Visiting an Urban Permaculture Installation, Five Months On (Video)
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees, Urban Projects, Waste Systems & Recycling, Water Harvesting — by Dan Palmer March 13, 2012
by Dan Palmer, Very Edible Gardens
Two days ago Dan and Will returned to a large VEG permaculture design and implementation project that was completed about five months ago. Via the videos below, take a virtual walk about the front and back yards — warts, ducks, giant silver beet, gorgeous connected multidimensional abundance and all!
You can also check out the design and before, during and after photos of the project here and also in our downloadable portfolio (warning: 38mb PDF!).
Part I
A Permaculture Farm in Wales – Zoning 101 (Videos)
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by Sunny Soleil March 12, 2012
If you are new to permaculture, these three videos provide a delightful living introduction to the topic. As Angie takes you through the different zones on her farm in Wales, UK, you can try to spot how many concepts are integrated into her enthusiastic, holistic descriptions of how permaculture works.
Permaculture is not Organic Farming
In this first video we meet Angie and her family and visit some areas of her farm as we hear explanations of the difference between permaculture and organic farming and why permaculture is important.
Comments (0)Getting Kids Into Gardening, Part II: Create a Pizza Garden
Compost, Education, Food Plants - Annual, Medicinal Plants, Rehabilitation, Soil Composition — by Anthea Hudson March 7, 2012
Pizza making with home grown produce
Gardening can be an invaluable tool for helping children explore all kinds of things — from chemistry to botany, healthy eating to interactions within a natural system. It also promotes a connection with the earth and an understanding of where food comes from and what is involved in producing it.
Kids love to eat what they have grown, so why not combine that with another kid’s favourite — pizza! Let your children try growing all of their favourite veggie pizza toppings.
Comments (2)Grow your own Drugs
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants — by Sunny Soleil March 1, 2012
Pharmaceutical companies have been raiding nature’s larder for years and isolating ingredients to make high cost, patented, chemical drugs to cure our ails. My friend Florence who is 99 tells me that there is a plant for every ailment and James Wong agrees.
An ethno-botanist and gardener, James Wong explains, in the videos below, how many of the ingredients in commercially available drugs can be found in your garden or on a country walk. Cornflowers have been used for hundreds of years for eye ailments while almost every pain killer on the market contains something extracted from the common poppy. In these two videos he shows us how to prepare a marigold skin clearing acne gel, elderflower throat lozenges,eczema cream from wild violets. Wong also demonstrates preparation of Syrup of Figs for Constipation, Goji Berry Chicken Soup for Colds and Flu, Hops Pillow for Insomnia & Kiwi and Papaya Face Masks.
Part I
Stabilizing the Climate with “Permanent Agriculture”
Animal Forage, Biodiversity, Biofuels, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Soil Conservation, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Water Harvesting — by Eric Toensmeier
Trees are one of our most powerful tools to pull carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it in the soil for long-term storage. This is why reforestation and protecting intact forests are such important parts of plans to address climate change. Conventional climate change science tells us that the planet’s capacity for reforestation is limited, however, by the need to preserve land for agriculture.
But movements like agroforestry and permaculture show us that farming and trees are not mutually exclusive. From tree crops to contour strips of nitrogen fixing trees between bands of annual crops, there is a wealth of techniques that can give us the best of both worlds. These techniques, should a global effort get behind their implementation on a large scale, could have a major impact on climate change. They would also have numerous other benefits to the planet and its people.
A century ago, writer-farmers like J. Russell Smith coined the term “permanent agriculture” to describe food forestry and other farming practices that combated a key issue of their day — erosion and degradation of farmland. From Smith and his compatriots we in permaculture have taken the name of our movement, though our movement has grown to encompass much more than food forestry. Today these visionary ideas are more essential than ever, to address an environmental crisis on a scale Smith and his contemporaries could not have imagined.
Comments (4)Perennial Staple Crops of the World
Animal Forage, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier February 25, 2012
This article reviews perennial staple crops, a little-known group of species with tremendous potential to address world problems.
Ricardo Romero of Las Cañadas in perennial staple food forest featuring
peach palm, macadamia, air potato, banana, and perennial beans.
Perennial Staple Crops are basic foodstuffs that grow on perennial plants. These plant sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fats can be harvested non-destructively – that is, harvest does not kill the plant or prevent future harvests. This group of crops includes grains, pulses (dry beans), nuts, dry pods, starchy fruits, oilseeds, high-protein leaves, and some more exotic products like starch-filled trunks, sugary palm saps, and aerial tubers.
These trees, palms, grasses, and other long-lived crops offer the unique possibility of crops grown for basic human food that can simultaneously sequester carbon, stabilize slopes, and build soils as part of no-till perennial agricultural systems. Such production models seem the most likely of all regenerative farming practices to approach the carbon sequestering capacity of natural forest, because they can mimic the structure of a forest most closely.
Comments (22)Natural Hair Care and Small Steps Towards Sustainability
Consumerism, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants — by Niva Kay February 22, 2012
In this article I would like to share with you the transition Yotam and I went through from conventional hair care to a completely zero waste, home made, natural hair care regime.
I think this process is also a mirror to many other parallel transitions we have been doing in our lives on our way to sustainability, and that our society still needs to go through.
Any step you take on this path is blessed, but knowing that there is more that you can do can help in taking yourself further.
Here are the steps we’ve gone through:
Comments (7)Food Forests, Part 2: Looking for Clues
Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Regional Water Cycle, Seeds, Soil Composition, Structure, Trees — by Chris McLeod January 24, 2012
Click for larger view
As people become urbanised, they start looking at the world in urban ways. What does that car or house say about that person? How does that person’s occupation affect their social standing? People may not admit it, but they understand the answers to these questions intuitively. As permaculturalists, we need to apply these same observational skills to our permacultural adventures.
