tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84169232016429904542024-03-12T05:43:29.268-05:00Lillie House PermacultureAdventures in regenerative living. Permaculture, Natural Farming, Restoration, Forest Gardening, Herbalism, Foraging, Holistic HealthMichael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.comBlogger202125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-89986852639967620612019-02-04T17:10:00.002-05:002019-02-04T22:17:50.797-05:00Why Failing at Gardening is a Sign of Gardening Genius<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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New 2 part article over on our other site. (Bare with us as we try to figure out how to best organize our online lives.)<br />
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In <a href="https://transformativeadventures.org/2019/01/13/transformative-gardening-part-1-why-completely-failing-at-gardening-is-a-sign-youre-probably-a-great-gardener/" target="_blank">part 1,</a> we look at why FAILING is a sign of gardening genius. Most people actually have problems and give up gardening because they have a natural gift and understanding for how nature works, and they realize the standard methods of gardening don't work with nature or fit their lives.<br />
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In <a href="https://transformativeadventures.org/2019/01/16/the-simple-path-to-a-high-value-garden-transformative-gardening-part-2/" target="_blank">part 2,</a> we look at the alternative, an approach to gardening based on HIGH VALUE, minimum inputs, and working with nature more.<br />
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And if you're one of the people who has recently asked us about High Brix gardening or rock dusts and mineralizing soils, here's my article looking over the <a href="https://transformativeadventures.org/" target="_blank">research on the topic</a>.<br />
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-81952062496088822522019-01-04T15:04:00.000-05:002019-01-04T15:04:34.297-05:00Learning from Herbs: Adventures in Home Herbalism<img alt="" id="id_958f_a53d_8952_e7e4" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBdOwXI9VfQA6t3N0Yw1XI0Jt2-HxVT4va9b2121NC4WCG7oNkIyQr60Su6XLB8-0v_zjg4eu4RHN1R6ocz806k_ZaBGvdDMAUNDeOnH2GNtJTGPMG1w0HiP19p6YH4z7VbWT3HJWI8M/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 642px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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I'm extremely proud to announce that we're running this <a href="https://squareup.com/market/lillie-house-permaculture/item/learning-from-herbs-adventures-in-everyday-herbalism" id="id_c299_bdce_8473_17b8">beautiful program</a> again this year, which we created with our dear friend, student, teacher, and inspiration, Hanna Read of Art of Health Massage. This year, we even have a few new tricks and ideas in store!<br />
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When you apply good Permaculture design to the garden, you get a garden that nurtures you back holistically, that's easier, makes sense in your life, and also cares for the world around you. </div>
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So what we wanted to find out was: What do you get when you apply that same design process to home herbalism?</div>
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The answer: This program, a course of learning adventures to build knowledge, build your own valuable home apothecary, start a collection of medicinal plants that work for your own situation, and establish a real meaningingful practice of things you will actually USE. </div>
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Adventures? Each interactive class is organized around a series of of them. Every session, we'll go foraging for the best locally-available herbs, do a tea tastings, learn about seasonal herb-gardening in our diverse herb garden, and create some herbal remedies, which you'll take home. </div>
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Swag? Of course! In Permaculture terms, our goal is always to go beyond education to help you invest in "regenerative assets," actual items of value. In this program, you'll take home seeds from many medicinal species (when you need to plant them,) medicinal plants, and remedies including herbal teas, oils, vinegars, salves, bitters, recpies, and even our own herb-infused lotion we're very proud of.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_92bc_e6e_31ba_1bc5" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-3sBwjDwQCOw/XC-6avyLG8I/AAAAAAAADmc/HdyQI90BPDw9FwUnrfIWgLOuq70cO1MtACHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 631px;" title="" tooltip="" /></div>
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(Well, *<i>cool apothecary cabinet not included</i>)</div>
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Each class will contain a component on research-based plant knowledge, foraging, gardening, sourcing, and processing. We'll start with strong basic foundations, break down the material into accessible chunks, and build up over time, with each class building on what we learned the previous session. For example, over the course we'll dry herbs that will go into an oil, that we'll use for a salve, that we'll use to make a lotion, so you'll practice the basic skills that build up to more advanced processing! </div>
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Here's a basic schedule of our curriculum, including notes on he processing topics, which leads you through what we consider the most common and important uses:</div>
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May: Introduction, Foundations and Spring Cleaning (Tonics, pestos, drying, teas, infusions and decoctions.)</div>
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June: "Let food by thy medicine." Cooking with herbs, oils, vinegars, bitters, foraged superfoods.</div>
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July: Wounds and Healing: Electuaries, salves, poultices, etc.</div>
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August: Skin, hair, beauty. Balms, butters, creams, lotions, etc.</div>
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Sept: Winter wellness. Fermenting, more tincturing. </div>
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And of course, the whole adventure takes place in our garden, with hundres of species of plants, inspired by the medieval Jardin de Cure, a traditional form of holistic herb garden or physic garden, which we think is a pretty cool place to learn about herbalism. </div>
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<a href="https://squareup.com/market/lillie-house-permaculture/item/learning-from-herbs-adventures-in-everyday-herbalism" id="id_8ed6_e114_4759_56b2">Register now by visiting our store!</a></h3>
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<img alt="" id="id_193b_8c6b_dc82_5c55" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yv8EytWuMa8/XC-6a9hLqPI/AAAAAAAADmg/tctJlTndmTcRaJAQebg2nmHK8QjBn8lUgCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 627px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-27472099197764922972019-01-03T13:30:00.000-05:002019-01-03T13:58:17.118-05:002019 "CSA," Community Supported Permaculture<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is my favorite way to do Permaculture.<br />
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I do design/installation jobs for people who want to get a fast-forward on their projects without years of in-depth study of Permculture and forest gardening ecology, but I really do think the best way to transform your landscape is this class where we walk through the whole process together, with a group of other forest gardeners for support.<br />
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And it's a class that doubles as an advanced foraging class, covering many of Michigan's most valuable wild gems available throughout the growing season, which are often excellent additions to the forest garden or Permaculture landscape.<br />
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Classes run 3rd Saturdays from 9 - noon from May - November.<br />
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There are three different ways to be involved, depending on your needs. All three come with some seeds and plants, lots of advice, and an online version via media-rich emails and interactive online classes.<br />
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<b>Class Alone:</b> $400 ($50/class, includes samples, a few rare plants and seeds.) https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com<br />
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<b>Class Plus: $700</b>. Includes a larger number of plants to start a nice Permaculture collection, and includes a basic consultation.<br />
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<b>Home Garden Membership:</b> ($1,000) COVERS CLASS TUITION FOR 2 ADULTS. Includes $350 worth of rare, specially recommended plants, a mushroom kit, a written site Permaculture consultation and more: https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com/the-basic-home-garden-membership/<br />
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If you'd like to discuss your options or other details, please give an email at lillie.house.kzoo@gmail.com.<br />
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Hope you'll consider joining us!Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-18271961166012560892018-12-20T16:42:00.001-05:002018-12-20T16:42:19.016-05:002019 A Season of Transformative Adventures<div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Announcing our 2019 season schedule of Transformative Adventures! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">HOLIDAY SALE PRICES THROUGH DECEMBER.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This season, we're offering 4 major courses, along with a few online programs, additional classes, and some free foraging walks. </span></div>
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2019 Programs:</div>
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1. Community Supported Permaculture Program: Our innovative program on forest gardening/natural gardening, including seeds, plants, consultation and a full season of classes. (3rd Saturdays, May- November.)<br /><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="origin" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Flilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com%2F2017-community-supported-forest-gardening%2F&h=AT1p1XRNL64pNu2QMoXlytsnpAzXyoDn8ZTv-eVUXmeKYqD38pXoUp3TPxXf0Eh7FILiDQCmgtU04uuCiNQ6lK__jWycfUl5OrCyPFkZxcgJ7tlfLisTKNmrI4kTexqRslPXH6-xFJBBaXUxwSSBVFrFaWruKacAMacONDZG7ZycQi6c20wmMORtQ162Sg8-GYEDePFDB6aNUScVwku8JY3CyL3m5mzPDtL-TMA8-aXyPrJGaJA_vW7JCWZ99KEmLOk0gDjxltY8KhwKSrK7dzvrlFl7h5-Iw1WLiUkaHMyRWf3H_uXhJeWV3PIXdchNV9LxprFu50hiH5NwnzhN9k1k0z6lDi4cUV47heZk4m71fs3zSpcQvkiNH3sOLouB6-yRmGnPazdYEGCXPGuSSigO6gG3_FG7uyjdrn-LR5qoYdDDYSMf4C6Mc5UAxXXQmdHrM08C_jjMw_jhnxpiCEXuilFZ8IivnXn5_lJcdgOvDPzR16Itl0xGjLXJJlwaOlv5zRAWxSOx7CflDNjcUOynkPtytL3SC8NbblNJjTRiVExl1Rl2Xpb5fkYNfTdwjr7NCBDXw3GPOogqjr7JKGjZSCQ_ye1AYEDdVWnCfQ7xzbK5o02DSyQBOp0uGc91" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com/2017-community-suppo…/</a></div>
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2. Adventures in Home Herbalism (with Art of Health):<br />five classes, monthy foraging, gardening and preparation techniques, packaged with seeds, plants, and a collection of medicines including lotions, salves, oils, vinegars, tinctures and more. (2nd Saturdays, May - September.)<br /><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="origin" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsquareup.com%2Fstore%2Flillie-house-permaculture%2Fitem%2Flearning-from-herbs-adventures-in-everyday-herbalism&h=AT0iDTlmtYzwVoAyiSVgaLnbTb87GUKXj3APopPzhPoMTufbtMqRGkwT283q_iZISIYmhl7QezaSHb0TuuAqkgRsrx0r7NChHI49CnJLSsBVmD7mY-UQhTfXi-xiEa_5rm3qmp9XmcGfrOrQiuDHATJO5agfcxcVPCdqkhxL6uVd9JLVbnK_GHHdWLsbjM4XZyKHyErtTdWXF5wh41mN8fyBeX4jKLcrj72CUdaegkEP12j4EWM5Vd2dkH3tVtbIJEqqPd54SWND0qv3BONa10Dn9ScNoDKJGe8ykMRgqa_LyQBmKAEggKOndSZczWwQvQii13F8i8qNrb0abcHolmznxueAnK-vxJAgDAN8Y0dlFi7IW2D1ORxLmmUUpnIqeUUCETunrQQUTPc7AklV2dUiXun_lSHs7y7QlkxnlPhn3RaCX_Ff_s_sQAUeDui73wO1Eu6bROu0L6YvyilqxkQarmhpVmiPsF8jpkG1q_GbVckNN1PawPq0Jks5M-IjHN8OAGaqEdHn333y_ey0Fo248p9tf8a1yKnI68wtigJfqsioT8m0BK3M3syNhO601jiVgdzwVx1WJRXqxVK8yTb-CmsVNcUJm28631W3LjSUDCAW5-oHOk33rlJQxJkI" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://squareup.com/…/learning-from-herbs-adventures-in-ev…</a></div>
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3. Season-long MODULAR Permaculture Design Certificate Course.<br /><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="origin" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Flilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com%2Fpermaculture-design-certificate-course%2F&h=AT3gh3mlhfBYlm3u87u6ZDzIVJAl06A-eGLBGL5azF9cKM3P_uGAnrKP30eneLRTaWTt3HD1rtUXncQgvHMvOIEtf95n13X0TNRMIrzfMWZ77VutGCTK4EP9_dZrlomFueez6FiSrkStJeXQnHqcSoSXojjN4fw9do1fLEIAco6SBPaXpsheKF1JXsf4kxjHTIhgDcK-S21GBQwk9DI8guDdHY730UgQ8sf0IsnBkmC4WoD7DraWE-ir06_uBR6O8MT17TwpfZ0Gb2UmJACvO2QLYH1jwnVlIEewCwP02aj_P5sJ4MRV_f0UAgwYvt7mvMScJ1oEqbU81ReaF-8BvCyuiHwGosrvvTB50a91bFwcf5L-db4wJXMq2LLMSaelqcvlXco99n2QOy5XmlNT9AxfsOY4bjjxjN2tfjuWLgq7xxXmJzMBPtM8D9DfZAModuNg4BXkNcOBjHV_d6Dj4EqdpMhNafpRS_nZrAyCvkm1ZTYzEnBhO4dfcIH5ONJIa4yTEIP1VKohTo4wk2_fWS5-D4ClQRmpCVpDHwPYxtmA9jMiLyMF9WHHfF-zyFrrXzZvBQpWwEJ5vLvBqyhnq0AnNZtPnvnwej83SrhG4DFo_TlZN-2Vkpcn_PU8ywRX" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com/permaculture-design-…/</a></div>
