Permaculture News, Information, Forums, Courses and Worldwide Reports

The suburbs are the spiritual home of overconsumption. But they also hold the key to a better future

December 17, 2018 by Samuel Alexander & filed under Bio-regional Organisations, Community, General, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, Why Permaculture?

Samuel Alexander, University of Melbourne and Brendan Gleeson, University of Melbourne Suburban affluence is the defining image of the good life under capitalism, commonly held up as a model to which all humanity should aspire. More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities. Yet with the global economy already in gross ecological overshoot, and a world population heading for more than 11 billion, this way of living […]

Welcome to the Anthropocene

December 14, 2018 by pri02 & filed under Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Peak Oil, Population, Water Contaminaton & Loss, Why Permaculture?

Sharing with you today this great resource website. http://www.anthropocene.info/index.php The website tells the story of our planet since entering the Anthropocene, Taking us on a timeline showing the major events associated with the Anthropocne idea as well as discussing in great visuals the Planetary Boundaries that have been crossed as a result of human activity from climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change and altered biogeochemical cycles (phosphorus and […]

Growing Grains at the Home-Scale Farm

December 13, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Animal Processing, Food & Food Support Systems, Food Plants - Annual, General, Plants, Processing & Food Preservation, Seeds, Soil

I dream of growing grains, of being so far down the line in establishing a kitchen garden, a vegetable garden, a food forest, that time can be allocated to developing a system for handling the cereal part of the food supply. Well, let me put that differently: I aspire to get to that project one day, and from time to time, I do catch myself daydreaming and wondering just how […]

Bamboo for Water Purification

December 11, 2018 by Giuseppe Tallarico & filed under General

I am continuing with this water purification series and everything about water! I briefly went into Phytodepuration, so now we are going into the different benefits of different plants used in this process. My last blog post on hemp was controversial. Bamboo is a plant that is known as being one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Additionally considered as Lucky and is a big part of Feng Shui. BAMBUSOIDEAE […]

Winter Arrives, Planting Garlic, Bird Life and a New Forest Garden – The Polyculture Project

December 7, 2018 by Paul Alfrey & filed under Animals, Biodiversity, Bird Life, Demonstration Sites, Design, General, Plants, Why Permaculture?

The winter has arrived, two days of sub zero temperatures and some strong wind and there is not a leaf left to vouch for the growing season. It’s just a short cold spell we are having here and it’s expected to be mild until the new year, so we’ll use the last of the good weather to make some final planting in the gardens and then go into hibernation until […]

THREE FREE TOOLS THAT WILL REVOLUTIONIZE PERMACULTURE LAND DESIGN

December 7, 2018 by Rob Avis & filed under Earthworks & Earth Resources, General, Land, Permaculture Projects, Retrofitting

I’ve been teaching permaculture for the past decade, as I feel it’s one of the best ways to deal with the liabilities we’ve incurred collectively as a species. These problems include water shortages, floods, climate shifts, pollution, food insecurity, ocean dead zones, acidification – the list goes on and on. The following article is not about those liabilities, but rather their root cause. While it might be an oversimplification to […]

Humanure part 2: Dealing with it

December 5, 2018 by Charlotte Ashwanden & filed under Compost, Design, General, How to, People Systems, Waste Systems & Recycling

In part 1(1) of this article I explored a little into why humanure is beneficial to the planet, including the need to replenish our aquifers and for people to have access to safe drinking water, the high phosphorous content of human poo compared to the finite and dwindling supply of phosphate rock as an agricultural product, and the reconnection of the ‘human nutrient cycle’ (2). In this part I will […]

Multi-Functional Living: Wood Heat

November 29, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Design, Energy Systems, General, How to, Plant Systems, Trees

This year Emma and I are taking something we did last year and making it more functional: We are heating with wood, full-time. Previously, we often had fires at night, giving the heating system a break and enjoying the atmosphere, but it was noncommittal. Some nights we didn’t bother. We used the wood-burning cook stove even less than that, though we did love the event it made of a meal, […]

The Polyculture Project Crowdfunder

November 28, 2018 by Paul Alfrey & filed under Community, Demonstration Sites, Education, Education Centres, Food Forests, General, How to, Permaculture Projects, Project Positions

We’re super excited to announce The Polyculture Project, a research project dedicated to developing and promoting practices that provide nutritious affordable food while enhancing biodiversity. With your help we hope to expand and excel our experiments with various regenerative/permaculture practices and publish our records with aim to supply solid empirical data for the community. Please check out our crowdfunding campaign and if you appreciate our work please donate and share the […]

Humanure part 1: Why should we give a crap?

November 23, 2018 by Charlotte Ashwanden & filed under General, How to, Permaculture Projects, Potable Water, Recipes, Soil, Waste Water, Water, Water Conservation, Why Permaculture?

Permaculture is not just about garden design. Even if you don’t have land or access to land, looking at life from a permaculture perspective can help you to make life decisions and take actions towards upholding the ethics of permaculture in your daily practices. This article series will take a look specifically at one of these practices which we all share, examine the benefits of changing our habits from a […]

My top 10 books that inspired our project

November 21, 2018 by Paul Alfrey & filed under Design, DVDs/Books, Education Centres, Food & Food Support Systems, General, How to, Permaculture Projects, Plants

At the beginning of 2017 Permanent Publications sent us an email expressing an interest to publish a book on our polyculture trials and experiences. I’d been thinking about writing this book for some time and responded with gleeful enthusiasm. I’m happy to announce that we have signed the publishing agreement and have already started to work on the book. The working title of the book is Polycultures – Designing and Creating Polyculture Gardens, […]

Useful Garden Projects for Autumn Leaves

November 17, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Compost, General, Plant Systems, Plants, Soil, Soil Biology, Trees, Urban Projects

Despite having spent many of my most recent years in the tropics, and despite having grown up in Louisiana, where the number of seasons is pretty wishy-washy, I’ve always kind of assumed that autumn could possibly be my favorite time of year. My birthday is in right in the middle of autumn. It’s a time when the weather slowly cools down to a comfortable temperature, which seems better than slowly […]