coneflowers in the garden
Earth Care

2024 Garden Planner

If you are like me, the seeds from last year are under evaluation and new orders are on their way. I also find it useful to have a paper planner for mapping out goals and plans for the garden harvest for the coming seas on. I love these questions and prompts for guiding my thinking. Join my (very) occasional newsletter and download your calendar for 2024. 


Here are a couple of my favorite seed companies: 

Pinetree Seeds

Strictly Medicinal Seeds

Also, if you are considering a permaculture design course this year, please let me know

Here's to a beautiful, productive, and resilient season ahead!

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Flooding in Australia [Detail]
Member Content

Mistakes in Permaculture Design

This post appeared originally in Permaculture Design magazine, issue #112 as "Mistakes We Make."

Everything and everyone is my teacher. This was made explicit in my Standard Class at the Tracker School, though I had been using it implicitly for much of my life. I’ve learned from others mistakes, but I’ve learned the most from my own errors. And I’ve made more mistakes than I can recount. You probably could say the same. What mistakes have you learned the most from? 

What is a mistake? 

A mistake is an action or judgement which is misguided or wrong. Our mainstream culture and the constant attacks and criticisms on social media can make us cautious about claiming something is wrong—or it can encourage us to make a claim about something being misguided or wrong without really offering our reasoning and actively thinking about the matter. 

Call me odd, but as a mid-Westerner, I wonder about the erosion of common sense. When Thomas Payne wrote “Common Sense” he was creating a common vision or understanding of what should be considered normal and right. 

When I look at the synonyms for “mistake,” I see that many of them are based on feedback. Ahh! There we go with systems thinking. In our permaculture understanding, we might begin to actively welcome feedback and sharing our learning with others. I imagine this is how many of our smaller communities mentor each other into creating a common-sense approach to making a living in the past. 

Errors, miscalculations, and omissions

When we make an error, we do not get the results we were looking for. A miscalculation will mean lower yields or no yields in the garden. Too little fertility in the soil and the harvest is poor. Too much water for too long, and the perennials will drown. If we choose the wrong species in our forest garden, disease or drought or flood or temperatures can lay waste to our investment. 

I miscalculated how quickly ground cover would re-grow after I pastured my chickens in our 1/8 acre of back yard. The ground was heavily shaded by a 55-year-old silver maple. I moved the chickens and relatively bare ground was seeded (I thought). It would regrow. Nature is abundant, right? It turns out that it not really true. There is a limiting factor in terms of light and growing time (the chickens were particularly damaging in the early spring, late fall, and over winter). My four hens needed more land to cover, and the land needed more light to foster re-growth. 

If I were to bring poultry into the space now, I would do two things: 1) limb up the silver maple, and 2) work with quail instead of chickens. It turns out the quail are showing up without my introducing them. I just need to find their nest. I learned there are limits in any situation, and I could have had less damage to my system if I had taken action on the feedback sooner. 

One very common mistake I warn my design students about is spacing. We are very optimistic about how many plants we can fit in our landscapes. I made this mistake, and I was gratified to hear Toby Hemenway admit to the same experience years ago in an online forum. Paula Westmoreland, of Ecological Design in Minnesota shared some of her experience for this article: 

“One of the mistakes I made early on in broad-acre design was making an alley width too narrow in an alley cropping system.  Space was limited in one of the fields I was designing and I was trying to stack as many crops as I could into the field so I designed 15’ wide alleys for the hazelnuts and elderberries.  This worked fine in the early years when the shrubs were small.  The alleys could be mowed, animal tractors moved through them, or they could be planted with another crop.  But as they matured the alley became unusable space.  It was too narrow to easily move equipment through and not enough sunlight to harvest another productive crop.  The lesson that hit home to me was I needed to do my due diligence and design what the system would look like and how it would be managed through the full lifecycle of each of the anticipated crops.”

Some of systems may give feedback over very long timeframes. My 65 year old home has a basement that was dug by hand AFTER the house was built. In 65 years, it had never flooded until February of this year. Oops. Because of that, there had never been a sump pump installed. Now, we are faced with removing all of the flooring and drywall to install a perimeter drain, a sump pump, and sealing the walls. 

Building mistakes can be very expensive. I know of a permaculture person who built a very large building with the first floor laid in cement block. There was a subtle (2”) curve in one of the walls when the block was laid. This meant that each truss for the second floor had to be custom measured and built for the exact position. Tedious. 

A design client of mine brought me into work with them after their house was under construction. It turns out their dream home is built 10’ below a seep. There is no way to channel the water in a different direction due to the building choices they made. They live with a sump pump running constantly—actually they have a timer to turn it off at night so they can sleep. That is a Type 1 error—something that will exist as long as people live in that structure on that site. These are all examples of miscalculations. Sometimes however, a mistake is made due to a misunderstanding. 

When we feel competent to begin our work with design clients, we make a lot of mistakes. Since we’re working with someone else’s dollars, time, and property, mistakes can be really scary. Understanding our clients is really important. One of my early clients was a couple on the verge of retirement. I laid out a design, but I didn’t do a thorough analysis on elevation (as we all agreed based on observation what was needed). It turns out we were off. The placement of the plants in the design didn’t change (because the relation to the sun was the same), but the direction of the beds to run across contour did. It was a minor mistake, but a very obvious one. I learned to always do a thorough analysis—which became easier with the publication of GIS sites with better data over the next year. 