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4. PDC Modual for students who have completed our gardening program.<br /><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="origin" href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fsquareup.com%2Fstore%2Flillie-house-permaculture%2Fitem%2Fpermaculture-design-certificate-course&h=AT0fb9l43YpZrY7Tns5jBXouBF6O8U68iBDZn5283lvEkXhSIJLHq0iy1GaImA0O3a808cAJ4AS9EVt0iXeJBHak5QfModUgLxnvSXuvgL7V6RfJvmmq9CtptzMz3zlypiLK1dqvvzCZlZKT4AMVt8_z1sA0B9J7BJTGRoyFVEXJ4R-il9YTokimOZ-0vNY15MuLm8ok3qtgOF5T_x6k7xskwBpxWecKNFfdfdXSjzTezNaN7Yv55Wu3iV7eQ1vBatHn3I6iePfKU1YYHPfbuUbhCkBq4KDHCxyKQmkdb1nYskPce8ejZT61tgWB0s6EOI-dL4XXq0l3hispEyeGU4OCIbFm7Zt7BWf-J77ZI5jQ2NkxnN_vk2TCWqpTctmNI58RGJrLE30rs9LpewmgwVcGi8Re-oeQyQOuNBueDdlGfUACPYGF0noxQpiSJlymOkLt3ETTNuKBey2nbLq53eGTsVSIMpRgqDNnfJ0_5Hu2k_uC6lOeraNifddsK1p8sgORW9ImTh9iYkmn0HTROcFveSUpCnbVXj1W3ZTpupd26cRqyQ8gH79jhIfZAWQaNuNqwrzPBTNH770cqMnf-i9qd7ssriVuXfChcObn1-QkFotYc5Y3MDx0o-X-n50w" rel="nofollow" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://squareup.com/…/permaculture-design-certificate-cour…</a></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-75646364280019256122018-12-10T15:13:00.000-05:002018-12-10T21:40:15.139-05:00The FIRE Path to Freedom - Part 2 FIRE or FREE?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In part 1, we discussed how changing our relationship with money and work is one of the key leverage points for transforming our lives, our society and the world. We explained that designing our interaction with money is a leverage point for creating viral change, because it has a huge “payback” for individuals, can help us fund our dreams, has a huge impact on the success of our projects, and it can be a fun adventure, too. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">“Hey, wait - sure it can help us invest in successful community organizing and regenerative projects, but money? An adventure?” </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Yes! Once we understand how we are trapped by money, held by the chains of consumer culture, then setting ourself and others free is the very definition of adventure, you Bilbo Baggins you, and experiencing the rewards of our own efforts as we watch our debt disappear and our freedom grow, can indeed be fun, or at least engaging. And plotting out that escape route through Permaculture and investing in manifesting the kind of world we want to see is incredibly enriching. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">For most of us who are already interested in things like simplicity, Permaculture or homesteading, the first thing we need to realize is this is not the same old kind of smarmy Think and Get Rich Secret 7 Rules for Vision Boards, fire-walking kind of consumption-driven money advice. And this isn't an article proposing a hyper-capitalist approach to living or Permaculture.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;">For many in the current generation, the goal is “FIRE” Financial Independence Retire Early, which, for many, is different than the standard meaning of “retirement.” It means getting out of consumer culture and living simply to gain the freedom to work on what you want, when you want, and how you want. Breaking that down, Financial Independence means you’ve lowered your cost of living and saved enough that your income from your investments and savings cover your expenses. For example, using the “4% rule,” a rough rule of thumb discussed in the FIRE movement, if you require $20,000/year to live on, you will be able to retire with $500k or less in savings. IN other words, multiply your yearly costs by 25 and that’s how much savings you will need. With $500k in the bank, you would be free to put your full-time efforts into Permaculture, regenerative agriculture, cultural creation, or otherwise building a better world for yourself, your family and your community. (Check out <a href="http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/29/how-much-do-i-need-for-retirement/" id="id_6376_473e_14aa_856e">this article</a></span> or more information on the realities on the 4% rule, or you can play around with this FIRE <span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); color: black;"><a href="http://www.firecalc.com/index.php?wdamt=25000&PortValue=500000&term=60&ss1=8000&ssy1=2043&ss2=0&ssy2=2027&signwd1=-&chwd1=5000&chyr1=2013&wd1infl=adj&signwd2=%2B&chwd2=0&chyr2=2017&wd2infl=adj&signwd3=%2B&chwd3=0&chyr3=2021&wd3infl=adj&holdyears=2012&preadd=0&inflpick=4&override_inflation_rate=3.0&SpendingModel=bernicke&age=37&pctlastyear=0&infltype=PPI&fixedinc=Commercial+Paper&user_bonds=4.0&InvExp=0.18&monte=history&StartYr=1871&fixedchoice=LongInterest&pctEquity=75&mix1=10&mix2=10&mix3=10&mix4=40&mix5=40&mix6=10&mix7=15&mix8=5&user_growth=10&user_inflation=3.0&monte_growth=10&monte_sd=10&monte_inflation=3.00&signlump1=%2B&cashin1=0&cashyr1=2015&signlump2=%2B&cashin2=0&cashyr2=2025&signlump3=%2B&cashin3=0&cashyr3=2030&process=survival&showyear=1960&delay=10&goal=95&portfloor=0&callprocess=Submit&FIRECalcVersion=3.0&" id="id_6772_c921_fd59_5b31" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" target="_self">Calc</a></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12pt;"> to see for yourself.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); color: black;"><a href="http://www.firecalc.com/index.php?wdamt=25000&PortValue=500000&term=60&ss1=8000&ssy1=2043&ss2=0&ssy2=2027&signwd1=-&chwd1=5000&chyr1=2013&wd1infl=adj&signwd2=%2B&chwd2=0&chyr2=2017&wd2infl=adj&signwd3=%2B&chwd3=0&chyr3=2021&wd3infl=adj&holdyears=2012&preadd=0&inflpick=4&override_inflation_rate=3.0&SpendingModel=bernicke&age=37&pctlastyear=0&infltype=PPI&fixedinc=Commercial+Paper&user_bonds=4.0&InvExp=0.18&monte=history&StartYr=1871&fixedchoice=LongInterest&pctEquity=75&mix1=10&mix2=10&mix3=10&mix4=40&mix5=40&mix6=10&mix7=15&mix8=5&user_growth=10&user_inflation=3.0&monte_growth=10&monte_sd=10&monte_inflation=3.00&signlump1=%2B&cashin1=0&cashyr1=2015&signlump2=%2B&cashin2=0&cashyr2=2025&signlump3=%2B&cashin3=0&cashyr3=2030&process=survival&showyear=1960&delay=10&goal=95&portfloor=0&callprocess=Submit&FIRECalcVersion=3.0&" id="id_6772_c921_fd59_5b31" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);" target="_self"><br /></a></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This is the kind of perspective you’ll find eloquently drawn out in the new addition of YMOYL, by Vicki Robin. The book even highlights the stories of a few homesteaders and organic farmers who were able to pursue their land-based work on financially stable ground, due to their Financial Independence. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But, from a Permaculture perspective it might be helpful to analyze this paradigm further, to maximize how it meets the different kinds of goals that we might have when compared to other folks. For example, it’s clear that we’ll need to start out with a map that will get us where we want to go financially while accomplishing all the goals I began this article with in part 1: caring for people and the earth, while improving quality of life. Viral change. Leverage.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">So, can we have our FIRE cake and eat it without burning down the planet and ourselves too? Does a $500,000 nest egg sound achievable for folks looking to simplify their lifestyles? Are their investments we can make that don’t make the world worse off at our expense? Can we instead invest in the kind of world we want to see? Is there a realistic plan for “Permaculture FIRE?”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Depends.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">My honest assessment is that Permaculture offers many ways to reduce cost of living as well as some important regenerative investments. And some will be able to happily make that happen. High earners with jobs in engineering, computers, business or medicine may be able to save up $500k in just a few years while learning some major Permaculture skills through the process of being frugal. For them, a conventional FIRE approach may be the best path to their dreams, and Permaculture might be the key to making their frugal lifestyle both fulfilling and regenerative. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But for others of us, the dream of early retirement often represented by the FIRE movement may not be desirable, or it may only build up unrealistic expectations, especially for people who simply want to prioritize their permaculture, homesteading or simple living goals. If your income is only around $25-30k to start with, and there are good reasons to not want to do what is necessary to earn more, then consistently saving $5-10k/year could be a challenge, and at that rate it will only take, hmmm, 50 years or more to reach retirement. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Once we free ourselves from consumer culture and realize that the question really is: “Your Money or Your Life?” then we may decide that seizing that time NOW is more important to us than the deferred reward. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But in that case, changing our relationship with money is even more powerful and transformational. For example, the first few steps on the YMOYL path are to eliminate debt (and with it any high monthly obligations) and to save up a few months worth of expenses in an emergency fund. With no (or few) high-interest debts and a 6-month slush fund, imagine the freedom and security you’d have. Imagine what different choices you’d make if you had 6 months to find a new job if you needed to, or accept a risky new opportunity if it called. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">For many of us, our hope is that Permaculture or homesteading will be our escape plan from the rat race, not a nest egg, the stock market, and eventual retirement. What we’re suggesting is that there’s real potential to combine the tools of Permaculture with tools in YMOYL. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This starts with the first three rungs of the <a href="https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/blog/" id="id_cf97_da68_8331_7052">Financial Independence Ladder to Freedom</a></span>, as Vicki Robin calls it:</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>1<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Freeing your mind from money and consumer culture and building the financial intelligence necessary to see how our pavlovian programming makes us waste our life energy on things that only make us miserable, so we can start investing in what we really serves us. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>2<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Get free from debt. Consumption is the carrot that keeps us wasting our lives, debt is the stick. Part of this is to change our behaviors to stop investing in our own chains, and the other part is systematically paying down debts, starting with credit cards and other high-interest loans. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>3<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The third rung is to directly invest in our freedom by building up an emergency fund large enough to cover 2 months, or better yet, 5 or 6 months debt. This is the tool that allows us to say “take this job and shove it,” or to say yes to other opportunities as they arise. Imagine what you’d do if you could take a 6-month sabbatical to start a new business, find a higher-paying job, learn a new valuable skill….</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I’ve come to think of these three steps as some of the most important work of Permaculture, or for anyone who wants to work to make the world a better place. With this goal accomplished, you’ll be able to bring your full self to your work, with less stress, more honesty, more freedom, more clarity, and more ability to help others make smart choices.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">If these first 3 rungs have a lot to offer aspiring Permaculturists, then Permaculture Design has a lot to offer the last 2: </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>4<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The 4th rung involves drawing on all our non-financial forms of capital, including our knowledge, experience, natural capital, relationships, and so on. In the new edition of YMOYL, this is referred to as the ABCs of wealth.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">For some of us, this roadmap might be exactly what we need. But Permaculture design, with a rich set of tools for non-financial capital for rung 4 and a bank of viable regenerative investment opportunities for rung 5, can provide us with more options than the traditional FIRE scenarios. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">After we used the first 3 rungs of the Ladder to start freeing up our ideas around money, Kim and I realized we didn’t want to seek FIRE in the race for FI and “retirement,” we just wanted to feel FREE: Financially Resilient and Economically/Ethically Empowered. We wanted to “catch and store” (Holmgren, Principles) energies that would allow us to weather the storms of an economic system that appears to us to be failing. And we want to be resilient enough that we can survive even if important projects we take on fail, or if “life strikes” in some other expensive way. And we want to feel economically empowered. We want to be able to choose to start projects, organizations, or businesses we think are important. And we wanted to feel in control of our own economic destinies, rather than relying on other fragile systems for our livelihoods.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But we also want to be ethically empowered, so that if an employer or investment opportunity ever conflicts with our values, we can afford to say “take this job and shove it.” And finally, that word “empowered,” we want to feel like we have the agency to invest in creating the kind of lives and society we want to see. Now that’s feeling “FREE.” </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And we also wanted to begin investing in manifesting the kind of lives we wanted to live, and kind of world we wanted to live in. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In the next article we’ll apply our Permaculture Design analysis to steps 4 and 5 of the “Financial Independence Ladder to Freedom” (https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/the-financial-independence-ladder-to-freedom/#comment-4142 ) give examples different forms of practical non-financial capital, look at what makes a good “regenerative investment,” and we’ll explore what Permaculture FREE scenarios could actually look like, talk numbers and look at investments and income streams in the context of Permaculture and homesteading.</span></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-25580960180822002652018-12-07T12:59:00.000-05:002018-12-07T12:59:12.277-05:00The FIRE Path to Financial Freedom (and The Most Important thing We've Learned about Permaculture)<img alt="" id="id_e3ee_789b_de4b_c72c" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7IWitUqoPVQ/XAmuGWO8MTI/AAAAAAAADkk/JoyEfsLJ138p80PD7NQFUUfDMmQ5mvIdwCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 605px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold;">The FIRE Path to Freedom?