearby rail trail in NH, June 2014

Consider planting the legume shrub caragana (Siberian peashrub) in cold climates (zone 2-10, can get 20′ tall, yellow flowers in May).

taller shrub shown here is Siberian peashrub, at Paradise Lot in Holyoke, MA, June 2016

Take no more than 1/3 of a shrub at a time unless you’re cutting it to the ground to grow more stems.

We need trees and shrubs architecturally in the garden, as windbreaks, as visual screens, as part of integrated pest management to confuse pests, to anchor plant guilds, to attract birds.

Woody nitrogen-fixers are listed in Appendix 3.

*

Trees for Food: Nuts: hazelnut (corylus), pine, walnut (juglans), hickory (carya; Carya ovata, shagbark hickory, is among the best-flavored), gingko, chestnut (castanea), and in southern climates, pecan, pistachio, almond. Most reach 40-140 feet tall and take 10-20 years to bear, but most hazels are shrubs and bear quickly.

[My hazelnut shrubs are about 4′ tall now and bore a few nuts, which wildlife nabbed, last year, their 3rd year.]

one of 2 or 3 hazel nuts, mid-July 2017

Difference in size in one hazelnut shrub from May 2016 to June 2017:

same hazelnut shrub, May 2016

one hazelnut shrub, June 2017

Hazelnuts: “American and California hazels (Corylus americana and C. cornuta), European species (C. avellana) and the many crosses between them (hazelberts, filhazels) show a compact, shrubby form and can be coppiced. Hazels will begin bearing after about four years and may live for half a century. They may reach 20 feet at maturity but can readily be maintained at 8–10 feet for cropping purposes.” Hazelnuts can make a dense screen and can be interplanted with tree or cane fruits. They fruit on one-year-old wood. ___________________________________

More on nut trees: I did my own research on some of these, looking for the best for my zone 4 climate and smallish yard — hazelnuts were the winners:

Chestnuts: Take 8 years or more to bear nuts. Need two varieties for cross-pollination. Chinese, 40′ tall, zone 4, blight-resistant. Dunstan, 50′ tall, zone 4. Colossal, zone 5.

Hazelnuts: American hazel, 6-12′ tall, zone 3. European, 12-25′ tall, zone 4. Beaked (the kind that’s wild here), 6-12′ tall, zone 3. California, 25′ tall, zone 4. Hybrid Filazel/Hazelbert, 12-15′ tall, zone 3, takes 3-4 year to bear.

Walnuts: Walnuts are allelopathic (lots of plants can’t grow near or under them). Butternut, 40-90′ tall, very cold hardy zone 3, can take 20 years for nuts, gets a fungus. Heartnut, 50-90′ tall, zones 4-6. Buartnut, a fast-growing hybrid of butternut and heartnut walnut with nuts in 3-6 years, 50-60′ tall, zones 4-7. Black, 50-70′ tall, zones 4-9, takes 12-15 years for nuts.

Shagbark Hickory (common in New England in the wild): 70-85′ tall, can tolerate some shade, zones 4-7.

Gingko: 75′ tall but can be kept short with pruning, zones 3-8, should use only male plants (females stink).

________________________________________

A few of these trees found in the wild or planted other places:

gingko, Longwood Gardens (eastern PA), June 2013

shagbark hickory tree, Middlebury, VT, Nov. 2016

shagbark hickory tree nut, Odiorne State Park, Rye, NH, Aug. 2017

beaked hazelnuts, Butterfield Pond trail, Wilmot, NH, Sept. 2016

‘Fort McNair Red Horse Chestnut’ blooming at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay, ME, June 2017

*

Fruiting Shrubs and Vines: Grapes need 90% new growth removed (when dormant) each year, and they need full sun to fruit well. [We have some growing wild and fruiting in the yard with no care:]

“If you didn’t plant your fruit trees ten years ago, the next best time to do so is today, provided it is late winter, spring or a moist autumn.”

Tree fruits: Pomes: apple, medlar, pear, quince, hawthorn. Pears: Plant three or more varieties together. Bees are not very interested in pears. Stone (self-fertile; 2/3 of the time, a seed will grow to resemble its parent): plum, apricot, cherry, peach, almond, and crosses of nectarine and pluot

Bane has several pages on grafting methods that I didn’t really read.

Selecting trees for your climate: Fruit tree species listed by USDA zones. I noted only those to zone 5 (my best, warmest microclimate) and only those I was interested in: Zone 0 (near tundra): Saskatoon (Amelanchier alnifolia); wild pin cherry (Prunus pensylvanica), chokecherry (P. virginiana), northern mountain ash (Sorbus decora), highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum). Zone 1: mountain ash (Sorbus americana), northern mountain cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea), some crab apples, a couple small apple varieties. Zone 2: more cultivated apples and crab apples, apricots (Prunus mandshurica), Canada plum (P. nigra), currants, gooseberries, lowbush blueberries, cranberries (Vaccinium macrocarpon), elderberries (Sambucus nigra), hawthorns, some sand cherries (Prunus pumila), nannyberry (Viburnum lentago).