This same client also taught me about timelines. Most clients want and need a long timeline for implementation, but these were able to implement the design I thought would take them three years within the first year of their retirement. Good health, means, commitment, and skills served them well. Listening to the client helps us match up goals and capacity. Jude Hobbs of Cascadia Permaculture shared this story:

“One of the very earliest lessons I learned when I started my Landscape Design Business was not listening deeply to a client.  I worked with a retired couple who were so excited about doing a whole systems design for their property…they wanted to include most everything I enjoyed bringing to a design. They loved the idea of edibles for humans and wildlife, water features, area for composting by the garden, aromatic plants, fall color, minimal lawn….you get the idea.  We worked together on the design and they were thrilled with the result.  About 6 months later I called them to see how the installation went—they said; “We loved your design but realized a lot of it would not work for us, come by and see what we have done.”  To say the least, I was surprised when I arrived and saw lots of lawn and concrete where a multitude of plants were to have been.   When asked what happened..they said they realized they were going to be traveling a lot and also did not want to spend the amount of time it would take to maintain the gardens. Since then I always utilize a questionnaire which includes the crucial question..how much time do you have to maintain your landscape?

As you can tell, 35 years later I remember the incident well and am mindful in the awareness of deep listening. Also, it’s not about pleasing the designer but focusing on clients’ needs and realistic goals.”


Misguided, misunderstood, misinterpreted

When we began our forest garden, I was determined not to prune our apples and plums. I was influenced by my reading of Masanobu Fukuoka’s non-interference principle. This fit with the STUN method I’d heard of from Mark Shepard—Sheer Total Utter Neglect. That seemed to fit with the lifestyle of a 30-year-old mother and organizer who was taking up a permaculture teaching and design lifestyle while also trying to homeschool and implement some significant home economic projects. 

One apple grew tremendously each spring for three years—reaching 15’ very quickly. I was so very excited about 16 ounce apples, until a windstorm knocked it over. I realized the roots had not been growing at the same rate as the rest of the tree. Likewise, the plums were thick with foliage and covered with blossoms—but by not pruning—there was insufficient air flow. Black knot, a common fungus, took hold, and I ended up losing both plum trees.


Gaffe, faux pas, misconception

When it comes to society and cultures, there are many, many mistakes to learn from. Some of them are mine. Some of them are not. I’ve judged the book by its cover—I’ve made assumptions about people based on their age, skin tone, dress. I’ve been the book judged by its cover—people have considered my light skin tone, midwestern mien, and education an indication of a very particular (and misconceived) background. I try very hard to not be limited by this kind of thinking and to connect more deeply with people I encounter. 

On a different level, I’ve invested years of my life and time I didn’t have into projects which did not provide the yields I was looking for when I invested initially. About five years ago, there was a complete board changeover with a 25 year old sustainability nonprofit in my community. I proposed to them that I put in the organizing effort to convert it to a local permaculture institute—and they agreed. However, new board members elected at the time of my proposal and working closely with established projects didn’t fully buy in to the new vision. After three years of service on the non-profit board, I refocused on the regional permaculture institute, Great Rivers and Lakes Permaculture Institute. It was taking too much effort to try to re-pattern the local project.


Mistakes come in varying degrees

Some mistakes are not very costly—in terms of time, materials, and energy. Some mistakes cost dearly. I’ve got an experiment going in my kitchen now with kombucha. For the cost of counter space for a week, a bag of sugar, a few tea bags, the energy to boil the sugar water, and the kindness of a friend, we will see how it goes. I hope it’s not a mistake, but it’s not very costly to me either way. 

The client with the home built below the seep has a very costly mistake to pay for if the trends toward more severe rain events continue in our area. Someone else I know continued to build out their design without permits. This resulted in a lawsuit and ultimately the sale of the property. In the process, a slew of relationships were upended. That was very costly, indeed. 

We might consider the failure of people to participate in legislative process and the utter failure of policy to make meaningful change in our society as a mistake of epic proportions. Likewise, the failure to address social unrest and cultural bias—while overwhelming—is something we all have to live with. Because we all have to live with these mistakes, it is important that we engage with them collectively. 


Mistakes are an opportunity for iterative design

When the apple and plum trees came down, I had the opportunity to plant peach and sour cherry trees that suit my region better. I knew that because it took a few years of the permaculture community—and some permaculture nurseries in particular—to experiment and find out. It turns out pie is one of my favorite desserts, so why not peaches and cherries? 

I worked with a client recently who wanted everything written in experiment form. All of the plantings would be trials. I believe this is very clever. He will be inclined to observe and track the performance of his investment. Further, he already knows there will be feedback in the form of failures. By tracking the implementation closely, he can determine the source of the mistake. That learning can be valuable for our region.


What if there are no mistakes? 

Recovering from a mistake can help us to transform experience into wisdom. At a point in our lives, we want to support those who are learning the skills we’ve mastered so that they do not make the same mistakes we did. That mentoring is one of the beautiful things about community and extended family or tribe. The re-skilling of Transition Towns, the farm schools and sewing courses and gardening time with the neighbor down the street are all ways to re-establish the common sense of an adaptive future. 

