Next-Generation Polycultures
Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier May 22, 2013
Excerpted from Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Urban Oasis by Eric Toensmeier with contributions from Jonathan Bates, available from Chelsea Green January 2013. The book tells the story of our permaculture garden from design through co-evolution nine years down the road.
One spring day in 2009, I gave a garden tour to a young man from New York City who had a forest garden in his tiny front yard. In a ten-by-ten foot patch, he had planted an Asian persimmon and a full set of companions for nitrogen fixation, groundcover, and additional perennial foods. As we walked the garden, I pointed out many species, and we sampled some fruits and greens that he had never tasted before. Usually by the end of a tour, people say how impressed they are with our garden. But this young man had obviously read my books.
“So where are the polycultures?” he asked.
Comments (0)Allan Savory – Reversing Global Warming while Meeting Human Needs (videos)
Global Warming/Climate Change, Livestock, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation — by Rhamis Kent May 17, 2013
Reversing Global Warming while Meeting Human Needs
— an Urgently Needed Land-Based Option
Allan Savory never ceases to amaze and encourage me. It was really great seeing him present his recent TED Talk — and we now have another opportunity to see him speak. Tufts University hosted an event where he was given the floor to discuss Holistic Management and the many challenges and successes experienced in its development.
Comments (0)How to Build a Cheap Raised Garden Bed
Land, Plant Systems, Urban Projects — by Samuel Alexander April 30, 2013
I’ve been advancing my guerilla gardening efforts recently, with a significant new raised bed now beautifying my nature strip, as seen in the picture at right. I thought in this post I could provide a brief overview of how to build a cheap raised bed, either for use on your nature strip or in your front or back yards. This overview might seem a bit basic for the handy builders among you, so I direct this post to those who are beginning their journey into guerilla gardening and urban agriculture.
I was moved to write this post after attending an environmental festival recently where raised beds like the one I have built were priced between $800 and $1000! Mine cost considerably less than $100, including the soil and plants, and that’ll pay for itself soon enough. I also earned the joy of construction, making me doubly well off. Below I describe the method for building a raised garden bed that is two boards high, which provides good depth.
Comments (8)John Todd Living Machines Lecture
Biological Cleaning, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Sheri Menelli April 29, 2013
I’m so blown away by the work of John Todd. He works on a huge scale cleaning horrendous toxins out of water. I suspect he knows a bit about permaculture. I saw Bill Mollison’s book listed on one of his websites.
Above is a video that I think gives amazing insight on using plants (and even snails) to clean toxins from water.
Comments (2)“Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space” Trailer
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees, Urban Projects — by Geoff Lawton April 26, 2013
The trailer for my next video is up:
"Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space" trailer
Register your email here and we’ll let you know when
the full movie is ready to watch
Many of you have been asking what Permaculture can do for you in the small Urban space.
Well, one of my students, Angelo, has transformed his tiny Melbourne backyard into an amazing productive garden and documented every detail over the last 4 years. You’ll find out how much food you could grow in the micro space when you apply Permaculture design creatively.
You will be amazed.
Comments (2)Forests Keep Drylands Working (John D. Liu video)
Biodiversity, Deforestation, Desertification, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 23, 2013
John D. Liu of the EEMP, who has partnered with us in spreading the permaculture message, has created yet another excellent documentary — this time focussing on drylands, their past function and their present dysfunction through a broadscale loss of forest cover, and its impact on soil loss and on the hydrological cycle.
In this video we travel vicariously with John as he takes us from Jordan to Africa to Asia and the Americas, showing us both degradation and restoration — and sharing the inspirational message we all need to hear: that we can undo the damage we’ve inflicted on planet earth, our home.
Comments (3)Letters from New Zealand – a Permaculture Food Forest in the Far South
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees, Urban Projects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 21, 2013
The home of Robert and Robyn Guyton stands amidst an abundance of food
All photos © Craig Mackintosh
Robyn Guyton stands in the Zone 5 area of her food forest
Riverton is a quaint little windswept fishing settlement on the far-south coastline of New Zealand’s beautiful South Island (map). As well as being one of the southernmost inhabited towns in the world, and one of New Zealand’s oldest European settlements, Riverton has another, more relevant, claim to fame — that of hosting one of the best food forests I’ve ever seen! With this post, and the video included, I want to give you a bit of a look at this temperate climate, biological cornucopia.
Comments (11)Carbon-Sequestering Perennial Industrial Crops
Animal Forage, Biofuels, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier April 18, 2013
This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book.
Rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is a common perennial industrial crop, though
typically grown in problematic monocultures. Photo Wikimedia Commons.
Industrial crops produce materials, chemicals, and energy. Some, like cotton, have been used since the dawn of agriculture. Others, like firewood, go back with our species for hundreds of thousands of years. Few of us pause to think where cardboard, rubber, fibers, solvents and biopesticides come from.
Currently much of the materials, chemicals, and energy that support our civilization are synthesized from fossil fuels. To address climate change this needs to end, and we need to learn to do without or use renewable feedstocks (raw materials). Of the biobased renewables used now, GMO corn may be the most frequently used, for example for ethanol and bioplastics. In addition to the social and ecological problems of GMO corn, as an annual crop it contributes to the release of soil carbon into the atmosphere. We must do the opposite, developing perennial and regenerative systems that sequester vast amounts of carbon while meeting human needs.
