Permaculture: How To Garden Like Nature Would Want You To

Permaculture started in the 1970s. The two fathers of permaculture are Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, both Australians. What they had in mind in the beginning was a permanent agriculture (hence the word - permaculture). One that would be independent from human input and as self-sustainable as possible.

In the last 40 odd years, permaculture has come a long way. Nowadays, instead of being "just" a permanent agriculture, it has grown to be a permanent culture. It's a about living in harmony with the planet and all the living beings that inhabit it.

A great emphasis is put on the future. A permaculturist (or a "permie") tries to make sure that not only does she live well, but that the future generations will enjoy the benefits that the nature offers us. What I like to think is that I'm trying to leave the world a better place tha
I came into.

Unfortunately, food (as one of basic commodities) is produced today using so called "industrial agriculture". Essentially, what we do is that we create food factories. And I'm not meaning food processing factories, but food producing factories.

We take a piece of land, covered with many kinds of grasses and grassland flowers, occasional bushes and trees and packed full with all kinds of insects, birds, worms, ... and cut everything down so that we can create a vast field, planted with a single corn crop.

Each year follows the same pattern. Plow, sow, spray, fertilize, spray, spray, harvest, plow, ... And every single one of these activities is done with enormous machines. Yep, sounds a lot like a factory to me.

Don't let me get started on factory farms!

What permaculture offers is something completely different. One of the key concepts in permaculture is observation. In order to get good at something, often you just need to observe and replicate. In permaculture, you observe nature and follow the example. Take a look at what works in nature and use it in your garden.

Nature is never mono. Always poly. Wherever you look in nature, you'll see tens and hundreds different plants and animals on a relatively small area. Permaculture follows that by creating "food forests". Many different plants are grown together, thus benefiting each other in many ways. They improve yields, repel pests, give shelter to predatory insects and birds, etc.

Not only will you have more bountiful harvests, the nature will also be thankful for it. By growing many different plants together, you increase biodiversity. Nature likes that. One of principles put forward by Mollison in his ground-breaking book "Permaculture, a Designers' Manual" was that we should word with nature rather than against.

We all know the saying "don't put all your eggs in one basket". Well, by growing thousands of acres of a single crop, we're doing just that. There were cases when people had to pay a high price for that. What comes first to mind is the Great Irish Famine, between 1845 and 1852. During the famine approximately 1 million people died and a million more emigrated from Ireland. The population was so heavily dependent on potato, that a certain potato disease strike - blight - left many people starve to death.

By growing many crops, you have a safety net. If one crop performs poorly, there are others that pick up the slack.