Information about Permaculture!

Permaculture refers to sustainable land-use design that allows us to increase food production by making use of biological and ecological principles when designing (usually) a garden.

Wow, that sounds pretty neat, but what exactly does that mean?

I read a book a few years ago by Calgarian Laureen Rama called Eco Yards that describes it well. She sees it as a paradigm shift. "Landscaping", she writes, "is often thought of as a battle against plant diseases, a fight against the weather, a war on weeds, or an assault on insects to protect our lawn and trees." However, if you think about it, why would we humans have to put so much effort into maintaining our yards or gardens when the Earth has naturally provided for animals and humans for millions of years without any human effort at all? I think it partially has to do with us bringing in non-native plants that don't fair as well in our ecosystem and expecting them to do well For example many Calgarians have the typical Kentucky bluegrass lawn when this is the biggest user of water and chemicals and takes the most work to maintain. This is ridiculous
considering we are living on what used to be grasslands before the ecosystem was disrupted by the growing city. That means that there are many hardier grass species that have evolved to be perfect for this area. (You can find hardier grass seeds at Bow Point Nursery near Calgary).

So permaculture is about changing the way that you see landscaping and food production. It is about understanding that every bit of land is part of a larger eco-system (yes, even if you live in a city) and it's about understanding more the relationships that exist and can exist in that ecosystem to create a kind of synergy in your land-use. It's about working with nature and not against it, and benefiting from it too. And it's about being more self-sustainable, because let's face it- the security of our world economy and food production system is not certain. So learning about permaculture can help you be more in balance with nature by eating locally produced food and thus decreasing your carbon footprint, increasing the quality of your local ecosystem, and provide more security for yourself as well as saving money and having good healthy food. YAY!

Resources on Permaculture:

“Permaculture:
A Designer’s Manual” Bill Mollison and “Introduction to Permaculture” Bill
Mollison. Available at: http://www.tagari.com
(also available at www.powells.com)

Permaculture Design Course with Bill Mollison and Geoff
Lawton – African clap. Jesse’s
Permaculture Fathers (Our Permaculture Grandfathers !) more info on http://www.tagari.com/
(also avail at www.powells.com)

The Global Gardener (series) Bill Mollison - http://www.permacultureactivist.net/booksvid/vid%20dvd%20cd.htmhttp://www.permacultureactivist.net/booksvid/vid%20dvd%20cd.htm

Geoff Lawton - http://permaculture.org.au/
(Master Plan for Permaculture online here)

Darren Doherty – Keyline Design Course - http://www.permaculture.biz/

DVD - “Harvesting Water the Permaculture Way” Geoff Lawton http://www.permaearth.org/bookstore.html

DVD – “Establishing a Food Forest: The Permaculture Series”
Geoff Lawton

Joel Salatin “Everything I
want to do is illegal” http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2003/Everything-Is-Illegal1esp03.htm

Greening the Desert: http://permaculture.org.au/2007/03/01/greening-the-desert-now-on-youtube/

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk

Jean Pain: The Power of
Compost youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHRvwNJRNag

David Holmgren: http://www.holmgren.com.au/

Edible Forest Gardens
Volumes I & II - http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/about_book

“Eat Your Garden Video:
Create a Permaculture Oasis”.
Jenny Allen and Barb Knudsen (now Hazenveld)

Permaculture Activist
Magazine http://www.permacultureactivist.net/

Gregoire Lamoureux -
Kooteney Permaculture Institute - http://www3.telus.net/permaculture/

Regenerative Design
Institute – Penny Livingston-Stark - http://www.regenerativedesign.org/pennybio

Path to Freedom - Edible
landscapes etc. http://www.pathtofreedom.com/

“Gaia’s Garden: A guide to
home-scale permaculture” Toby Hemenway

Deconstructing Dinner – audio clips “PERMACULTURE - FARMING
AND LIVING WITH NATURE” Gregoire Lamoureux and David Holmgren http://kootenaycoopradio.com/deconstructingdinner/060106.htm

Milkwood Permaculture

Jeff Nugent – Permaculture Plants www.permacultureplants.net/

COMPOSTING

The Humanure Handbook: pdf available at http://humanurehandbook.com/

Klickitat County Compost Mix
Calculator: http://www.klickitatcounty.org/SolidWaste/fileshtml/organics/compostCalc.htm

Worms Eat My Garbage: http://www.wormwoman.com/acatalog/Wormwoman_catalog_Worms_Eat_My_Garbage_3.html

The Rapid Composting Method
(Berkeley Method) http://vric.ucdavis.edu/pdf/compost_rapidcompost.pdf

Clean Calgary composting
guide: http://cleancalgary.org/index.php/guides/compost_guide

SOIL

Soil and Health
Library: http://www.soilandhealth.org/

Soil Food Web – Elaine
Ingham http://www.soilfoodweb.com/03_about_us/brief_bio.html

Articles related to Fukuoka
Farming: http://fukuokafarmingol.info/farchive.html