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 18pt; font-weight: bold;">(The Most Important thing We’ve Learned about Permaculture)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Well now that’s quite a loaded headline! Clearly, we’re going to talk about money and the current popular “FIRE” (Financial Independence Retire Early) movement - but first! - what is the most important thing we’ve ever learned about Permaculture, homesteading and living with the land? What single concept has had the biggest positive impact on transforming our lives since we first heard the “P word” on WEFT Community Radio back in 2001?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Leverage.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">The whole point of the Lillie House project as we originally envisioned it, was </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">to create viral change by helping other people transform their lives, landscapes and society, through better connection with nature, our higher selves and our communities</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">. We wanted to find the actions that would have the biggest effect on changing our own lives and we knew that if we could model beautiful, rich, free ways of living that had a transformational effect on the world around us, then we wouldn’t have to twist people’s arms to create change, they’d line up for it like it’s the new iPhone. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">That’s leverage.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But to do that, we knew we’d have to find a path that was accessible and replicable to as many people as possible. And we knew that path would have to help people be better off, happier and healthier at each step of the way. In Permaculture, which is a system for ecological design, we’d say people have to be able to </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">obtain a yield </span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(Holmgren, Permaculture Principles) from every bit of time, energy and money they invest in their </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">transformational adventure</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">. It’s a goal that’s more often discussed than actually pursued.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And Permaculture also taught us that we’d need to identify the key </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">leverage points</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> where we can get the most positive personal and societal transformation for the least effort. Such leverage points need to be high </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">return on investment</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> (ROI.) We’re looking for actions where we can quickly get 80% of the value from just a 20% improvement (the 80/20 principle.) That way we can make an adventure out of working on improving just one area of our lives for a while, obtain a big lasting yield from it, then move on to invest in other transformational experiences with a high ROI. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And the very best leverage points </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">stack functions</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> and allow us to “Care for the Earth and Care for People” (Mollison, Holmgren, The Permaculture Designer’s Manual) while simultaneously creating lives for ourselves that are more beautiful, abundant, rich, and </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">free</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And they have to be fun. It has to be an </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold;">adventure</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">After 10 years of observation, study and practice, and another 7 dedicated actively trying to figure out the best leverage points, we think we’ve got a good idea about what a dozen of them are and how people can best pursue them. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Any one of these leverage points will help us build a better life, but when we stack them together, these </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">transformational adventures</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> create a program of study and action that can improve our lives and can make us truly powerful agents of positive change. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">I won’t take the time to go into all 12 in this article, but to understand the principle, here are our top 3 examples with a high personal and social ROI:</span></div>
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<li style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Basic foraging, because it’s an adventure that transforms “weeds” and “wilds” into beloved friends, and helps us begin to “see nature” and beneficially tend the wilds in our communities.</span></li>
<li style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Extensive forms of gardening like natural gardening and forest gardening, because they teach us the most, have the highest ROI, and - unlike some other forms of gardening - they actually benefit biodiversity, clean water, and sequester carbon. And finally,</span></li>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Phew! There’s the money. In journalistic terms that’s called “burying the lead,” but my experience in my community circles of activists, artists, artisans, homesteaders, gardeners and farmers, people just want to learn about pretty new plants and beautiful sustainable gardens while making the world a better place - AND the last thing people ever want to hear about is money. In fact, for many of us, money is a taboo topic, either just too frustrating, or even seen as the “root of all evil” (and not the tasty kind of root, either!)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But quite honestly, transforming our relationship with money is the leverage point that will likely have the most positive impact on us as individuals, on the Earth, and society at large.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">(You know we are a beautiful and deeply, ahem, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">idealistic</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> community when we need to convince ourselves that discussing money </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">might</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;"> be as important as eating weeds.) </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps this discomfort with money explains why some of the most deeply beautiful people I know are also in deeply precarious financial positions. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps it explains why new farm businesses file bankruptcy at a higher rate than any other business, and even high-profile homesteads and permaculture projects fail at an alarming rate. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And perhaps it explains why a guy who claims to have eventually worked up to making minimum wage is frequently called “the most successful farmer on the planet.”</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And maybe it’s also why people are lining up to pay $1000-3,000 for online classes and “business models” openly claiming to teach how we can make around $3/hour for a whopping $10-15k/ year. Yes, look past the “earn $1,000,000 a year!” headlines and read the fine print that the big bucks are GROSS and the take home is often minimum wage.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">What the prospective homesteaders and farmers buying this content really want is a </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">ladder to freedom</span><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">, a way they can escape the rat race and find a simpler way of life.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In my opinion, these would-be agents of transformative simple living are LITERALLY paying people to teach them how to fail at their goal. The reality is, it doesn’t matter how frugal you are and how much voluntary simplicity and community reliance you cultivate, if you’re planning to make $6/hour working 70 hour weeks, you probably aren’t going to stick with it for long. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In Permaculture, this approach to “profitable farming” is called a Type 1 error: a system designed to fail. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But at least those people are taking a stab at their dreams. Many of us are so paralyzed by our frustration with money, that we never figure out how to finance our dreams, or truly commit to taking our first steps. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And, finally, not to put too fine a point on it, perhaps this resistance to talk about money is why so many of my incredible activist friends remain dependent upon the very same systems that they’re fighting to tear down. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">This is why transforming our relationship with work and money is so important. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Kim and I think it’s so important that we’ve done workshops and even put together a whole free starter class to get you going. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">But in my classes and workshops, my top recommendation has always been to pick up a copy of <a href="https://yourmoneyoryourlife.com/book-summary/" id="id_42b6_af2a_bd0e_c9d0">Your Money or Your Life</a></span>. <span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-size: 12pt;">(YMOYL) a guide to achieving financial independence (FI) by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. These days, there’s a whole growing online community devoted to the idea of achieving “FIRE,” Financial Independence, Retire Early. This includes different strategies like Fat FIRE, where you retire with a big play fund, and Lean FIRE, where you retire into relative simple living on a smaller nest egg, and even Barista FIRE, where you continue part-time at Starbucks for insurance and supplemental income. But still YMOYL sets the standard and focusses on changing our relationship with money. Now, Vicki Robin has a fantastic new edition of YMOYL that is even more compatible with Permaculture. This isn’t just standard retirement advice, it’s a blueprint for changing our lives and our society. In my opinion, it’s a book that should be at the very top of every activist, organizer, homesteader, aspiring farmer, and permaculturists’ reading list. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">In Part 2, I’d like to dig in a little further, introduce a few of the concepts you’ll find in YMOYL, and apply our Permaculture Design. Could Permaculture FIRE be your path to freedom? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">And if are one of the many Permaculturists who took up the cause after achieving Financial Independence, I would like to hear from you in the comments!</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 12pt;">Coming soon, Part 2 Permaculture FIRE or Permaculture FREEdom?</span></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-23783579033967254972018-12-05T16:56:00.000-05:002018-12-05T16:56:25.808-05:00Only a Bowl of Rice - Permaculture/Homesteading Edition<div style="margin: 0px 0px 6px;">
<img alt="" id="id_a85c_d415_265a_4045" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OaI-zN4hocM/XAhJVZ0qx_I/AAAAAAAADkY/jNe0UVawjSsH6YnWkH5bhocDIIGDumONQCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 605px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br /><br /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Being on FB homesteading, farming and Permaculture groups, one thing I see constantly are complaints about money and work. A major reason people pursue farming in particular is to escape "the rat race." But they never re-design their ideas about money, so either they take the leap and end up just as stressed as before, or they never figure out how to finance their dreams in the first place, and never even get started. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There's an ancient Chinese story Kim and I have often told ourselves when we're stressed about money and work, to put it all in perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"What have you come to ask about?"</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The two young adventurers had stopped for rest on the long hillside trail to the cottage of a wise person who was renown for their wisdom and good advice. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">As they talked, the two discovered that they had essentially the same problem: they both felt frustrated by their jobs, burned out from work, poorly treated and undervalued by their supervisors. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When they reached the cottage, they decided that they should ask their question together. As they explained their situations, the sage listened: "We get no respect! No one listens to us! They just exploit us for our labor like we're machines. It's unbearable and I feel like I can't go on another day."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The sage took a long, slow breath, then smiled. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Only a bowl of rice."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The sunset filled the valley as they made their way back down the hillside, trying to decipher the advice of the sage.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Are we only working to feed ourselves, provide our needs?"</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Most of my frustrations from work are because I've expected it to give me meaning, love, respect, enrichment-"</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"- excitement, purpose..." the other continued. "And that is what hasn't worked."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"But at the end of the day, perhaps work is only a way to pay the bills." </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The two adventurers set back home to the city with this new perspective.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The first, aware that the job was only paying the bills, let go of their unfulfilled expectations, and started seeking purpose outside of work. With a sense of meaning, respect, goals and achievement separated from money, it became easier to choose to stay in the job, and continue saving and ascending the work ladder by day. Sometimes the stress would rise, but hey, "it's only a bowl of rice," made it tolerable.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It took less than 24 hours for the second to tell their boss to "take this job and shove it!" They moved back home to the country and bought a small family farm on the edge of town. If work was only to pay for needs, there were better ways to do it. Here, food was free, there was no need to maintain an expensive wardrobe, or social obligations, and with an occasional renter housing paid for itself, too. Sometimes it seemed like there wasn't enough money, but what was money, after all, than a bowl of rice?</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many years later when the farmer was visiting friends in the city, they recognized a familiar face smiling from across the bar. Reunited, the two old adventurers compared their life stories, surprised that they had interpreted the sage's advice so differently. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The first had gone on to eventually become well-compensated in their profession, and had the resources to become a respected artist and teacher as a second career.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The second had had a beautiful life as a respected farmer and teacher of land-based skilled trades. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"So, which one of us was right?"</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Together, they returned to the sage's cottage on the hillside. After listening to the two stories, the old sage took a long, deep breath:</span></div>