While mistakes can be costly, they can also provide us with resource and opportunity that we couldn’t imagine without going down that path. We have a choice about how we approach design and implementation. We can not do anything—a very safe way to control the situation. We can do something and succeed. We can do something, fail and learn from it. 

When we consider the incredible pressures and failures as our culture and ecosystems run up against limiting factors, there’s no time NOT to be making mistakes.  

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jalapeño variety that thrives in our changing climate
Future Care, Earth Care

Plant Breeding from a Permaculture Perspective

In Search of our Ancestors’ Gardens 

Breeding Plants for the Gardens to Come

(Originally published in Permaculture Design magazine, issue #105, 2017)

I remember exploring my grandfather’s gardens. Bryce Ping had five gardens located in different parts of the Jackson County, Indiana: each one sporting some of the same—but often different varieties—of squash, corn, peppers, and tomatoes. The garden on his own property was one of the finest examples of integrated systems I’ve ever seen—replete with beds on contour, re-use of water, rabbits, geese, and chickens. Everything was mulched with newspaper and grass, sawdust, or spoilt hay from nearby. He lived on the salvage economy: heating with scraps from the sawmill and re-using every plastic container that entered his house. 

He is also the one that introduced me to the varieties and unusual qualities of many fruits, flowers, and vegetables. His entryways were lined with canned goods (his own parents had tried to run a canning business when commercial grocery stores came into their region) and he continued to value preserved food—often experimenting with recipes. Jars also held seed saved from year to year. Paper plates were often found in the kitchen in summer—drying various seeds from the day’s harvest. He wasn’t very meticulous about labeling them—but I imagine now he must have developed several of his own varieties. When he passed, my aunts distributed the goods—and I wonder what happened to those canned goods and seeds. It would have been a fortune in genetic diversity. 

His story reminds me of one relayed to me one night over dinner in Naperville. Peter Bane and I were teaching a permaculture design course at The Resiliency Institute in Naperville, Illinois, when Ron and Vicki Nowicki came to dinner. I still haven’t made it to their garden—which by all accounts is a feat of implementation. Vicky shared the story of a tomato variety she grows out in her garden. The seed was, like many seeds in the US a hundred years ago, brought into the country by immigrants. The seeds were so important, the relationship over generations so strong, that many immigrants would sew the seeds into the linings of their clothing. The tomato she spoke of had been grown by a second generation Italian man for, if I remember right, 60 years, before passing it on to her. He inherited it from his grandfather and parents, but his own children did not care to garden. So she has taken up the relationship.

tomatoes in the garden

Perspective from the stars

If we consider that flowering plants evolved shortly after conifers roughly 300,000 million years ago, the development of hundreds of thousands of species today in the vast array of colors, shapes, scents, and behaviors is truly astounding. If we take it that humans have been around for 6 million years, plants embody natural wisdom a great deal more. Still, the 200,000 years of human civilization might be defined by the relationship of people to plants—mutually cultivating each other (see Michael Pollan’s Botany of Desire for more on that thought). Our leap into agriculture 10,000 years ago is only a fraction of that time and represents a rift in thinking: moving from relationships to plants in community (polycultures) towards primary relationships with a few key domesticated species (wheat, corn, barley, squashes, etc…). This relationship of people to plants—especially cultivation of food plants—is one which we must re-enter: humbly and quickly. If you asked me the top five skills children should be learning, seed saving and plant breeding would be right among them. Food—and seeds—are also one of the very best tools to reconnect, not only with the land, but with our ancestors. (Okay, so I’m not SO keen on the leek favored by my Welsh ancestors, but it has its place). 

Everybody loves popcorn

While beginning to relearn the culture of my Native American (primarily Cherokee/Ani'yunwiya) forebears, I came across a story of “The Lucky Hunter” and his wife, Selu—a Corn woman (1). In order to feed her children, Selu would give of herself. That is the place of corn in importance—it is literally the mother of some of the earliest people in the land. The same reverence for plants which sustain and nourish us is found throughout the world. When I think of the awe which my grandfather instilled in me for flowers, fruits, and tastes which were varied and full of wonder; which resonated with the relationships of people to plants throughout history—I want THAT WORLD again for the next generation and all generations going forward. I firmly believe we will not survive as a species if we do not cultivate that respect and connection to plants and their children (seeds). 

It must have taken some similar connection for people to facilitate the evolution of teosinte into maize. Teosinte, a multi-stem grass found throughout Central America with 5-12 small, hard seeds was domesticated into modern maize and corn varieties. The story might be that earlier people used teosinte as fuel in the fire and found that the kernels popped—everybody loves popcorn! Indeed, some of the oldest archeological records include popcorn. (2) Research now recognizes that the development likely focused on only a few characteristics initially—severely limiting genetic diversity. (3) Once favorable characteristics made the plant more desirable as a cultivated food source,  other genetic variations —leading to more than 20,000 landraces (locally adapted varieties)—were bred into maize through local selection.  This diversity probably reflected a combination of factors for selection including: migration, settlement, and local ecological diversity. Breeding plants has to consider the size of the population in any one area. Inbreeding among a variety can become a problem. Read Zachary Paige’s article for more on how corn was kept from inbreeding too much. 

