Permaculture: Emulating nature to create abundance

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a concept derived from the words permanent and agriculture by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren. In essence, it's about the interplay of humans and their environment, and how we can work with the natural flows that exist. It overlaps with organic farming, water management, sustainable architecture, and social structure to create resilient systems where waste becomes a resource and all is interconnected. While agriculture is at its core, the principles of permaculture can be expanded to anyone wishing to make a positive difference in their environment, whether in a city, suburban area, rural landscape or even your approach to life.

At its core, permaculture asks how do we leave our planet better than we found it. Read on to learn more about the core ethics and principals and see how we are working to apply them.

Working with nature to enhance all life

Core Ethics of Permaculture

The core ethics drive the rest of permaculture and guide all other work. If you abide by these it's a great start.

• Care for the Earth: This principle emphasizes the importance of protecting and nurturing the planet's ecosystems, ensuring that all living things can thrive.

• Care for People: Permaculture promotes the well-being of individuals and communities, encouraging social equity and support for each other.

• Fair Share: This principle advocates for sharing resources and surplus, ensuring that everyone has access to what they need while minimizing waste while thinking about the long term.

"When we work with nature instead of trying to impose our will, the solution is often found within the problem. -David Holmgren

Key Principles of Permaculture

Permaculture principles are foundational to all design concepts and can be summarized in the following key areas:

Observe and Interact

Understanding the environment and engaging with it is crucial for designing sustainable systems. This principle encourages people to take time to observe natural processes and act with intention.

Catch and Store Energy

This principle emphasizes the importance of harnessing resources such as sunlight and water to create sustainable systems that can store energy for future use. This idea can also be applied personally; where do you put your energy daily and what drains it or adds to it?

Obtain a Yield

Permaculture systems should provide tangible benefits and yields, whether they be food, energy, or other resources, ensuring that the system is productive. What can you create instead of consuming?

Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

Systems should be designed to self-regulate and adapt based on feedback from the environment, promoting resilience and sustainability. Be open to making mistakes and learning from them.

Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

This principle advocates for the use of renewable resources to minimize ecological impact and promote sustainability. Assess small changes that can help you conserve resources.

Produce No Waste

This principle encourages the design of systems that minimize waste and recycle resources, promoting a circular economy. How can you reduce the waste products you bring into your home? What can your reuse or fix?

Design from Patterns to Details

Emphasizes the importance of recognizing patterns in nature and human systems before diving into detailed design work. What patterns keep coming up that may need to be changed?

Integrate Rather than Segregate

Creating connections between different elements in a system enhances synergy and efficiency, leading to more sustainable outcomes. How can activities and material items serve more than one purpose?

Use Small and Slow Solutions

Start small and allow systems to grow and evolve over time, which leads to more manageable and sustainable solutions. What small step can you take to make change today?

Use and Value Diversity

Diversity in systems promotes resilience and stability, making them less vulnerable to pests, diseases, and environmental changes. Try something new!

Use Edges and Value the Marginal

The edges or boundaries of systems often hold the most potential for diversity and productivity, and these areas should be valued and utilized effectively. Are there areas of neglect in your life or surroundings that could be improved?

Creatively Use and Respond to Change

Embracing change and use it as an opportunity for innovation and improvement within systems.

How are we applying permaculture principles?

As we work from theory to application there are seven key domains to consider when planning and building. Below are some specific undertakings in each of the domains so you can see a realistic way permaculture is applied.

1. Land and Nature Stewardship-Creating food forests, perennial farming, seed saving, wild harvesting, organic practices

2. Buildings-Use of solar design, water harvesting and reuse, natural disaster resistant construction, earth sheltered construction

3. Tools and technology-Energy storage, efficient and low pollution heating, hand tools, renewable energy sources, reuse and creative recycling

4. Education and culture-social ecology, participatory arts and music, action research, transition culture

5. Health and spiritual well-being-growing and eating nutrient dense whole foods grown with regenerative practices, body/mind/spirit disciplines, complementary and holistic medicines, indigenous wisdoms, cultural revival

6. Finances and economics- local and regional support, farmers markets and CSA's, ethical investment and fair trade, tradable energy quotas, life cycle analysis

7. Land Tenure and Community Governance-Cooperative corporations, open source technology, consensus decision making, ecovillages

In Practice

Permaculture provides a robust framework for understanding and implementing sustainable practices in agriculture and community design. These principles encourage a holistic approach to environmental stewardship, emphasizing the interconnectedness of systems and the importance of working with nature. By focusing on natural ecosystems, we promote biodiversity, conserve resources, and enhance soil health. We recently earned a certificate of Permaculture Design through Midwest Permaculture and are looking forward to putting our education into practice on the farm and how we operate. We hope you will join us!