This post is a continuation of the previous post found here.
Starting with some form of design creates a firmer commitment to actually implementing your project. And action is what is going to get the ball rolling.
Where is everything and what are our inputs and outputs?
The basics of our situation were that the house was on a slope with the back facing north. So we had high, dry points and potentially lower, damper areas. There was an existing shed and rainwater tank. We could have utilised more tanks but given it was always going to be temporary we utilised the slope to get greywater to the garden which was piped down and then put in buckets and watering can. There are two limitations to your use of water. The laws of water physics and your imagination.
What about plants, animals and structures?
We had a small shed, we had some compost bins and some exotic plants already existing in the garden which we relocated to better positions. We wanted to get chooks, but we started with compost bins and burying our kitchen scraps directly into the soil until we ran out of room. So the chooks we had pegged to go at the back of the shed. We didn’t bite off more than we could chew initially. But that came.
Incidentally we didn’t have a green waste bin. There just wasn’t one that came with the house and we never needed one. Everything went back into the system. It was either buried, composted or in the case of the eucalypts – mulched.
What about aspect?
Our backyard faced just off due north which meant the edibles were placed there. Most of our windows were exposed to the north to allow the warmth in. We seldom used extra cooling or heating and usually only just to take the edge off winter chills. In summer extremes we opened the front and back windows to flush hot air out.
Just down the road from us our like-minded neighbours lived on the opposite side of the road. So their front yard captures most of the sunlight hours and as a result their growing area for edibles is in their front yard. Our front yard was mostly shaded and consisted of natives. It was heavily mulched with wood chips and I never watered it. Even in summer. The only visit it got was to go to the mail box. It was left to its own devices and the birds, insects and reptiles loved it.
How do these things connect to each other?
The products of one element fulfil the needs of another element. We position elements or components so that they have the maximum benefit to the system. Each element serves at least two or more functions. Every important function (water collection, fire protection) is served in two or more ways. Elements are placed according to their intensity of use (zones), control of external energies (sectors) and efficient energy flow (gravity, wind and heat). Doing a page up like this is a wonderful left and right brain activity.
Where do we place elements in order to conserve energy? We place elements according to how much energy is required to attend or utilise them.
Look also for ways you can store and extend energy storage in a system. Water tanks, solar power, preserving your garden produce, capturing heat from the sun inside to warm the house. If you saved your own seeds you could grow food using tanked water from your roof which you can then preserve using very little energy, or store it in your fridge powered by the sun. Can you start to see how utilising a bit of thinking the permaculture way, can save you money in the long run – and be better for your health? Its common sense thinking that puts money back in your pocket It’s a down, down scenario for you.
Waste:
Soil: We all share a common challenge here in the Great Southern. It’s our soil, or rather, our sand. Our place like many others was built on a sand dune. This can be overcome and you can create living, dynamic soil in a rather short time. In a small area like an urban backyard, potentially a couple of inches of soil per year. In fact you have a greater chance of doing this on a smaller scale than broad scale agriculture ever will. It’s a size thing and it takes a different approach.
Kitchen scraps, newspaper print, shredded paper and cardboard have always managed do the job for me. The worms are the real heroes here and they love it and if you can keep it moist long enough for the worms to settle in, they will make it into an incredible friable soil along with their allies bacteria. You’ve no doubt heard not to feed meat, dairy, onion and citrus peels to your worms. In my experience, it’s probably a good idea for a worm farm where the little darlings don’t have much room to move.
Sheep and chicken manure is good for attracting the worms though I never used it in large quantities. The absolute very best, water retaining, dynamic areas of soil in our garden were always the areas where I had used mulch from tree clippings and cuttings. The real twiggy, woody mulch. It works so well that in our next garden I am planning to use mulch on a broader scale.
I’m not sure if you picked up on a commonality here. Much of what we use in our garden you could refer to as waste, and yet it is all put through the system and comes out as food, and returns as waste and comes out as food. A pretty rough description, but close to the truth.
Observe and Experiment – A comparison of lawn vs diversity
INPUTS VS OUTPUTS
We started with lawn and natives. We finished with a more diverse and varied living space. As energy is expressed in a harmonic form it takes on the ability to support more life. Birds moved into our garden, rather than moving through it. During summer and autumn we have monarch caterpillars munching their way through milkweed that was planted to support them.
Permaculture builds diversity. Diversity leads to stability which then leads to increased fertility and which by design leads to potential productivity.
Diversity for diversities sake is a collection! It doesn’t mean that there are meaningful interactions occurring. There needs to be inter-active diversity. Each element must interact with other elements. There is a process to this of observing and analysing a systems interactions for feed back in order to better place elements.
You can design ‘convenience’ into your system to facilitate the events you want. My boys were curious and hungry. So the berry patch down the garden area where they arrived at first was done in order to fulfill their needs and provide shelter for the soil as well – and to try and get them to stop picking tomatoes or beans that I was keeping for seeds.
If you get the energy right, then you have harmony in your design. If you don’t get the energy right, you have pockets of chaos and disorder and it will require you to look at the connections and redirect things, otherwise nature is going to do it for you, which may or may not be to your desire. I had aquaponics along a side of the house with fish tanks underneath the house, but I wasn’t able to get the balance right before my time was shifted to raising our babies instead. But rather than sit in a state of entropy I utilised the grow beds for worm farms and growing salad. I highly recommend aquaponics and I am planning to have it as an integral part of our next garden. But it needn’t be too complex. Our fish pond was a two tiered pond with koi in the bottom pond and water loving salad greens in the top. Simple, healthy and abundant.
My three year old told his Pa rather as a matter of fact, what proper food is. Folks we do need proper food and it starts in your backyard. Why strive for sustainable living if you can’t sustain your own body?! When you grow something to eat yourself, something grows inside you. There is an understanding, a richness, a whole different appreciation of food and what it takes to get it.
If you have limitations then look at alternatives. We have several available to us in the Great Southern. We have awesome farmers markets and community gardens. Please, support these champions of sustainable living. They are the way of the future, whats old is new again.
None of this is rocket science, but it takes a bit of real thought and the willingness to not get stopped by obstacles. It helps to be a problem solver. May your way be a sustainable, permaculture way.