In the 1920’s, modern agronomists began breeding hybrids selecting for uniform yellow kernels, size, etc….  Today, the close kernel size and the tight hold of the cob to the kernel means that without intervention from farmers, most corn kernels would not be able to germinate and reproduce on their own. Truly, we are in a tight relationship of mutual dependence with this wonderfully diverse species. Our futures are linked. 


Plant Breeding Today

Just this spring the USDA granted $17.7 million dollars to study plant breeding: all to universities—most to public land-grant universities (8). The grants were in the areas of foundational knowledge of production systems; plant breeding for agricultural production; and physiology of agricultural plants. Besides hybridization and cross-breeding, another technique: precision breeding—has become an option today. This technique works with genetic sequencing from embryos of the plant varieties without introducing foreign or new genetic material—and it gives results in one or two years instead of four or five. (4). This technique is more appealing to European plant breeders who are cautious about genetically modified organisms with cross-species introductions of genetic material.


Who’s Who?

We are familiar with the idea that a lot of agronomy research comes from land grant universities throughout the United States. But there are other major players to be found. The Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, which has brought us commercial tomato and strawberry varieties as well as working on developing pomegranates that can tolerate the Florida summer and so replace citrus. (5). Seed companies themselves breed out varieties of plants that are successful or in demand (think Johnny’s Seed Company). Then of course there is Seed Savers Exchange—and now the many seed libraries found in communities everywhere. We are very familiar with plant breeding and patents on commercial seed. South Africa released its catalog of licenses recently and most commercial crops were licensed to US-based Pioneer and Monsanto companies (9). Other countries that do not have national laws recognizing plant patents are pressured to develop them as quickly as possible. 

A new option has been developed in Germany: licensing seed research as open-source. “Anyone can use the varieties, so long as they do not prevent others from conducting research on derivatives; all of the plant's future descendants are also in a ‘commons.’ ” (10) The article continues to describe a similar project in the US—the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) which concluded in 2014 that it was “too unwieldy to gain widespread acceptance among breeders and seed companies…”. This is because intellectual property rights play a bigger role in plant breeding in the US—indeed patenting initiated in the US in 1930.  “Commercial breeders, the main producers of economically important new crop varieties, can't use open-source seeds because they would not be able to claim royalties for any varieties they develop from them. If too many seeds were in the open source–only commons, they would be "killing the business model,” Neils Louwaars of Plantum in the Netherlands says. Many universities would also lose out if they could no longer charge royalties for plant traits or breeding tools.”

Still, thinking back to Vicki Nowicki’s story, many plants we have today were bred a hundred or more years ago and continue to produce (and sometimes cross). Luther Burbank, a contemporary and friend with Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries developed more than 800 new varieties of plants—“including over 200 varieties of fruits, many vegetables, nuts and grains, and hundreds of ornamental flowers.” (6). His gardens and programs are continued on today in Santa Rosa, California. Indeed, it was his efforts which inspired the annual Rose Parade. 

Breeding and Selection in Permanent Agriculture

Breeding plants and patenting the seed’s genetics are well-known strategies for privatizing (and maintaining the option to get a yield on, if you will pardon the pun) researched food crops. Open source seeds, seed libraries, and commercial seed sources that maintain open-pollinated and heirloom seeds are some of our unsung heroes for food production. Researching this article has highlighted for me again the need for all of us to take up some small part of the work. There are so many benefits: saving money by saving seed; developing varieties that suit your system—whether that’s being productive under greater extremes, fitting a particular microclimate, or introducing new flavor or color into a species. So, how do you do it? 

Creating a permanent agriculture can start from different theoretical points—but they all go back to breeding and selecting plants. We cannot create a permaculture system without knowing how to select and breed plants in our own communities. Not every person has to be a seed saver or nursery person, but we should all know at least one. J. Russell Smith, in his well-known treatise Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture, made the work of John Hershey, a Depression era nurseryman in Downington, Pennsylvania famous. Hershey grafted and developed various oaks: including his famous bur oaks (see issue #102), for their vigor and early production of acorns. [Editor’s note: since the publication of that article, a small group has begun taking scion wood and continuing to improve the oaks through breeding and selection. If you would like to get involved, contact us.] Similar trials for hazelnuts are now famous at Badgersett (see Eric Toensmeier’s contribution, this issue). 

The Land Institute is also well-known for its efforts begun by Wes Jackson in 1983 to create perennial wheat as a way to prevent soil disruption. The Institute has expanded its understanding and framing of its research and is seeking, through plant breeding, to develop several perennial grain crops. Kernza (R) is the closest to commercial implementation. This wheat variant is just now coming onto the market after more than a decade of development. While seeds are smaller (1/5 the size of most commercial wheat varieties), there are more seeds per stalk. The breeding program is selecting for “yield, shatter resistance, free threshing ability, seed size, and grain quality.” (7). Programs to develop sunflowers and sorghum are also well underway. With sunflowers (silphium) the motivation goes beyond choosing a grain or oil crop that can become perennial in the landscape, to considerations for drought tolerance and climate change as well as ecological functions with pollinators. The group started with wild sunflowers that showed remarkable resilience during drought in the Plains states. 

grain field

Whether we are looking to use improved selections for local small-scale gardens or for broad-scale and regional production to local markets, it is important that we consider our capacity to take up plant breeding. Even if you rent or coordinate a garden plot in an urban setting—you have the space and capacity to grow out seed. The new insights provided by Gregor Mendel and others into genetics stimulated the creativity of 19th century horticulturists like Luther Burbank. At a time of rapid change and variability in ecosystems, it might not be the minds and efforts of a few brilliant breeders, but the simple commitments and creativity of permaculturists everywhere working with nature that builds the bridge between the gardens of our ancestors and those of our descendants. 


