How to Grow Perennial Vegetables
This is the latest offering from the prolific and encyclopedic Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon where he has tested a huge number of plants of all kinds in his two acre forest garden, established 20 years ago. For a low maintenance, food producing design, such as a forest garden, perennial vegetables can provide an ideal understorey or ground cover accompaniment to a top storey of fruit and nut trees – and Martin has proved that there are a great many such plants available for all niches. The book's design is elegantly straightforward with the first quarter covering the practical issues involved, such as: the reasons for growing perennial veg; how to design them into a garden, and how to grow and look after them. The rest of the book looks at many perennials that can be used productively. As well as vegetables, also included are grains, tubers, aquatic plants and some vegetatively edible trees. Further resources Plants and recipes to bridge the hungry gap
Sowing Seeds in the Desert: Natural Farming, Global Restoration & Ultimate Food Security
Masanobu Fukuoka's first book, The One-Straw Revolution, introduced natural farming, a nature-integrated practice similar to 'original' permaculture, to a world where the environmental movement had just begun. As this plant pathologist-turned-farmer-philosopher journeyed around the world as a result of the popularity of his book and ideas, Fukuoka was shocked at the environmental degradation and desertification he saw. Sowing Seeds in the Desert, his final book, is his plan to set a 'Second Genesis' in motion: a green revolution led by vegetables, grasses, and trees. Natural farming isn't just another 'method' but rather a way of thinking and living that goes beyond even organic farming. Fukuoka examines science, economics, politics and medicine, arguing that humanity's quest for knowledge and wealth only increases the divide between ourselves and nature, resulting in illness, unhappiness and a deeply damaged planet. This review first appeared in Permaculture magazine issue 75
A Journey of Transition: Becoming a Professional Permaculture Designer - PermacultureNews.org
by Dan French Photo © Craig Mackintosh Like the title suggests, I’m going to write a few articles about my journey to becoming a professional permaculture designer… if you don’t mind? I’m doing this for a few reasons: to help me articulate and formalize what it is I’m doing; to tell others who might be interested in doing the same about my ups and downs; to gain exposure and fast track my development as a designer; and perhaps, on some sadistic level, to just put a bit more pressure on myself. I grew up in the Adelaide hills, on the top of the ridge where the elements are in full swing, alongside a national park. During my previous professional lives, I spent many moments wondering what it would be like to break the shackles of endless corporate procedures, boring reporting and restriction of action by various legislative approaches. Just like a religion, it seems permaculture is expressed in many forms. Ok, enough gas-bagging.
A Journey of Transition: Becoming a Professional Permaculture Designer - Part 2 - PermacultureNews.org
OK, here we go, the second installment of this series regarding my journey to become a professional permaculture designer. In my last article I touched on who I am, what I am doing and why, and discussed some general topics which included defining my services, networking and, on a very general level, the importance of examining price structures for services. As a result, I was contacted by a nice guy by the name of Scott Mann who runs a great podcast series called The Permaculture Podcast. It turned out we had a lot in common. He had also travelled the road of becoming a professional designer, and although he ended in a different stream of permaculture, the process he undertook led him to the path he is now on, that being sharing important permaculture information from various experts to a global audience. A job, I might add, that he’s doing very well! Commitment. Commitment is a course of action. When starting anything afresh, building confidence plays an important part.
A Journey of Transition: Becoming a Professional Permaculture Designer - Part 3
by Dan French Photo © Craig Mackintosh This time, in Part 3 of this series discussing my journey towards becoming a professional permaculture designer, I will be talking about marketing, knock-backs and my progress since the last article. Part 2 of this series focused on two large issues facing many of us trying to build our own business, commitment and confidence. Momentum is your friend in life, particularly when starting a business, as it takes constant effort, and not only in one area. It’s a long road and it can get both frustrating and disillusioning, especially prior to getting a job through the door. On this point, spending time thinking about how you are going to respond to a phone or email enquiry is highly important as this is where you can impact a potential client’s decision about whether they will proceed with you or look somewhere else. This is what I am concentrating on at the moment. One final discussion point before signing off. I hope this helps.
Chapter 2: Design Principles | A Permaculture Design Course Handbook
The principles above are laid out in Bill Mollison’s later book “Introduction to Permaculture”. There he presented a concise form of the concepts he laid out in the Chapters 2 & 3 in Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual. A summary of them can be seen below and even downloaded here: BM PC Principles summary. The principles seem to be patterns laid out on how nature’s inherent intelligence is formed in time and space. Summary of Permaculture Principles from TreeYo Permaculture (click on each Principle for further pics and explanation, more coming) from Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison 1. Functional Analysis: is a tool to realize the full potential of each element by examining products and behaviors, needs, and intrinsic characteristics. 2. 3. 4. Zone Planning refers to the placement of elements based on their intensity of use and management. 5. 6. A schematic of coppice off-site and instead turn them into cycles. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. Like this: Like Loading...
FREE permaculture eBooks & free environmental eBook downloads
Permaculture is all about one part of a system trying to help another, so this is our attempt to help replicate that, by sharing permaculture knowledge as freely and as widely as we can. In this section you'll find a selection of completely free eBook downloads on permaculture and wider environmental topics, including the fantastic Farmers' Handbook series by Chris Evans and Jakob Jespersen, which provides a complete grounding in key permaculture techniques in a simple, easy-to-read e-book download format. On top of that, we are also offering free download copies of Gaia's Education's brilliant Four Key series, including the indispensable instruction manual for anyone looking to apply permaculture techniques to communities, Beyond You & Me, and Gaian Economics - a penetrating look at how economics can be made to work in harmony with nature, not against it. We have been experiencing problems with free ebooks on checkout.
At Least 10 Uses for Wood Ash
1 - Dust Baths - place cold ashes where your birds can get to them, the dust baths will control bugs 2 - Ring Around the Rosie - spread a low ring around individual plants are gardens to deter slugs/snails 3 - Mix into your Compost - in the north, this is the perfect thing! 4 - Lawn Fertilizer - Wood ash contains 10-25% calcium, 1-4% magnesium, 5-15% potassium and 1-3% phosphorus. 5 - Cleaning Agent - mix with water to form a paste and use on the glass in your wood stove or fireplace. Ditto for rings left on wood furniture from glasses. 6 - Great Fertlizer for Tomatoes and other nightshade veggies 7 - Sprinkle on Slippery Walks - it takes very little! 8 - GREAT Ice Melt! 9 - Algae Deterrent. 10 - Odor Control - Put in t-shirt material to insert in stored shoes. 11 - Make Lye - takes some work and old timers only use hickory ash, but it can be done.
