Permaculture News, Information, Forums, Courses and Worldwide Reports

12-Plus Methods for Keeping Challenging Weeds and Pests Out of the Garden

July 27, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under General

With organic gardening, especially at the outset, comes a few new challenges for transitioning growers. Pesticides and other chemicals have, for several decades, become the go-to solution for all things in the garden, and now that many of us are clearing our heads from that fog, we are left to rediscover methods for dealing with everyday garden problems. When herbicides have been the trick for combating weeds, how do […]

What do lizards, procrastination, and Permaculture principles have to do with your brain? Part 1

July 23, 2018 by Kate Martignier & filed under General, How to, People Systems, Society

Did you know there’s a lizard in your brain that’s the source of all your resistance to difficult, boring, intimidating or uncomfortable tasks? And that this lizard can be re-trained, using Permaculture principles and (un)common sense, to help you reach your goals, instead of sabotaging them? This Series of articles will show you how. Here, in Part 1, I’ll explain the human brain structure in very simple terms. We’ll meet […]

Weeds Aren’t Actually All That Bad

July 20, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under General, Geoff Lawton, Plant Systems, Short Films - up to 15min, Soil

Weeds, many say, are but misunderstood plants, plants that have somehow fallen out of favor. Often, they are ready growers, keen to pop up where space has allowed, and typically they are doing so to perform some sort of vital ecological function. Geoff Lawton says they are “symptom” of a flawed situation rather than the actual problem. Weeds are working to right wrongs. They cover the ground. They prevent erosion. […]

How to Start an Urban Farm

July 20, 2018 by Lettie Stratton & filed under Community, Community Projects, Food Plants - Annual, General, Nurseries & Propogation, Seeds, Urban Projects

Like any new venture, starting an urban farm is a daunting and difficult task. Not only do you have to find land to farm, but that land also must be suitable for growing food. Not only do you have to know how to grow food, but you also have to know what to do with your bounty when harvest time comes around. What has often been referred to as “the […]

Unwanted Chemical Pool Gets Permaculture Makeover

July 18, 2018 by Eric Vocke & filed under Aquaculture, Biological Cleaning, Building, Design, Fish, General, How to, Natural Swimming, Permaculture Projects, Urban Projects, Waste Systems & Recycling, Water

Six months into our pool to pond conversion and the problem really has become the solution. For some time, we had been flirting with the idea of doing something productive with our unwanted 12,000 gallon in-ground swimming pool. It was during my Permaculture design course with Geoff Lawton last year that I decided to commit to a full conversion to an aquaculture wetland. What seemed like my most daunting project […]

How to Make Instant Garden Beds

July 14, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Compost, Fungi, General, Geoff Lawton, How to, Plant Systems, Plants, Short Films - up to 15min, Soil, Soil Biology, Videos

A common problem when just starting a garden is dealing with the fact that we’ve not had time to condition the soil, fostering it into something heaving with fertility. Or, maybe we just aren’t that far into gardening yet anyway and don’t know what to do. Basically, it seems we are left with the option of using what we have and hoping for the best, or we can spend a […]

How To Motivate Kids To Learn About Permaculture

July 10, 2018 by Scott Jenkins & filed under Community, General, How to, People Systems

When my kids were toddlers, they wanted to help me in the garden every spring. They were more than happy to wear a silly straw hat like Dad and work the soil with a trowel. I would take the opportunity to talk to them about how our compost was conditioning the soil and how the worms helped the plants grow. But by the time early summer rolled around, they had […]

Different Methods for Propagating Fruit Trees from Cuttings, Etc.

July 7, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Food Plants - Perennial, General, Nurseries & Propogation, Plants, Trees

While saving seeds is a great practice and every budding grower should be starting a personal seed bank, certain plants and trees are better propagated via cuttings. This is particularly the case with many fruit trees because they won’t produce the same quality of fruit as their parent plant. While it can be a good idea to produce a variety of species and encourage the sowing of wild oats, so […]

Fixes for Nutrient Deficient Soil

July 4, 2018 by Jessica Santos & filed under Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, General

Basic understanding of plant health comes from the soil they grow in. Their nutrition is vital to their health and overall sustainability, so it’s essential for plants to get all of the macronutrients necessary to thrive. However, there are times we still struggle with a plant mysteriously dying off long before its time. It happens, but this is often indicative of a bigger problem with the nutrients in the soil. […]

How Dry Composting Toilets Work

July 1, 2018 by Jonathon Engels & filed under Building, How to, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling

Dry composting toilets are an efficient, cyclical way of dealing with human waste without using and/or fouling fresh water, which is in ever-dwindling supply on the planet. Using clean water to flush human excrement sends it into either a septic system, which eventually has to be pumped and the sludge moved to larger facilities where it will then be dealt with, or sewer mains, where it congregates into a horribly […]

Real food does not come from supermarkets: 6 steps from bare ground to homegrown cauliflowers

July 1, 2018 by Kate Martignier & filed under Food Plants - Annual, General, How to, Plant Systems, Plants

I imagine that when our grandchildren and great grandchildren read in history books about the supermarkets we relied upon for food, they’ll wonder what we were thinking. My goal is to get to where our family can live without the supermarket entirely. There are many things we have yet to learn, but we’re well on our way. We already raise all of our own meat and eggs, and most of […]

Straw Bale Gardens

June 30, 2018 by Miles Durand & filed under Compost, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Fungi, General, How to, Plant Systems, Soil Biology, Urban Projects

What do straw, paint brushes and the human blood circularity system have in common? The answer is capillaries, very narrow, long tubes. It is this physical characteristic of straw which gives its remarkable ability to become the soil of a garden bed. Large amounts of water and nutrients can be held within the straws capillaries. This is an ideal environment for bacterial growth. This conversion from straw to soil makes […]