Whats and Hows

So, what are all of these plant breeders doing? They are, by nature, mostly savers of seed with an eye toward ensuring that particular plants reproduce seed in a relatively pure fashion. Seed saving is one of the most direct ways to cross and breed plants.  In classic plant breeding, individuals that are particularly early, robust, tasty, or beautiful—or fill in any other trait—are allowed to set seed and that seed is carefully harvested, stored, and germinated to breed out the next generation. Any propagation technique can be involved (cuttings, layering, etc…): the operative function is that humans are selecting favored characteristics and cultivating a space to include those varieties. Mutations can arise in cuttings or individuals and perpetuate through cuttings, etc… It might behoove us to more carefully observe what is evolving in our forest gardens and using that as a start. 

As with any breeding project, a variety can become inbred after a few generations—increasing the fullness of the desired traits, but also diminishing other qualities—including germination rates. It is important to renew genetic stocks by bringing in—or intentionally crossing—with other samples of the variety or another variety which is compatible and might improve fruiting, flavor, size, disease and pest resistance, etc…. Two in-bred lines that are crossed produce an F1 hybrid. The yields from these plants theoretically increase, but crosses between F1 hybrids (F2) can be wildly inconsistent in their production. It is a good idea to cross F1’s and F2’s back to the original stock or move back into very narrow selection in the breeding program. 

When breeding your own vegetables and fruits (and sometimes shrub species, but not tree species very practically), you can control which plants pollinate a specimen by hand pollinating and bagging the flowers all the way through seed production, by isolating the variety from potential pollinators by distance, or by isolating the flowering in time from undesirable crosses. You can also weed out undesirable plants among a breeding population (called roguing). 

When it comes to keeping records, it’s a good idea to not only label seeds carefully during storage, but also keep track of what is planted, when, and where; as well as notes on development, in a garden journal. If you keep a digital record, including photographs could be very helpful. Burbank was reportedly a horrible record-keeper; preferring to see results in the garden. 


The Seed Hoarders’ Dilemma

I find myself with a problem which I bet will be familiar to some of you. I do not have an unlimited budget for commercial seeds; nor do I have much land to grow out uncertain seeds on for test plots. What I do instead is hoard seeds—including both commercial and home grown seeds. I now see this as a fear-based way to retain natural capital. Remember our third ethic: I could give away seeds or put them in the seed library to be borrowed, renewed, and returned to me at some point when I can use them well. What I need to do is continue to plant out the varieties in my seed storage and save the seeds from the plants I’ve grown: refreshing viable stocks and renewing genetics by offering seed and bringing in new seeds from seed exchanges and libraries. 

All of this is to say that we can have a lot of fun practicing permaculture by breeding plants that marry our tastes and delights to the needs an functions of the gardens we inhabit. We can do that while feeding our families, sharing with our neighbors, and educating the uneducated. We can use our horticulture to build bridges with those who have a slightly different worldview (ever enter your prize pumpkin in the county fair?). Smart selections might also become valuable locally and spur on greater innovations through seed exchanges. Rather than passively perusing the nursery’s offerings, why not aim to create what you want—allowing the process to surprise, challenge, and delight you with discoveries? 

This summer, my kitchen has begun to look like my grandfather’s. He would be so proud.


References and Resources

Caduto, Michael, J., and Joseph Bruchac. Keepers of Life: Discovering Plants through Native American Stories and Earth Activities for Children. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 1998.

Hartmann, Hudson T., Dale E. Kester, and Fred T. Davies, Jr., Plant Propagation: Principles and Practices. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Regents/Prentice Hall, 1990.

Pollan, Michael. The Botany of Desire. New York: Random House, 2002.

Smith, J. Russell. Tree Crops, A Permanent Agriculture. Reprint. Atlanta, Georgia: Pathfinder Press, 2016.

1. http://sacred-texts.com/nam/cher/motc/index.htm, accessed May 1, 2017.

2. http://www.weedtowonder.org/domestication.html, accessed June 23, 2017.

3. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/Supplement_1/9979.full, accessed June 23, 2017.

4. https://thesheridanpress.com/visiting-research-hopes-to-uncork-expertise/, accessed June 3, 2017.

5. http://www.83degreesmedia.com/features/US-Agriculture-research-Florida-innovation-0617.aspx, accessed June 5, 2017.

6. https://www.lutherburbank.org, accessed June 28, 2017.

7. https://landinstitute.org/our-work/perennial-crops/kernza/, accessed June 28, 2017

8. http://www.growingproduce.com/vegetables/usda-gives-17-7m-in-grants-for-plant-breeding-production-studies/, accessed June 3, 2017.

