Blog Action Day & Permaculture

Out of the many reasons to grow your own food, improving personal sustainability and promoting food security are two of the most important. Today, on blog action day on issues concerning food, I thought it would be appropriate to give a general description of each of the twelve permaculture principles.

1 - Observe and Interact By taking the time to engage with nature, we can design solutions that suit our particular situation This principle informs the entirety of the design process. Permaculture is essentially a practice of creative response and the best results are achieved when plant selection and placement are a direct response to the existing landscape.
2 - Catch and Store Energy By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need. This is an age-old concept and needs almost no explanation. Planning ahead by storing energy and goods while they are abundant is critical for permaculture systems and for sustainability generally.
3 - Obtain a Yield Ensure you are producing useful rewards as part of the work you are doing. All your hard work should pay off. Permaculture systems should be rewarding and should create more value than simply the sum of the inputs.
4 - Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems continue to function well. We intentionally say that we are practicing permaculture for a reason. There is no one right way to do things. Just because something worked in the past doesn't mean it will work in the future. Remember, someone else may see something you don't - always listen when advice is given.
5 - Use and Value Renewable Resources Make the best use natures abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources. From the systems perspective it is highly important that we implement renewable energy solutions and natural building materials whenever possible.
6 - Produce no Waste By taking the time to engage with nature, we can design solutions that suit our particular situation Producing no waste goes hand-in-hand with cradle-to-cradle design principles. Eliminating the waste stream often leads to Pareto Efficiency and should be a primary goal in any sustainable system.
7 - Design from Pattern to Detail By stepping back we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the background of our designs, we can fill in the details as we go Nature developed strategies over billions of years of evolution. Think of the structure/design of a spiderweb. from a ways away it might look like a hexagonal sheet, as we get closer we can see more of the pattern and then looking at the individual strands under a microscope we finally can see the function of the design. When practicing permaculture, think of your meta-pattern first and fill in the details later.
8 - Integrate Rather than Segregate But putting the right things in the right place we allow symbiotic relationships to develop and they support eachother. Clumping different plants together instead of in segregated rows creates plant-communities that are more capable of defending themselves from pests and can benefit from eachother's beneficial qualities.
9 - Use Small and Slow Solutions Small and slow systems are easier to setup and maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and produce more sustainable outcomes. Don't bite off more than you can chew! Establishing a permaculture system that is too large for you to take care of is counter productive and even though you may be growing more, more will go to waste and your efforts will have been in vain. Never aggregate your problems! When we combine our problems into a single large issue it can be overwhelming to work with and often can obscure the simplest solutions.
10 - Use and Value Diversity Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides Diversity is insurance of success. We cannot tell the future and in the event where conditions change and do not favor a particular plant or subset of plants we have not over-invested in a failed crop.
11 - Use Edges and Value the Marginal The Interface between things is where the most interesting events take place, these are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system. Permaculture guilds are groupings of plants that have been proven to grow well together. Guilds are not strict and have not all been discovered. The most valuable contribution you can make to your own permaculture garden is experimentation. Record your results, remember the good and improve upon what didn't work!
12 - Creatively Use and Respond to Change We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time. The only consistency is change, so plan for it. Treat current assets as potential future liabilities and current liabilities as potential future assets. When a change occurs in your system observe it, create a solution and act accordingly. ~ Summary ~ Permaculture is a philosophical result of evolution and so it is constantly evolving and changing. Stay within the guidelines, but allow your creativity to flow. As I continue to add more information to this blog on Permaculture, please feel free to ask questions or request a blog on something you're curious about, e.g. 'What is a mycorrhizea anyway?'