elderberry shrubs, Aug 2017

Zone 3 (includes some parts of the Adirondacks and Maine, northern Minnesota and upper Michigan, high elevations in the mountain West, plus lots of Canada): tart cherry, American plums, some Japanese plums, some bush cherry, some roses (including R. rugosa), European mountain ash (Sorbus aucuparia var. edulis), American hazel (Corylus americana), blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium), more apples and crab apples, a few pear cultivars. Zone 4: most apples, most pears, butternut and black walnut, many grapes, hardy kiwis (Actinidia arguta, A. kolomikta), more apricots, some European plums, white mulberry (Morus alba). Zone 5: hardy varieties of peach, some northern pecans, buartnut, gingko, highbush blueberries [there are actually some cultivars that do well in zones below 5], sweet cherry, Damson and prune plums, red mulberries, American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), Cornus kousa, and pawpaw (Asimina triloba).

“Order only as many plants as you can plant within a week, and begin preparing your planting holes in advance.”

*

How to Plant a Tree: I’ve planted a lot of trees and shrubs but still found useful tips, e.g., to turn the prominent side branch, if there is one, to the prevailing wind (here, it’s NW) to give it extra protection; to stab the sides of the hole so roots can head off horizontally; and to tamp the roots and soil as you go, so as not to leave large air pockets.

Here are the full instructions:

Pruning: “A young apple, pear or peach needs about three dozen leaves per fruit, or six to eight inches of stem per fruit. A 3- to 4-year-old tree may do well with about 50 fruits, a number that will increase from year to year. About four to six weeks after flowering, you can see which blossoms have been pollinated, as these will be showing small fruits.  Remove all but one or two in each flower cluster, favoring those that are largest and have no blemishes or insect damage. If you cannot tell which are going to fill out, wait another week or two to allow them to swell. With young cherries, plums and apricots, there is less concern about thinning the crop.”  [I’ve also read to thin peaches out to about one peach fruitling every 4-6″ on a stem, and do it early and perhaps twice.]

“Pay particular attention to the time of blooming and record this each year for each tree or major block of trees. Notice also what wild plants are then blooming, what birds are migrating through, what frogs are mating at the same time and other climate-sensitive phenomena.”

(Quechee Gorge, VT, May 2011)

Benefits of trees in the garden/farm: Shade, protection, windbreak, cooling, lowering a high water table, soil building, visual screening, fencing, mulch as leaves and twigs drop, fuel, fruits/nuts, nitrogen-fixers, fertilizer, forage for bees and wildlife, habitat. Never plant a tree that can’t serve at least three functions.

arborvitae ‘Emerald Green’ windbreak/hedge, Bedrock Gardens, Lee, NH, Sept. 2016

*

Forest Gardens: Polyculture – mix of species. Structure of a temperate forest garden is based on canopy elements, i.e., trees like apples, pears, cherries, walnuts or chestnuts. Other tall elements could include nitrogen-fixing trees for fertility (e.g., black locust, alders, mimosa). The middle layer could include shrubs like serviceberries, elderberries, hazels, Siberian pea shrub, autumn olive. Ground cover layer could include mints, alliums, nasturtiums, comfrey, burdock, sedums, horseradish, lovage, yarrow, fennel, annuals, clovers, lamiums. He talks specifically about fruit tree guilds on p. 331.

[Below, just a few of the ground covers and middle layer plants in my fruit guild: ]

Using weeds: “An important shortcut to successful forest gardening is to learn about and use a good range of friendly weeds. These are expansive or dispersive plants that are easy to use or to live with. They don’t have thorns. If they show up where you don’t want them, they’re easy to move or to get rid of. They’re pretty or edible or make good compost or medicine, so that you don’t mind having lots of them. Lettuce is a friendly weed in our garden. … Chickweed, mache and lambsquarters are friendly weeds. Dandelions are a bit stubborn but basically OK.” But you may also have to suppress weeds you don’t want — for instance, creeping euonymous, poison ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, multiflora rose, maple seedlings, hackberry, black cherry, ashes, some grasses, or whatever is vexacious in your region.

[Below, a few of the weeds that have emerged in my garden and have been left to beautify and nourish it: ]

“Forest gardening is part of a larger strategy to create productive woodland mosaics in our inhabited landscapes.”

*

Featured image (top image) is some sort of mountain ash (Sorbus sp.), Sunset Hill Trail, Newbury, NH, Aug. 2014

Book Notes: The Permaculture Handbook :: Chapter Sixteen Continuing my highly personal notes on Peter Bane’s The Permaculture Handbook (2012), here's Chapter Sixteen: Trees and Shrubs, Orchards, Woodlands and Forest Gardens. 

[hsawaynk]

Read The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country EBOOK BY Peter Bane

Download Or Read PDF The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country - Peter Bane Free Full Pages Online With Audiobook.

  [*] Download PDF Here => The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country

[*] Read PDF Here => The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country

[pterryy]

[PDF] Download The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country -- Peter Bane

Download Or Read PDF The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country - Peter Bane Free Full Pages Online With Audiobook.

  [*] Download PDF Here => The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country

[*] Read PDF Here => The Permaculture Handbook: Garden Farming for Town and Country