These observational skills are important for permaculture because they allow you to read a landscape. No two pieces of land are ever the same! Whether that land is in an urban area or a rural area you can gather a huge amount of information as to its suitability for your next permaculture project simply by observation over a period of time. These skills will also allow you to identify ways to adapt your land to your particular purpose.
Reading a landscape is an observational skill so I have decided to take you on a virtual tour of the mountain range that I live in and tell you what I see in the different spots that we stop off at. I will highlight things at each location that I have learned on my food forest permaculture journey, and that I hope to impart to you the reader. I hope you enjoy the tour!
Comments (16)When Orthodox Science Meets Permaculture Principles, Techniques and Design Process
Animal Forage, Bird Life, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Insects, Livestock, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Nicollas Mauro January 20, 2012
Design science is at the root of any definition of permaculture or put simply, permaculture is design science. — Bill Mollison
Permaculture is a design/holistic/integrative science, whereas the mainstream/academic science is reductionist — that is, to understand how things work, scientists break a system and study the tiny parts.
Nevertheless, permaculture can benefit from reductionist science, to find relevant knowledge and new design ideas, but above all to gain some academic arguments to demonstrate the validity and legitimacy of its principles and techniques.
This is an article which shows some of the links I’ve found between scientific articles published in national and international journals, while searching facts and numbers to help me design my property. During the process, some ideas just popped, so I included them to make the article a “live performance” of the usefulness of lurking in the scientific jungle sometimes.
Comments (10)Pine Pollen – How to Pick Your Own Superfood
Food Plants - Perennial, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants, Nuclear, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Sunny Soleil January 4, 2012
Most of us know about pine needle tea as a rich source of Vitamin C, but now white pine pollen is to being promoted as a highly nutritious superfood powder. But who needs to buy it when you can pick your own?
Arthur Haines shows you how and when to harvest pine pollen with strategies for gathering sufficient to make tinctures or use as food. Haines also goes into detail about the nutritional chemistry of pine pollen which is rich in non-enzymatic anti-oxidants like pro vitamin A, B Complex, C, D and E plus a host of minerals and amino acids. Apparently pine pollen is also a great defence against radioactive Cesium that is appearing in dairy and other foods in the US.
Part I
Learn Grow: Edible Plant Information Resources
DVDs/Books, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 26, 2011
I thought I’d share this excellent, growing resource on edible plants for specific regions.
At time of writing the Learn Grow project has created comprehensive plant list info for the following regions:
In addition, the site has two disks available that should be of direct interest to Australian permaculturists:
Comments (0)Hemp seeds grown in Australia’s first Hemp Farm
Commercial Farm Projects, Food Plants - Annual, Medicinal Plants, Seeds — by Paul Benhaim November 24, 2011
The Hemp Farm is the world’s first public demonstration, education and working farm growing low-THC industrial hemp.
Based on the North Coast of NSW (Byron Bay), the hemp farm is dedicated to the many uses of this estranged plant. Grown under Government license, hemp does not contain psychoactive quantities of the drug ingredient.
The benefits of growing hemp fit with permaculture principles. Hemp requires no pesticides or herbicides, can clean up waste water (of which it does not require much) and offers many uses from both its stem and seed.
Comments (8)What is a Refractometer and Why Do I Need One?
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, For Sale, Medicinal Plants — by Bonnie Freibergs
Refractometers are used for quite a lot of things — drug diagnosis, gemology, veterinary medicine, aquarium upkeep and farming.
In gardens and farming it is an all-in-one tool that can be used to test the health of your crops, via a brix rating system. A refractometer uses refractive light passing through plant sap or fruit or vegetable juice to take a reading of nutrient levels. A high rating is good news for your crops — they should be healthy, disease and pest resistant, high in nutritional value and you’re likely to have a good harvest. A low rating means that your crop will not grow to its potential due to some external limiting factor, such as: a dilution of its nutrients due to high nitrate content, a mineral imbalance in the soil allowing weeds to flourish and take from your harvest, a low calcium content in the soil or a low/steady boron reading indicating an issue with the translocation of sugars within the plant.
Comments (11)FRESH – World’s Wildest Supermarket
Commercial Farm Projects, Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, Markets & Outlets, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Structure, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Kenneth Gronbjerg November 17, 2011
A holistic and most outrageous concept being turned into reality in Denmark.
From: Sepp Holzer’s Permakultur, Leopold Stocker Verlag, 2008
Fresh is the concept for an organic, living supermarket in cities and villages, where instead of taking the items off the shelf, the customer harvests the produce directly from raised beds!
It is a system that works with nature rather than against it.
By harvesting, the customer contributes to the work of producing to such a large extent that the produce can be offered at a never before seen quality and price. It’s almost for free. This is what you may call a win win win situation!
Comments (7)Why Food Forests?
Conservation, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Trees — by Angelo Eliades October 21, 2011
We’re all familiar with the concept of forests — lush, abundant expanses of pristine wilderness, teeming with life, a richness of biodiversity and awe-inspiring to behold. Trees and plants intertwined, filling every possible space, the very well-spring of life itself!
Forests exist fine on their own. There’s no mowing, weeding, spraying, or digging required. No pesticides, fertilisers, herbicides or nasty chemicals. No work and no people either. They somehow do very well, thank you.
Now, imagine if everything in this lush, abundant, spectacular forest was edible!
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