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"Only a difference of perspective."</div>
Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-59168597221497559112018-11-06T10:24:00.000-05:002018-11-06T16:57:08.743-05:00Syntropic Permaculture in Temperate Climates<div>
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("Syntropy" at Lillie House.)</div>
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Or Syntropic Agriculture and Temperate Climate Permaculture Design<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i><b>Syntropic Farming</b> is a <b>farming</b> revolution grown out of Brazil and made famous by Ernst Goetsch and the Life in <b>Syntropy</b> short documentary. <b>Syntropic Farming</b> seeks to cultivate resilient ecosystems that are abundant, financially viable and heal abused land.</i></span></div>
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<i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Ernst Goetsch, creator of Syntropic Farming</i></div>
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- Syntropic Agriculture is trendy new growing system, but what distinguishes it? </div>
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- What are the key techniques and novel features of Syntropic Agriculture?</div>
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- Can it be put to use in temperate climates? </div>
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If like me, you're keen on having a human-habitable biosphere on planet earth in the coming decades, then the most exciting technological leap of the last few decades has been the rapid wide-ranging experimentation occuring at the intersection of sustainable food systems and regenerating functioning ecologies. With the current agriculture system being probably the single largest driver of climate change, mass extinction, ocean dead zones, community disruption, and a whole host of other problems, this constant churning synthesis of new "systems" of sustainable growing is very hopeful. It can also be difficult and a bit bewildering to keep up with. </div>
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After a break-through success with the documentary Life in Syntropy, one new system called "syntropic agriculture" (S.A.) or "syntropic farming" has quickly grown in popularity. Like many sustainable Ag trends, this system, the work of Ernst Goetsch is mix of good applied ecological insight, practicality, poetry, philosophy, and just enough nuttiness to make it spiritually fulfilling to engage with, and I absolutely love it. It is a very similar system to what we use at Lillie House, and recommend to our students and clients. Like sustainable agriculture leaders before him, Steiner, Fukuoka, Dr. Hankyu Cho, Mollison, etc. Goetsch is an abundant producer of quotable quotes.</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i>The laws (of nature) are given, it isn’t up to us to create or modify any of them. We need to act in a beneficial way for all participants, for all the affected ones, in order to be considered useful and welcomed beings in the system” -Ernst Goetsch</i></span></span></h3>
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And while one should take any farming poetical philosophy with a grain of salt, this shouldn't be viewed as a limitation. Our relationship with the land, food and ecosystems is utterly sacred, perhaps our most sacred thing, and any practical approach to growing food must recognize that. It is modern "scientific" agriculture's failure to recognize that intuitive spiritual component, our profound human responsibility for other species and the health of the systems we inhabit, which is the cause of our current multi-faceted crisis.We actually need an abundance of farm philosophers to appeal to every sensibility if we are to have any hope of salvaging our biosphere. In the case of Goetsch, he has created a vocabulary that synthesizes some of the language and vocabulary of modern ecology and agroecology into poetry and platitude in a charming way, though some critics allege that it risks the appearance of pseudoscience. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_dd15_bbd1_f87d_67b8" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CYowk4uwzz8/W-Gw6r5hC3I/AAAAAAAADjY/C5D6_NnCLvg4OrQdSb7wt1OuPtAhtDZlQCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 590px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(Image via this <a href="https://www.agendagotsch.com/2018/04/24/differences-between-organic-and-syntropic-farming/" id="id_7142_d8fb_8bc8_ca7f">excellent article</a> from Agenda Goetch.)<br />
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Perhaps one of the biggest innovations of Syntropic Agriculture is how it has transcended poetry alone, and has become famous largely due to its beautiful use of film and photography to capture and convey the importance of regenerating the land, and rekindling the human relationship with nature.</div>
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Since syntropic agriculture (S.A.) utilizes design, tree crops, no-till, and mulch, many are wondering how this new system relates and compares to Permaculture, whether it works, and whether we in temperate climates can put this tropical system to work in our climates (such as in <a href="https://www.propagate.org/research/2018/5/29/syntropic-agriculture-in-temperate-climates" id="id_5298_a799_3d3f_68d2">this article</a> from Propagate which posses some thoughts on the question.) On this last note, I have seen it frequently stated temperate farmers can "simply substitute apples for tropical tree crops" to make syntropic agriculture work. I feel I can say with a great deal of certainty that in many if not most temperate climates, that simplistic advice would yield very poor results. Yet, at Lillie house we have adapted some traditional patterns that are very similar to those used in syntropic farming, and believe these could be put to use very effectively in most temperate climate situations. </div>
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In this article, we'll look at the basic "active ingredients" of syntropic agriculture, its relationship to Permaculture Design, and how it could be adapted effectively to temperate climates from a Permaculture perspective. In other words, we'll attempt to develop some guidelines for a Syntropic Temperate Climate Permaculture, for those looking to integrate S.A.'s key features into broader designs. </div>
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Syntropic Agriculture and Permaculture Design: Syntropic Permaculture? </h2>
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While Syntropic Agriculture seeks to create resilient agro-ecologies, Permaculture Design is a broader design system for human habitats, including agro-ecologies. Permaculture Design proposes a general design process for our lives, and the smart Permaculture Designer might look into systems like natural farming, Korean Natural Farming, or Syntropic Agriculture to see if they get us where we want to go. Permaculture itself does not actually propose any specific type of growing system or set of techniques, only this process for contemplating and deciding which might be useful <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">in a given context. This system of design typically works "from patterns to details," so we might begin this discussion by observing and analyzing Syntropic Agriculture as a set of "patterns" or "active indgredients" that could help us meet our design objectives. </span></div>
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<b>Key Features of Syntropic Agriculture</b></h2>
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To get a better understanding of Syntropic Agriculture, let's take a look at its key techniques, or "active ingredients." If you're familiar with Permaculture, I invite you to think about how these patterns relate to those common to that system before I elaborate on the topic below.</div>
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<b>Syntropy</b>: To begin with, the namesake principle of Syntropic Agriculture is, of course, "syntropy." Readers of Lillie House will know that the key feature we discuss in our particular school of Permaculture is Negentropy, or negative entropy. Syntropy is another proposed term for the same phenomenon. This refers to the observation that while man-made systems like cars exhibit "entropy," losing energy over time and reverting to chaos or less useful states, natural systems of enough complexity appear to "catch and store" energy, rather than losing it, growing more organized, more diverse, resilient, abundant and useful over time. This is especially seen in ecosysems in the process of "ecological succession," where degraded ecologies (such as a clearcut forest) grow in complexity over time (returning back to a forest after going through stages of grassland, shrubbery, and young forest.) Syntropic Agriculture, like any good Permaculture, seeks to work with this process and put the power of negative entropy to use. And while Mollisonian Permaculture included design recommendations for percentages of canopy in a system that S.A. lacks, it shares the final goal: a rich, functional agroforest system dominated by trees. </div>
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<b>Heavy Pruning:</b> The single most characteristic method S.A. uses to work with succession is frequent heavy pruning for use as mulch, which accelerates the amount of carbon and biomass produced by the ecosystem. In Permaculture and Regenerative Ag circles this would be called "chop and drop." Certain trees are planted specificially for the purpose of cutting to provide fertilizer. This is reflected in many common traditional patterns frequntly used in permaculture designs, including many traditional temperate climate systems, as we'll see below. </div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); text-align: justify;"><i>In Syntropic Farming, we work the design aiming to arrange different species all the way from the implementation of the system and continuing at each step in the conduction of our plantations, managing them to produce their own fertilizer. For that purpose, we plant trees, grasses, and herbs in high density. They should share the characteristic of vigorous regrowth after pruning. A good farmer manages them accordingly. The periodic pruning results – in addition to the supply of light for our crops – in organic matter in large quantities which, on top of the soil, create a prosperous life in it and, indirectly, fertilize our plants.</i></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); text-align: justify;"><i>-Ernst Goetsch</i></span></div>
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<b>Deep mulch </b>Once these trees are cut, they are applied as deep mulch, both chipped and as whole, cut logs. In some cases, this would appear to be a large labor and energy input. However, much could also be said for the research-based value of deep mulches and "nurse logs." We'll explore this more later.</div>
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<b>Minimal mechanical tools necessary</b>. S.A.seeks to reduce the need for mechanical tools. This is probably a goal for many temperate climate Permaculturists, so it will be interesting to see if S.A. offers economically viable tools that can be adapted.</div>
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<b>High density and diversity</b>. Simple enough, dense polyculture increases the health and productivity of the system. This is a key feature of our systems at Lillie House and probably have almost universal application. </div>
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<i>Article on using the </i><a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2018/05/french-intensive-methods-for.html" id="id_756b_3768_9eae_3a41">density and diversity</a> of the French Intensive<i> system</i><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><i>.</i></span></div>
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<b>Recipes, or "Consortia" (Designed plant communities.</b>) "<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One of the characteristics of Syntropic Farming is the use of consortia of plants in high diversity and density. From the initial moment of planting, the goal is to co-create agroecosystems similar to the original ecosystems of each place, both in its form, as in its function and dynamics" - Dayana Adrane. In Permaculture, we refer to these as "guilds," and offer some more concrete tools for evaluating the roles of plants within designed plant communities.</span></div>