9. http://www.gov.za/services/plant-production/plant-breeders-rights, accessed June 6, 2017. 

10. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/german-breeders-develop-open-source-plant-seeds, accessed June 22, 2017

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2023 garden planner cover
Member Content

2023 Garden Planner

Hi there,

nothing feels as good as a well-thought-out plan

Whether you are new to permaculture or gardening or you are looking for a fresh start to 2023, this planner can guide you through the year. We've included spaces to think about goals, gather your resources, prepare for challenges and document your learning. We keep evolving the planner from year to year, so let us know how it's going.  

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yellow daylily
Something Else

Just for Fun: A persistent lily

late day lily

This beautiful, fragile flower reminds me so much of squash blossoms. I am appreciating the delicate veins in the petals and the way it is folded and curled. But what is most lovely about the blossom is that this lily has kept on putting blooms out after (two weeks? three?) the other lilies stopped. It keeps reaching out to the sun. 

I find that hopeful and beautiful. 

How do you keep reaching for the sun and sharing your glorious nature? 

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oak seedlings - CC0 via Pixabay
Future Care, Earth Care, People Care

What is permaculture?

Defining "permaculture"

There are hundreds of definitions of permaculture. Here's the one I use: Permaculture is an ethical system of design that integrates humans with the natural world. 

Let's break that down. 

Permaculture = "permanent agriculture" and "permanent culture"

Ethical = Care of the Earth (primary); Care of People; Care of the Future

System = working with an awareness of the interconnectedness of elements of any system we focus on. 

of Design = We are co-creating with the Earth and with other people in a way that is intentional and careful

Integrates Humans with the Natural World = we developed a civilization/society that has disconnected us from the Earth we depend upon. (This one if full of tricky implications if you think about it.) Further, we tend to be deeply disconnected from each other. 

We can do better, and we can keep improving. 

The Problem

I begin almost all of my permaculture design courses with the question: 

What is going on in the world? What's the news? 

It doesn't take long for the board to fill with "events" that, when we look at them, are systematically connected.  Just as the problems are interconnected, so are the solutions. 


The Solution

It is time to reintegrate our way of life so that we can heal the Earth, heal ourselves, and tend to the best possible future. We can return to a life which is deeply connected--one that allows us to express the best of the human journey on the planet. What can that look like? 

  • Growing more of our own food in order to have more nutrition, fewer costs, more food security, and a sense of accomplishment and connection. People mostly think of permaculture in relation to horticultural and agricultural techniques. 
  • Increasing the efficiency of our home -- providing for more of its energy, water, and material needs in order to cut costs, increase resilience, and be more productive. 
  • Participating in community-wide initiatives in a way that brings people together. Maybe you love time banks, or food pantries, or developing new products for your area that support the regional economy. 
  • Developing a neighborhood community or an eco village. Permaculture can thrive in these environments. 
  • Learning the plants, birds, insects, and mammals of your area so that you can help to tend and repair the landscape you all share. 

Most of all, this is about limiting our impact on the Earth and tipping the balance toward a way of life that will allow future generations to thrive. We can imagine, design, and enact that right now. 

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social media girl
People Care

Design for Groups: creating the group

The Moment in which We Live

        One of the challenges, as we have gone online is that our social evolution is on the surface. I interact with people from around the world on an almost daily basis via zoom. While the interactions with people are spread out, they are also shallower. Our mission-driven interactions allow for some connection and understanding, but there isn’t often time to build deeper connections and cultural practices which really nurture relationships and networks. In a world of 15-second Tiktok videos, how do you develop connection to a shared vision? 

Our ecological and social systems are beyond the limits and collapse is underway. Collapse has been affecting people; destroying and destabilizing whole sections of population for most of my adult life. What we are talking about now is the level of acceleration. Extractive behavior continues—putting financial and social capital in the hands of the privileged. People are both distracted by social media and other entertainment and utilizing an online context to reorganize their lives and connections so that power and resources can be distributed more fairly to meet the needs of the Earth and people. Neither focusing on negative realities and despair nor toxic positivity and denial is helpful.  The pandemic has given us all a moment to wake up and re-evaluate what is critically important—as well as to see the delicate situations we are in. 

So, what are we to do? 

 

Cellular Boundaries

            Who is the “we” in that question? Permaculture people, readers of this article, family members, activists, and members of organizations. Community members. Business owners. Staff or employees. In each role, or context, we have the capacity to work from principle and pattern toward common vision. Those contexts need relatively stable boundaries. A consequence of our globally connected world—and especially the past the wealth of the past 30 years in the US and other affluent countries—is that people have been able to move where they like far from family and friends. That has been positive in many ways but limited our direct experience of community around us as well. We are lonelier and suffering more mental health issues than ever before. (Hence, projects like the Human Library.)

One of the challenges and wonders of our current world is that it is so very accessible. By nature, we define ourselves and our lives by the people with whom we have regular contact. Those are the people we are invested in. As permaculture people, we want to design systems that improve our quality of life and the lives of those we connect with. In terms of changing the world, when we put intention and choice into our systems, it can send a positive ripple out through the whole—and when many of us do this, it can rapidly change the nature of our world in a positive way. So, who is your “we”? Who do you want to design with? Who do you share a vision or mission or dream with? 