Comments (0)Industrial Starch and Bioplastic from Non-Destructively Harvested Perennials
Food Plants - Perennial, Material, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier April 15, 2013
This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book.
Though we rarely think of it, starch is the number two most used carbohydrate in industry, coming just after cellulose which is used in great quantities in papermaking. Unlike many industrial crop categories, there is no “synthetic starch” being made from fossil fuels. The situation, however, is not much better. All, or virtually all industrial starch comes from annual food crops, grown in conventional tillage systems. In fact, 17% of European grain goes to papermaking every year. So first we’re using annuals where perennials might fill the gap, and second we’re using food to make cardboard and drywall. This seems like a waste of food, and if we want to minimize the use of annuals we need to find another strategy. Efforts are also underway to genetically modify plants to produce particular starches useful to industry. Given the wide range of starch types available in nature, and the ingenuity of chemists, I think this is unnecessary and somewhat alarming.
Osage orange is a perennial inedible starch with excellent potential as a
feedstock for industrial products like cardboard and bioplastics.
It is cold- and drought-hardy. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
‘The Biggest Estate on Earth’
General, Plant Systems — by Byron Joel April 3, 2013
I remember when I first read Jacke & Toensmeier’s ‘Edible Forest Gardens‘. Above and beyond the immediate excitement I felt at getting involved in such projects myself was the vision proposed in the section ‘Gardening The Forest’, where the authors suggested that when European colonialisation occured the inhabitants of North America (in this case those inhabiting the broadleaf temperate forests of the East coast) were in fact cultivating the land in a multi-generational, hyper-broad scale — um… ‘agriculture’ — and were not the ‘hapless, noble savage at odds against a brutal wilderness’ that the social darwinist within us would like to think, or has assumed, for ages now….
It seems so obvious looking at it. Of course they’d have an encyclopedic knowledge of and intimacy with their environment. Of course they would cultivate the land… Of course!
Comments (5)Strawberry Fields Eco Lodge: Kitchen Grey-Water System Report of Implementation and Design Update (Ethiopia)
Aid Projects, Biological Cleaning, Community Projects, Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Irrigation, Land, Plant Systems, Waste Systems & Recycling, Waste Water, Water Harvesting — by Alex McCausland March 30, 2013
As most of us know, grey water is a term used to refer to “waste” water that has been used once in any domestic system except for toilets (which is referred to as black water). However grey water from the kitchen may be considered as “dark grey” water on account of the fact that it tends to contain a lot more fats and protein from the grease and grime that comes off pots and pans than say shower outflow water which is quite dilute. If you let kitchen grey water sit around it quickly goes rancid and doesn’t smell a lot different from sewage. The grey water coming out of our kitchen also has some pretty nasty detergents in it (Ajax) and we can’t really get hold of anything more eco out here in Ethiopia. Initially we tried putting this grey water directly into an infiltration pit, but that didn’t work very well as it tended to fill up and start to reek and kill the surrounding plants, especially in the rainy season.
Comments (3)Ecosystem Mimicry in Subtropical Florida
Land, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier March 6, 2013
Ecosystem mimicry is one of the concepts at the heart of permaculture. The food forest or edible forest garden, for example, strives to replicate the structure, relationships, and successional pathways of natural forest ecosystems. I’m fortunate to have had the chance to travel and teach in different regions and ecosystems. In many cases I return and teach on the same site every year. This gives me a chance to get to know the ecosystem deeper and deeper, and try experiments and see what happens.
Pods of the lovely native nitrogen fixer Lysiloma latisiliquum
Fernglade Farm – Late Summer 2013 Update (Australia)
Conservation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation — by Chris McLeod February 23, 2013
It’s nearing the end of summer here at Fernglade farm and what a summer it has been. Two inches of rain in over five months, and extreme heat for days on end, results in a most unpleasant experience.
Still, despite it all, things are still growing and there is still food to eat. The kangaroos, wallabies and wombats are also still eating from the farm and they are here often enough now that I’m assuming that conditions are harder elsewhere.
As a response to the extreme weather conditions, in very early summer I set about heavily mulching all of the plants in the food forest and whilst overall about 10% of the plants and trees here have died, 90% have survived.
Comments (10)Stories from our Food Gardens (e-Book)
Compost, DVDs/Books, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Trees — by David Bartlett February 21, 2013
The world is dotted with individuals that are driving change from the inside out, inspired by the principles and approach of permaculture.
I wanted to share with you “Stories from our Food Gardens” an e-publication made possible by the Saville Foundation here in South Africa, written by Melveen Jackson. Their partnership is an example of what is possible when certain individuals are backed by opportunity and funds. To me it emphasizes the well-talked-of potential that permaculture has to flow out of our backyards and influence mainstream development. South Africa (and in this particular case, the province of KwaZulu-Natal), without doubt provides a great canvas on which to show these dynamics at work, so we get excited to see it happening in reality.
Comments (3)Occam’s Grazer – an Introduction to Holistic Management
Land, Livestock, Plant Systems — by John David Mitchell February 13, 2013
Occam’s Grazer provides an introduction to Holistic Management and holistic grazing as well as many powerful insights, philosophies, and useful ideas from people who are using the framework and practices every day. This video is a must for anyone who wants to learn more about taking a holistic approach to grazing in their ranch business, how it works, and the potential benefits. It was designed to be a resource for ranchers, potential ranchers, environmentalists, and educators, but is also being well received by the general public.
Further Reading/Watching:
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