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Differences in a temperate climate</h2>
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With these key features, which have a good research basis and are likely to be effective, it's easy to understand why Syntropic Agriculture works. But does it work in a temperate climate? Yes, these same patterns are proven to have value in temperate climates as well, though there are big differences and some conceptual barriers to making it work effectively and economically. </div>
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The first is simply that we're working with entirely different crops. We will not be growing "consortia" including bananas and shade-grown cocoa will not be our primary cash crop. However, given that all 6 of our most valuable crops per acre in Michigan this year (as well as a plethora of valuable runner-cups) are all shade-grown forest crops, so with careful crop choice we should be able to create agroecologies that are profitable even in later stages of succession. And while apples would be unlikely to work well, be healthy or economically viable, we actually have a wide range of options to build valuable systems that actually would work well. These would depend largely on what's native and valuable to each region, but in North America might include high-value crops like paw paw, serviceberry, maple, and persimmon. </div>
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And while in the tropics you can create a local market "vegetable" CSA with mostly tree crops like avocados, breadfruit, jackfruit, and plantains, and still more vegetables can be grown in the understory, in temperate climates we have few calorie tree crops and less light to feed an understory layer. These are all features we could design around, and there are traditional systems that evolved in temperate climates to meet those needs.</div>
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Beyond crop choice, everything moves moves more slowly in temperate climates. Succession is slower. Decomposition is slower. Nutrient loss and cycling in the soil is slower. Plant growth is slower. We can't just plant trees and expect them to be significant sources of mulch in one year. We can't just chop trees and expect them to have completely broken down in a matter of months. But because growth is slower, we also do not need to. We have less need to store fertility in duff, as less is needed, and it more easily accumulates in the soil. So, overall, there needs to be a much greater emphasis on early succession in temperate climate systems than in the tropics. Food forests need to become as valuable as possible as early as possible, or they are likely to fail or be seen as a burden. </div>
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A final major difference is that sun light and photosynthesis are much more abundant in tropical climates. Many crops can be grown in the understory, even with a fairly dense canopy. In temperate climates, if we want to grow any annual crops, we have to plan for more light infiltration. And this also means that there's going to be more competition for resources in temperate systems, so it will be more important to maximize cooperation and avoid elements like interplanting with grasses that may strip crops of needed nitrogen.</div>
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Beyond those major differences, there are many small differences that add up. Disease is managed quite differently. Apples, could not take the kind of pruning recommended in syntropic agriculture, and poorly pruned trees could become a vector for disease that could impact the productivity of a whole system. Pests cycles respond differently as well, due to the cold winter season. </div>
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So overall, there's no direct correlation for importing syntropic agriculture in a simplified form to temperate climates. </div>
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<b>But since the best Permaculture utilizes research-based and proven patterns, let's transpose some of the active ingredients and techniques of Syntropic Agriculture into "patterns" that we can apply in a design, picking patterns that are proven to work well in temperate climates. </b></div>
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Recommended Temperate Climate Patterns for Syntropic Permaculture</h2>
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These are patterns that make up the basis of our growing system at Lillie House, are research-based and very comparable to the work of Ernst Goetsch, as reported in his <a href="http://www.agrofloresta.net/static/artigos/agroforestry_1992_gotsch.pdf" id="id_bea1_5985_a30a_4c30">published works</a>. Overall, I love systems that use trees very densely to control the land, prevent weeds and pest problems, build fast biodiversity, carbon and fertility, and provide ample mulch. I think the following patterns, adapted from Syntropic Agriculture could be valuable to almost all garden and farm systems at any scale. I especially see potential as an alternative to Regenerative Agriculture for managing broad acreage in economically viable ways that more closely resemble the traditional, evolved systems of the temperate climates. Goetch used S.A. to manage large acreage even with the tropical growth rate of Brazil. Broad-acre Permaculturists could put S.A. inspired techniquest to work to create profitable land management systems that more closely resemble the designs of Mollisonian Permaculture, the mosaic woodland and agriforest systems of Europe and Japan. To me, these would appear to have some built-in expectations for function and profitability, and would be a new niche for intrepid broad-acre Permaculturists. </div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Slashmulch</b>: S.A. has pioneered the idea of </span><a href="https://lifeinsyntropy.org/en/the-syntropic-value-of-grass-goodbye-herbicide/" id="id_7293_28c8_894d_5865" target="_self">Working</a> <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">with grasses as a valuable element in an ecological system, as opposed to seeing them as a major weed. This is what we have done in our slashmulch systems at Lillie House. Slashmulch has been considered to be one of the most sustainable forms of agriculture ever created by humans. However, grass interplantings would be very difficult to use with vegetable crops in temperate climates due to competition for nitrogen. </span></div>
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(Slashmulch 3 Sisters planted without tilling, sheet-mulching or removal of lawn.)</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Chop and Drop</b>: In Permaculture, this is the technique of heavy pruning plants and weeds to create mulch in site. Also used in S.A.</span></div>
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<b>High Diversity and Density</b>: Techniques of using high diversity and density are the backbone of our system at Lillie House, as well as in Bio-Intensive and French Intensive gardening. To learn more about how we employ them in vegetable gardening visit: <a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2018/05/french-intensive-methods-for.html" id="id_4da5_ef61_2c0b_7fd7">Bio-Intensive Permaculture</a>. </div>
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<b>Polyculture and Guilds: </b>These are the Permaculture equivilents of "consortia" or recipes in S.A. </div>
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<b>Miyawaki technique</b>: A research-based forestry technique using high diversity and density. In a productive system, some of this density can be used to "chop and drop" as the system matures, similar to S.A. In an S.A. inspired system, many of these trees would be "sacrificial," being cut for mulch as the system develops. We have put that technique to good use at Lillie House. </div>
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<b>Hedgerows</b> are another proven, long-evolved temperate climate system that has been used for creating mulch, fertility, diversity and biomass. In Permaculture and Bio-Intensive systems, these are often used to create mulch through frequent pruning. This is a technique we use at Lillie House. </div>
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<b>Mosaic Woodland landscapes</b>: This is a tradition agriforestry style of Temperate Europe and Asia which maximizes sun infiltration into annual crop systems while providing biomass, fertility, and biodiversity services. To explore such systems, visit our Pinboard gallery on <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/luckymortal/traditional-forest-gardens/" id="id_aa0b_e4ad_53a8_4db5">Traditional Forest Garden Systems</a>. </div>
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<b>Sun-traps</b> designs place the tallest trees to the north, and shorter ones to the south, so as to maximize sun infiltration. Horse-shoe shapes may be used to create microclimates and maximize annual and perennial vegetable production. Sun trap design could be key in adapting Syntropic Agriculture to Temperate Climates. Sun trap design also more closely resembles traditional systems, as well as many of the tropical systems of Ernst Goetsch than does conventional Regenerative Agriculture. </div>
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<b>Nurse trees</b> (also sacrificial trees) and nurse plants are a research-based approach that are perhaps an under-utilized pattern in many Permaculture systems. This is a technique of planting support trees to help nurture and establish target crop plants. They are a major feature at Lillie House that we use in areas where we want to reduce maintenance. I especially enjoy working with catalpas as nurse plants, as they establish easily even on sandy or degraded soils, provide ample mass, cut easily, and produce large shady leaves. They may also improve soil carbon via an interaction with the catalpa worm. </div>
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<b>Nurse log</b>s have been found in research to be nearly as effective as woodchip mulch in conserving water and promoting growth. Nurse logs are also energy efficient, as they do not have to be chipped to be used. It is not necessary to neatly cut logs as in S.A. systems for them to be effective. In temperate climates they may last longer and work well as bed or path edging. </div>
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<b>Deep mulches </b>area always welcome in any system in any climate. </div>
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<b>Matching mulch to crop and succession </b>is perhaps more necessary in temperate climates, where nutrients are stored longer in the soil and plants grow less rapidly. We probably have more to gain by emulating natural ecologies, selecting woody mulches for tree systems for example, and grassy mulches for vegetables which evolved in grassland systems. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_b23e_e9f_b64e_c39" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lz9rFynLfWw/W-GqLEUsC2I/AAAAAAAADjA/IUXwEojKOY4nrySLFFnYNMr7dDil42_uQCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 657px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(Tree-based fertility system at Lillie House.)<br />
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Implementation Process</h2>
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Aside from knowing a list of techniques and patterns one can utilize for a growing system, to be practical, one must also have an idea of implementation and establishment. </div>
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On smaller acreage, it's possible to just integrate some of these patterns into the existing landscape or garden system. Plan and develop useful hedgerows and forest garden areas around the perimeter of growing areas in a suntrap configuration. Possibly add sacrificial trees like catalpa. Work with invasives like autumn olive as chop and drop mulch. Start using nurse logs and deep mulch in the garden. Explore bio-intensive gardening and polyculture interplantings. Using these patterns, you will arrive at a system with much of the form and function of tropical S.A. systems, or what we has worked very well for us at Lillie House. </div>
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On larger acreage, more thought towards process and implementation is necessary, and will depend greatly upon what the cash-flow needs are, what priorities and goals are, who will harvest and how. But the basics will involve selecting high-value crop plants that can be sown and established in successions. A final system design would probably include hedgerows, Miyawaki type plantings, paddocks, and forest gardens, as well as periodic clearings for annual cropping. Succession will move from an initial disturbance with annual maincrops, through phases of "slashmulch" using perennials as mulch, through old field and shrubland, choosing crops and sacrificials as they arrive, until the final stable configuration is arrived at. This might be in rows such as with Regeneartive Ag. or it might be in sun-trap designs of openings as in mosaic woodland patterns. </div>
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Ultimately, I expect experimentation with Syntropic Agriculture patterns is likely to lead to novel profitable income models in temperate climates that rapidly regenerate ecosystems as well. If you're working on that project, I'd like to hear about what you're doing. </div>
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Resrouces:</div>
1. Natural Recovery of Species in Agroforestry and in Soil Recovery, Ernest G<span style="font-family: "timesnewroman"; font-size: 12pt;">oetsch, Fazenda Três Colinas
Agrosilvicultura Ltda.
45436 Pirai do Norte
Bahia, Brazil, </span><span style="font-family: "timesnewroman"; font-size: 12pt;">August 1992 </span><a href="http://www.agrofloresta.net/static/artigos/agroforestry_1992_gotsch.pdf">http://www.agrofloresta.net/static/artigos/agroforestry_1992_gotsch.pdf</a><br />
2. Agendagotsch.com<br />