Many times, we don’t get to choose everyone in our groups and collaborations. Friends of friends show up, or people respond to a call to action. A variety of perspectives are introduced. Each person has some valuable experience or question to bring to the conversation. Once we know who we are co-creating a future with—allowing for shifts and changes as life demands—we can then find the common threads and themes of our vision. 

 

Collective vision and a strong container

            Once we know who “we” are and what we are working for, we define both the limitations and problems we need to solve, and the immediate and long-term aims implied in our vision. In 2016, at the North American Permaculture Convergence in California, I was sitting in one of many delightful, long conversations with Bonita Ford. It became clear in the conversation that we have an endless supply of good technical and design solutions to our ecological problems. However, projects fall apart over lack of ability to sustain them (financially and energetically) and old, internalized patterns of oppression and communication which feed conflict and foster differences. People leave relationships or projects and move on to something new. In a world with many options, that is perhaps for the better. But in a world of increasing constraints, moving on may not be as much of an option. (I have spoken of this concern several times in articles Permaculture Design.) In this case, we need more careful and skillful design of our social worlds to creatively respond to the moments we are in. Once our personal and social lives are more in balance, our built structures and ecological worlds are more likely to reflect this health. I’ve spoken elsewhere about personal balance and design for self-care. In the next post, I want to focus on social design and, specifically, about how sociocracy blends with permaculture in a positive way to create strong containers for our collective vision.    


This post is an excerpt from the Spring 2022 issue of Permaculture Design magazine, which Rhonda edits. You can find out more about effective governance from her free workshop on March 22, or from visiting Sociocracy For All

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flood waters - CC0 via Pixabay
Something Else

Rain events, climate change, and community flooding

Over the past weekend our community saw 7″ of rain within a 24-hour period. Most of that precipitation came down within about 90 minutes. It is easy to recognize this kind of event as a climate-change related phenomena. Such events are becoming more frequent for our area. Rather than a persistent drought, we are likely to see more rain in more intense events like this one. Our community began tracking rainfall in 1895. From 1910 to 1990 there were 10 of the highest rainfalls on record. Between 1991 and 2021 we’ve had 10. The flooding that resulted was deadly and damaging. We need to respond on a personal level with our own home-designs, and on a community level. 

A couple of things to consider

A local activist berated city leadership for investing in public structures like a parking garage instead of better addressing climate change (1). This kind of concern–and even righteous indignation– is understandable, but he did not offer any productive suggestions. I think it would be more helpful to point toward what is needed and offer compelling arguments based on data and observation of what is working. For example, a wetlands project on the north side of the city managed the water flow from several neighborhoods and showed remarkable resilience.

Our community needs similar projects which daylight and filter water flows throughout the community. One of the more challenging aspects of these rain events is the channelized flow of water from campus through the middle of the city. For decades this waterway has been sent underground — under businesses. How many cycles of flooded basements and businesses can we carry forward into the future?

Adapting permaculture

Permaculture originated in an area dealing with decades-long droughts. Swales and ponds to catch and store water make a lot of sense in a dry climate. However, in a temperate area with increasing rainfall, design solutions cannot be haphazardly adopted.

I have been advising against placing swales upslope from structures for a while now. Saturating the water table above a foundation will not work in this area any longer. I believe French drains are also insufficient. Rather, earthworks that consistently and reliably move water around and away from foundations make sense. Put your swales and water-catchment earthworks either to the side or down slope to protect your home.

We can use the design process to safeguard our homes AND increase life-sustaining systems. I calculated that in our small yard, the “upslope” generated about 29,790 gallons of water in about 90 minutes. This doesn’t include confirmed runoff from neighboring properties upslope.

People regularly underestimate what is going on. A 50-gallon rain barrel is not sufficient to irrigate a garden. How did the rain gardens fare during the recent events? My suspicion is that they were not especially helpful. (Contact me if you have data to the contrary.)

Rather, a slightly different kind of earthwork can direct water where we want it to go and provide interesting opportunities for cultivating life and living well. Tanks, cisterns, “dry” creek beds, ponds, and other catchments and holding systems can benefit us, and reduce the amount of runoff municipal systems have to deal with, but we need better observation and analysis. We need better design. Ultimately, there are difficult choices ahead.

 

  1. To be fair, this person has made many suggestions over the years. The post I saw did not.

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design definition
Future Care, Earth Care, People Care

Who Created “Permaculture”?

Who created "permaculture"? Where did it start?

In this series of introduction to permaculture articles, I wanted to layout the basics. So here we are looking at the origin of permaculture. In the last one, I shared my definition of permaculture. There, I said it is "an ethical system of design that integrates humans with the natural world." There are hundreds of definitions of permaculture, and that makes it stronger.

Still, the system of design I refer to had a point of origin. Two brilliant and colorful characters, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren met when both were involved in university in Tasmania in 1972. Their months-long conversation critiquing industrial agriculture and the Green Revolution led them to the ideal of "permanent agriculture." 