3. <a href="https://www.blogger.com/www.lifeinsyntropy.org" id="id_81d7_6ce2_6a92_77ee" target="_self">Life in Sytrnopy</a>Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-25831330926228224822018-10-30T12:09:00.002-05:002018-10-30T12:12:49.274-05:00I Wish I Understood this Before I Started Farming! (Why Permaculture ≠ Farming) <div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="5sqih-0-0">
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<span data-offset-key="5sqih-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"<i>The opposite of a bad idea is rarely a good idea, it's usually just another bad idea." </i></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="5sqih-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In America's frantic and polarized culture, this axiom is one of my favorite thinking tools. It's an oldie-but-goodie that's being re-popularized by John Michael Greer. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="fkcq6-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Lately, I've been sharing a lot of negative-sounding research and perspectives on the current "profitable farming" craze, but it's NOT that I want to discourage people. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c28a1-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I want people to succeed gloriously in creating beautiful, rich lives with greater connection to the land - living WITH the land, not OFF it like some beast of burden. And I think that goal is completely attainable.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="c28a1-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="" id="id_eee2_16be_8eb_2901" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-HrCdDOsvm-0/WiXAg6ZljQI/AAAAAAAADOI/lSL4PZWx2NEWdSirhth2fJdK_oGBHYxFgCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 673px;" title="" tooltip="" /></span>(<i>And here are some reasons smart folks are turning to the land for a livelihood</i>)</div>
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<span data-offset-key="612lp-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Folks feeling trapped in the out of control dumpster fire of modern American worklife often want to head straight into hardcore homesteading or farming, get some acreage, a managerie of animals, and simultaneously start market farming. I see this all the time. Several popular "farming business models" even promote themselves as ways to learn about farming while making a living do it. (That should be a warning sign in itself.) </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6nuqq-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Out of the fire and into the fryer. This is NEVER a good idea. Some may survive the heat, but that doesn't mean it was a good idea. Why not just get out of the fire?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3qsik-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you've looked into farming at all, you've heard the stories and advice of those Regenerative Ag gurus who bought acreage, took on massive debt, invested in thousands of trees with a 90% attrition rate, started experimenting on livestock, lived in hovels with dirt floors and tarp roofs for 20 years until farm insurance speculators drove up their land prices enough that Trulia told them they were suddenly millionaires. Their advice? Just do what they did! Easy! Or perhaps you're more inspired by the intrepid enrepreneur veg-farm start-ups that managed to pull "$150k!!!" (fine print: that's gross, net is minimum wage) after staving off bankruptcy for 3 years by charging super-premium prices in upscale markets with no mortgages and lots of free money and labor. They SURVIVED! So now they cash-flow big money each year selling "profitable farming" workshops! </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="4hvoh-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But just because they survived wandering blindfolded through the field of pit-traps they set for themselves, doesn't mean blindfolds and pit-traps are good investments.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="a11i1-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Everyone knows most new businesses fail, and the numbers for farm businesses are absolutely the worst of the worst. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="bkgju-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We look to the famous farmers and Permie celebs on magazine covers that "survived" for advice, when - because the biggest problem is high attrition rates for new farms - when we SHOULD be looking at the ones that failed. This is called survivorship bias. Another great thought tool every farm entrepreneur should be familar with:. https://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8soec-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Finally, another great thought tool from the world of poker: if you're at the table and you don't know who the mark is, <i>you're the mark.... (the one who's going to lose.)</i></span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8soec-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="281" id="y_id_5c7b_e811_a751_210a" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SeAJqJULhGI" style="height: 381px; width: 600px;" width="600"></iframe></span><i><br /></i></div>
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<span data-offset-key="71bep-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So here's the thing everyone's keeping a secret: Farming is the most direct interaction with the market you can have. Sorry, but it always has been, always will be. It's what you'll read in farming briefs from the 1910s or 1890s, all the way back to medieval farming manuals! Or watch the BBC "Historic Farm" series for the cliff-notes version. Permaculture creator Bill Mollison talked about this stuff ALL THE TIME. It's all about supply/demand, market forces and buying low, selling high. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="71bep-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="" id="id_a253_a_db13_13" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DCbPx7DxY6w/WiXTir8RliI/AAAAAAAADOg/ttgUN46j3YgrWJbscG52TPg64ncI8zn4wCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 682px;" title="" tooltip="" /></span>(<i>That's a whole chicken, cleaned, frozen, packed, shipped, prepped, cooked, packaged, and kept heated for $2. You gonna be profitable competing with that in your backyard?</i>) </div>
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<span data-offset-key="71bep-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Right now, land prices are super high. Cattle prices are very high. Hog prices are high. Prices on heirloom poultry are super stupid freaking high. But market prices on beef, milk, pork, eggs and fryers are kept ridiculously, artificially stupid low (see graph for example.) You can literally buy a whole chicken, already cooked and prepared at Walmart for $2. THAT'S LIKE A DOLLAR CHICKEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Nursery stock is stupid cheap, but upscale vendors are reselling literally the same stock for a 4000% mark-up to would-be farmers financing with Ag loans. Vegetable prices are just plain silly and meanwhile there's a growing glut of vegetable farmers competing for a customer base that research indicates is currently declining. Local farmers markets are consolidating in most markets into super-large events with tons of competition. New farmers think they can undercut the competition, but in the studies I've seen, the veg farmers making money are ones able to charge 4-10 TIMES above market rates. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="71bep-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><img alt="" id="id_49f6_44b8_9754_c42d" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7YdiDn8oQLY/WiXAhJS4mdI/AAAAAAAADOM/-kcGfDiADX87ld8uqZdx2X4Dgq5wsNBzACHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 682px;" title="" tooltip="" /></span></div>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">(<i>Dead on economic analysis from Revolutionpig.com. A hog has 1/4 the buying power it had in 1960</i>)</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8srcd-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Now I cannot fathom sustaining chickens that cost HALF as much as a 16 oz bottle of water forever into the future.... But what IS highly profitable right now is "profitable farming" classes, especially online ones. I call this "new digital farming," and it ain't all bad. (Others have started calling it "Youtube Farming.") Most farmers will need some way to <b>decouple</b> their income from the productivity of their land if they don't want to end up exploiting their land. But given how silly the promises have become ("learn to be a millionaire off an acre!" is a literal quote from one ad going around) and expensive they've become ($1,500 - $4000!) I think even "profitable farming" classes have reached their peak. Given the spending power of your average farmer, I'd say this market looks worse than blood from turnips.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8srcd-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And I don't know any of those gurus who will tell you those most important "secrets" (i.e. 101 level farming basics) I just told you in that paragraph above. Why would they let the air out of their own bubble? In fact, some will be mad that I did. And for FREE even! But if we're not careful, when that profitable farming bubble pops, it's going to blow up a lot of really valuable Permaculture, local food, and sustainability initiatives with it.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="8srcd-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">also: </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/14/570889309/the-usda-rolled-back-protections-for-small-farmers-now-theyre-suing?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social">https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/14/570889309/the-usda-rolled-back-protections-for-small-farmers-now-theyre-suing?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social</a></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1iac3-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Anyway, none of this means you can't actually farm profitably or live with the land.</b> But it does mean you have to be clever. How are you planning to beat the curve? How will your designs support that plan? </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="1iac3-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If Ag briefs show you can make $30k off a 1,000 hog herd if you can demand top prices, and you're planning on a dozen hogs being your main Ag product for the first 10 years, you're going to end up scrambling to pay off your $100k of "regenerative ag" infrastructure. Look at studies on time requirements for various farm tasks: unless you got some kind of magic system, those hogs are just going to cost you more time to care for than they'll save you in "work," no matter what your guru says.... </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Careful Permaculture design can help you make war on costs and meet your income goals, but only if you have clear goals and a detailed business plan to begin with. Many new Permie business plans only ever get as far as: "Buy farm, become Sepp Holzer, make BANK on farm tours and classes." </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="383n7-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But more importantly, despite what some of the famous gurus are selling, you don't have to farm to "do Permaculture." Although you're literally not allowed to share this radical secret knowledge on the Permies forum, Permaculture has nothing to do with farming. It has to do with designing your landscape and life to better meet your needs. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dari8-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>So why do you really want to homestead or farm? Is it:</b></span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ffsm6-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="ffsm6-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To have a simpler but richer lifestyle? </span></div>
</div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cd1t-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="cd1t-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To reconnect with nature and natural rhythms?</span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="cku3d-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="cku3d-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="cku3d-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you love being around and caring for animals?</span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="8iik3-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="8iik3-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="8iik3-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To find right livelihood?</span></div>
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<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="65smu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="65smu-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To make a living OFF the land by exploiting the earth, animals and human laborers? </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="65smu-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Or would you rather live WITH the land, in cooperation with your ecosystem and community?</span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="5o8hc-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="5o8hc-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="5o8hc-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to raise your family around these things? </span></div>
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<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="459u9-0-0">