Their synthesis of observed indigenous wisdom and practice, systems thinking, and the new understandings of ecological science led to not only an understanding of the damage industrial agricultural systems were wreaking in a globalizing world, but the impact on culture and a process for undoing the damage. This design process is grounded in the three ethics (Care of the Earth, Care of People, and Care of the Future). The process also guides us to mimic the natural patterns found in any particular place. All culture begins in nature. 

In practical terms, this means permaculture relies heavily on restoring perennial plant systems using new combinations of productive, high-yielding species. Tending landscapes using these strategies reinvigorates the systems indigenous humans created and tended around the world throughout our history as a species.

And, there was precedent in academic and scientific circles as well. J. Russell Smith had published a book on Tree Crops (1929) in the horticultural ferment of the 1920's, and Masanobu Fukuoka's One Straw Revolution (1975) was spreading about the same time that Permaculture One (1978) was published.  

monarch on hand

What came before permaculture? 

meadowsweet in bloom

As I mentioned, indigenous humans around the planet and throughout time created systems of tending the landscape. Some were more successful than others (three previous civilizations failed in China according to the archeological data). In fact, I've come to believe that any human dependent on the land they have access to and with enough resourcefulness time to experiment will come up with many of the strategies and techniques utilized in permaculture design. For example, weir systems harvesting from the tides are very similar between the Haida of the Pacific Northwest and those found on ancient British coasts.

From a more recent experience, my own grandfather developed gardens and systems in his many garden farms in the 1970s-90s. Despite his poverty and lack of education, he developed massive gardens at multiple sites that incorporated trees, shrubs, annual crops, hoop houses, poultry and rabbits. His plantings were on contour and used the light and microclimates to advantage. He used deep mulch to control weeds and keep pathways clear. He heated his home with scrap wood from the local sawmill, canned a massive amount of food. There was cold storage on a north-facing porch. Water was tucked away in gallon jugs, in case the well went dry. We foraged for nuts, mushrooms, wild medicines, and berries regularly. 

There is a lot, looking back, that came from trial and error. His awareness of what was happening in his gardens (all five of them stretched over the county) was amazing. Frequently he would pause to show me some plant he'd imported and grown for the first time. 

I am fairly certain he never heard of permaculture. A deeply conservative man, he likely wouldn't have been a Mother Earth News reader either. 🙂 That didn't stop him from being connected to the Earth and the cycles of creation and tending implied in permaculture. 

Personally, I believe we all need to re-develop our relationship to the Earth (hence Touch the Earth), and to live in relationship to that Earth in a way that is mutually healing. In my journeys, I've connected with many others who share this perspective.

How did it spread?  

Permaculture spread initially through publications. There was Permaculture One, then Permaculture Two, then The Designers Manual, then came the Introduction to Permaculture. By this point, Mollison had gone around the world planting the system among likely candidates.

The first international permaculture convergence (IPC) happened in the early 1980s. The IPC agreed to a standard curriculum for a permaculture design course by the mid-1980s. This meant permaculture people around the planet had a common foundation for sharing ideas. From there, permaculture courses and institutes have grown to bring an understanding and practice to hundreds of thousands of people. 

In North America the first courses were in 1982 and 1983. Mollison essentially said, if you've taken the course go teach. Amazing projects came out of those initial courses. Slowly into the 1990's more teachers and teaching teams formed. By the time I took my own course in 2005, permaculture was still largely unheard of. North American permaculture has been weedy and wild. Still, more people are at least familiar with the term and have a sense of what permaculture is. More education is needed--and a lot more implementation. 

From my perspective, the permaculture design course is an onramp for people from mainstream society to a better future. It's just the beginning of a cultural shift. There are other doorways to that shift, but permaculture design has a lot of tools in the toolbox. There is a great deal of potential for building bridges between people who experience the world in radically different ways, but find a common vision of where they want to go. 

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GERC
Earth Care

What if?

It is late January. While walking around a consulting client’s property yesterday, I saw the early bulbs just beginning to peek up above the soil. In my own garden, spring herbs are already beginning to conservatively creep across the ground in the warmer, protected spots. Spring seeding is beginning to happen, and I know that the buds on the trees are beginning to change in the warmer periods. 

snow drops

Nature doesn’t have an on/off switch like our mechanical systems. There is resilience built in to the constant use of energy. Just so, I believe that most people have in the back of their minds and the depths of their heart a desire and a commitment to a beautiful, healthy, just world. The rush and stress are there—but beneath them is the courage and imagination to see a better world. 

At the Global Earth Repair Conference in Port Townsend, Washington last May, Precious Phiri gave a powerful keynote. Behind her, on a large screen was a hand-drawn image of an adult sharing with a child—and noting that in 2019, the world woke up and it all changed for the better. The sign said, “And then in 2019 everyone came together and fixed the climate even though it was hard. That was our finest hour.”  Until that moment, I was sensitive to the collective grief and worry and persistence of the 500 people gathered. That simple drawing raised the question: how did the world get better? How did we come together and heal the Earth? Each other? 

GERC

Seven months later, with Rob Hopkins’ book From What Is…to What If? in front of me, I recognize the same question and the same feeling of possibility. What if? 

What if?

I am exploring this question for myself…and I am very curious to hear what you are imagining, too. I look forward to the changes possible in the year ahead.

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