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<span data-offset-key="459u9-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to take control of your family's food and health? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="a2gco-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="a2gco-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="a2gco-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want your children to be reslient, healthy and know how to grow their own food? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="e2du5-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="e2du5-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="e2du5-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to fight ecological collapse and climate change while helping your community? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="29msu-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="29msu-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="29msu-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to prepare for the uncertain and dangerous future we appear to be creating for ourselves?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="4rd75-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4rd75-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="4rd75-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to save your family farmstead? </span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="4rd75-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="4rd75-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to help feed your community?</span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to learn about farming? </span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you have some notions about "self sufficiency?" </span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="c04nl-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Because you want to live some "farming lifestyle" that is probably just a total myth? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="3qgmr-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="3qgmr-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="3qgmr-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="22a8m-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="22a8m-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="22a8m-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">You can design your life to accumulate all these things, and have a higher positive social, economic and ecological impact, without farming. In fact, it's highly likely farming would only get in your way and hold you back. Ask: Is it possible that our preconceived notions (or the notions sold to us by digital farmers and University Extension services) about farming and homesteading are just a blindfold? </span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="ecl1v-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="ecl1v-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="ecl1v-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br data-text="true" /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0">
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What do I really want? How can I design my life to accumulate what I really want? </span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Answering these questions and daring to take off the blindfold, that is the "REAL" Permaculture. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">--------------------------</span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>More honest analysis on farming livelihoods:</b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div>
<div class="_1mf _1mj" data-offset-key="bga51-0-0" style="direction: ltr; position: relative;">
<a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2018/08/permaculture-and-money-investing-in.html" id="id_bfc9_4acc_8432_747">Free course on Permaculture and Money. </a></div>
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</div>
</div>
<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="e04p5" data-offset-key="3t2sv-0-0" style="color: rgb(29 , 33 , 41); font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , ".sfnstext-regular" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</div>
<a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2017/01/spin-permaculture.html" id="id_bc04_d9ad_939f_ba12">The economics of SPIN Permaculture</a><br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2017/10/small-farm-real-profit-mother-earth-news.html" id="id_a909_830a_bc4e_18b4">Small Farm Real Profit </a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2018/05/farming-vs-permaculture-pests-disease.html" id="id_2ee4_4571_b072_c032">Farming Vs. Permaculture</a></div>
Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-58112934181082045112018-09-11T11:05:00.000-05:002018-09-11T11:05:59.783-05:00 Fall 2018 Plant and Seed Sale<br /><img alt="" id="id_f13e_749d_c5e3_ca90" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigdIVKg7uW3iGW5QcBJTJwoE5OwFIGmcG8Q5RIqZ7rzAPF3kXn6bqkXIwep6vLzcUBux4rtljxh_7eKGPSkqibC2kRDTs_CF9a2u8Sc99VelviFXQTeOI21cjcUo90p8K7RHOXCEpUPFs/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 567px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
Our Fall 2018 Plant and seed sale has begun! ITEMS AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK-UP ONLY<br />
We're proud of our offerings this season. We're not wasting time with common and low-value plants. Instead, we're focussing mostly on offering are high-value edibles or guild plants, largely select stock and rare items. We have included a few common plants that are important or highly valuable to Permaculturists designing guilds or forest gardens.<br />
We're also out to change the way nursery business is conducted. While we'd like to think that our gardening is a sustainable endeavor, the truth is the nursery business has become increasingly unsustainable, often destroying topsoil at unprecedented rates, using rare and non-renewable resources for potting soil, using large amounts of fossil fuels and platics. It's time to change that and get back to the way we used to share garden plants. We're selling only dormant season plants, at the best time to plant them for success, without heavy plastic, irrigation, and soil mix use. And of course, we're only offering plants locally for pick-up, instead of relying upon shipping and increased transportation footprint (not to mention the risk of spreading invasive species.) Since this also keeps our costs low, we can pass on the savings to you. Most of this inventory is priced well below what it would be found at in a commercial nursery - if you could find it!<br />
Because we only sell plants at the time that they can be most successfully transplanted, our stock changes through the year. Some stock is not available for order online yet. More plants and varieties will be available for Spring purchase.<br />
<h2>
<a href="https://squareup.com/store/lillie-house-permaculture" id="id_a25e_5852_5ff3_b3ef">To place an order for pick up, please visit our store. </a></h2>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 20px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold;">Fall Sale Plant/Seed Inventory (2018)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">(Other specialty stock is available to Community Supported Permaculture members by special request.) </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.4px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">To ensure maximum plant health and sustainability, plants we be sold as they are available in September and November. Check our online store for more information. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.4px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">Seeds, Available for pickup, November 2018 </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">*(Only available to our Community Supported Permaculture members)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Anise hyssop</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Belgian Endive landrace</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Blood-veined sorrel</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Cardoon</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Feverfew</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Galapagos tomatoes</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Ground cherry</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Landrace butter lettuce</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Landrace seminole pumpkin</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Paw paw (properly stored and ripened seed!)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Rattail radish</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Red mizuna mustard</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Skirret</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Turkish Rocket</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Wild perennial flax</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Perennial bulbing fennel</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Sea kale</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Sweet grass</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Black cohosh</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Good king henry</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Motherwort</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Perennial ornamental leek</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Seeds only available to CSA members</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Sweet cicely</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">Perennial Plants, Available September 20th, 2018</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">*Available only to Community Supported Permaculture members</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">American native mint</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Asparagus</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Creeping thyme</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Garlic chives</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Maypop</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Monada fistulosa</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Perennial black kale</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Perennial curly kale</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Select Rhubarb</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Russian sage</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Shasta daisy</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Skirret</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Veronica</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*White blue false indigo</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Wood nettle (Native)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Apple mint</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Barren strawberry</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Blood-veined sorrel</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Brown-eyed Susan</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Catnip</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Chinese yam (limit 2 per order)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">chocolate mint</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Comfrey</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Common Milkweed</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Crosnes</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Day lily, confirmed edible</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Egyptian walking onions</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Feverfew</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Garlic, wild green</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Greek Oregano</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Groundnut - Limit, 2 per order</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">India strawberry</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Jerusalem artichoke, Horizon red</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Jerusalem artichoke, Kalamazoo wild</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Jerusalem artichoke, stampede</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Monarda Didyma</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Oregano</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Prickly pear cactus</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Sheep sorrel</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Culinary spearmint</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Turkish rocket</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Valerian</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Wood betony</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Yarrow</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Cup plant</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Big bluestem</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Little bluestem</span></div>
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<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">Woody Perennial Shrubs and Trees, available November 2018</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">*Available only to Community Supported Permaculture Members</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Paw paw</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Rugosa rose, selected stock, red </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">*Thornless blackberry, large fruiting</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Black cherry</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Black raspberry</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Blackberry, selected stock</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Catalpa</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Cornelian cherry, selected stock</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Cornelian cherry, small</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Elderberry - selected stock</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Elderberry - wild</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Hazelnut</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Mulberry - selected</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Nanking cherry, seedling</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Northern Pecan </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Rugosa rose, wild</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Serviceberry - select stock</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Tulip poplar</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Seedling white peach</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 13.1px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">Other Recommended Supplies</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold;">These are supplies and brands that we’ve tested and recommend. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">6’ sturdy steel plant spirals $10</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Hori Hori $35</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Agricultural kama $18 </span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Vermicomposting worms (market price)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: "helvetica neue"; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none; font-size: 11pt;">Vermicomposting bins w/worms $30. </span></div>
Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-81471356280918710622018-08-28T17:23:00.000-05:002018-08-29T08:01:42.878-05:00Designing and Establishing Edible Hedges, Hedgerows, and Windbreaks<div>
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You want to LEARN JUST ONE WEIRD TRICK that will have a guaranteed positive effect on a huge range of features including:</div>
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Farm and garden productivity and profitability</div>
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Reduced irrigation requirements</div>
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Reduce cost of fencing and livestock management and feeding</div>
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Home and garden security</div>
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Improved livability and reduced home heating and cooling costs</div>
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Reduced pest and disease pressures</div>
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Increased pollinators, native flora and fauna,</div>
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Increased soil health and fertility, </div>
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Increased water health,</div>
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Increased biodiversity and overal ecosystem health</div>
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Fight climate change by sequestering a whole lot of carbon</div>
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And provide more food for less work than just about any thing else you can do? </div>
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Then here's your word for the day: "hedgerows." </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_2028_dfcc_3e15_de59" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1F8utqJKzcY/W4WwfCkSHTI/AAAAAAAADfs/bp48acsAuLcxnHEQAz3y2VPzEEjV3AFkQCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 538px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(Schematic for a typical hedgerow in Normandy, France.)<br />
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Hedgerows, or living fences and boundaries have been planted by humans for at least 6,000 years (Mueller, European Field Boundaries) to cheaply and easily provide a long, long list of services and simplify landscape management. </div>
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Across climates, including in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167880995010122" id="id_ef5a_f87_2197_21ff">tropics</a> most researchers are stressing the importance of these "anthropogenic" systems to the health of ecosystems, with research domonstrating their value to <a href="http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/index.php?page=21" id="id_6790_505a_8c85_e64b">wildlife</a>, their ability to increase biodiversity, bolster native bird and invertebrate populations, act as a buffer from agricultural pollution, clean water, recharge aquifers, mitigate soil loss and erosion, sequester carbon, and so on. </div>
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Across Europe and Asia, in cultures where hedgerows were <a href="http://www.polebocage.fr/-Bocage-and-hedgerows-in-France,136-.html" id="id_7bb7_47a3_6cb9_513e">common landscape feature</a> , they are now being recognized for their value, and cherished for their associated cultural traditions and character within the landscape. In many countries, such as the UK or Japan, they are associated with culinary traditions, are considered an important part of the sense of place, such as the "bocage" landscapes of France, or have long-standing spiritual symbolism or religious and cultural traditions associated with them. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_112d_887d_f3c1_c47d" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LlAI4VZIJzM/W4WwfpmrGuI/AAAAAAAADfw/au4vNArZp0k3I-4RLrRKiDVH1mrSqjNvwCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 485px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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Even in North America, where we culturally lack the deep appreciation for hedgerows, bocage, and "mosaic landscapes," and environmentalism is more influenced by the mythology and assumptions about a wide-open American "wilderness" untouched by humans (despite the large native population), Universities widely <a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1389&context=agronomyfacpub" id="id_d8cc_848e_d991_c18f">reinforce</a> the high value of hedgerows and <a href="https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=ge_at_pubs" id="id_3805_5f68_38d_dfa6">windbreaks</a> for <a href="https://www.kansasforests.org/rural_forestry/rural_docs/NAAgroforestry%20Chapter%205%20WB%20Yield%20Brandle.pdf" id="id_1dbd_af9c_ce68_5e10">ecosystem</a> health and <a href="https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/eden/Disasters/Tree%20Windbreaks.pdf" id="id_cfa1_129e_60d3_87e5">agricultural productivity</a>, and decry the loss of these features due to poor economic choices and poor understanding of food safety practices, as a tragedy. </div>
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And while some agricultural authorities working under Food Safety and Modernization Act regulations superstitiously eye hedgerows with suspicion (or suggest that removing some hedgerows might be a "balanced approach) research continues to show that <a href="http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=26370" id="id_e4a4_58df_90f8_8f10">hedgerows do NOT pose a risk for contaminating food, and actually reduce risk</a> while removal and "mitigation" efforts such as tilling around hedgerows may actually increase risk. </div>
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But many studies have show that the improvements to ecosystem health from restoring hedgerows do carry benefits to humans in farming, gardening, home or other productive landscapes, including reduction in <a href="http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.2017a0020" id="id_428b_6726_de69_7a65">pests, and increase in pollination.</a> </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_9c9b_718_8924_1c3f" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xlcpS1NPO2s/W4Wl1mAT_fI/AAAAAAAADfY/kPeLVakVDNYREdZxzloT5P2uB8R_qMH8gCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 612px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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In addition to a positive effect ecosystems, hedgerows can have more direct benefits and yields to humans depending upon their design, including firewood, building materials, reduced irrigation, increase soil fertility, free fertilizer, improved soil carbon, reduced soil loss, garden stakes and trellises, tool handles, better plant growth from shelter, and of course, foods and <a href="http://www.hedgerowmedicine.com/" id="id_3d1e_b79b_b859_873a">medicines</a>. In most places where hedgerows exist, they have long been seen as an important source of both. </div>
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Designing an Edible Hedgerow or Tapestry Hedge</div>
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While one can use similar techniques for broad-scale windbreaks or livestock enclosures by making appropriate adaptations, this article will focuss on the small-scale edible hedgerow or tapestry hedge, based off of European designs and traditions. </div>
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It was a couple of our favorite foraging spots which inspired our desire to have an edible fence. One in particular, was a naturally-occuring hedgerow that produced a large variety and quantity of fruits, nuts and vegetables throughout the season, all with little to no annual maintenance from humans. </div>
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Compared to our hard work as guest farm laborers, the high rewards and low maintenance of our favorite hedgerow seemed like a great idea, and we decided to "take it home" with us. </div>
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But when we began looking into expert recommendations on how to grow an edible hedge in the US, we were surprised to see everyone advocating against the species and spacings that was common to our favorite foraging spots. </div>
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Was mother nature growing these natural food forests all wrong, as the experts suggested? </div>
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<b>Traditional Spacings: Tight!</b></div>
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However, when we looked into resources on traditional hedge culture, species and techniques in other countries, we found systems that looked very much like what was occuring naturally at our favorite high-productivity, low-maintenance spots. (Mueller, European Field Boundaries Volumes 1 &2, etc.)</div>
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While modern US recommendations look very different in terms of species selection, and management, the biggest difference between traditional hedge, hedgerow and windbreak technologies, and modern recommendations (at least in the US) is in spacings. Most common recommendations I can find from US sources recommend planting at spacings where crowns just intermix or touch at maturity (perhaps 7-10' centers for many shrub species, with many suggesting 5' was too tight) whereas traditional forms typically <a href="https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/all-seasons-hedge" id="id_2d78_25b1_1764_64de">spac</a>e plants at 1- <span style="font-size: medium;">2</span> 1/2'. </div>
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While these seem very close to a gardener, these spacings approximate what one commonly sees occuring in natural thickets in many biomes, including our favorite foraging locations. </div>
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But, despite the expert recommendations, these tight naturalistic plantings found in traditional hedgery, which have proven their effectiveness in experiments over millennia, have become the cutting edge of scientific forestry (as well as many Permaculture circles) throughout the world, since the 1980s when a Japanese forester named Akira Miyawaki took notice of the way Nature grows forests.</div>
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It's no coincidence that this evolved technology of hedgerows closely resembles the cutting edge reforestation program referred to as the Miyawaki technique. Miyawaki was a forester interested in regrowing healthy forests in Japan for purpose of maintaining habitat, controlling erosion, sequestering carbon and solving other problems through the ecosystem services, who noticed that the plant spacings and communities used in "conventional" forestry practice looked nothing at all like the types of spacings and communities that would occur during natural reforestation, and that the conventional approach often performed poorly in comparison to the way nature solved this same problem. He hypothesized that the conventional recommendations were tested and developed to optimize commercial yield in various ways, not to optimize fast, easy cost-effective establishment of healthy forest. Basing his approach off of the observation of naturally-occuring rapid reforestation, he developed a system of using seed from locally-adapted, free specimens, with intermixed stages of succession, at very tight plantings, and he found that nature was solving the problem the right way. Across many climates and ecosystem types, Miyawaki's technique has been replicated and found to far out-perform conventional practice, with far less cost and fewer destructive chemical inputs. </div>
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Indeed, some US sources appear to criticize Miyawaki's methods as inappropriate to North America's idealized "natural landscapes," because they do not leave enough room for our most important North American "nature area" keystone species: tax dollars, corporate petrochemicals, herbicides, and heavy machinery. </div>
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For some, it's counter-intuitive, but research has found that even on spare soils in dry climates with a risk of desertification, the tight plantings of the Miyawaki technique lead to rapid establishment with little after-planting care, even where conventional techniques failed with continued <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226157594_Effectiveness_of_the_Miyawaki_method_in_Mediterranean_forest_restoration_programs" id="id_4135_a9f8_f5b4_4c4a" target="_self">Intervention</a>!</div>
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This goes well with current ecological theory and research, which has found that while we previously believed that competition between plants would impair growth and establishment, in such tight, naturalistic plantings cooperation out-weighs competition and gives the individuals an advantage compared to situations with unnaturally wide plant spacings. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_70fc_ed8a_47fc_fd65" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XZwc6cRGDYs/W4XKVHzhyfI/AAAAAAAADgQ/xg-qjZZK6n4fMQC7ubKlBm38w55Wta89wCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 560px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(Integrated Hedgerow design by Bill Mollison, for Semi-tropical climate)<br />
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Moreover, with rapid, dense growth, we humans can begin to reap the rewards of ecosystem services - windbreak, enhanced microclimates, erosion-prevention, water harvest, buffering, wildlife habitat, biodiversity and food (under tight plantings most species will bare "precociously" at an early age) - in a very short order, rather than struggling with establishment for 15 years for a wind-break to finally serve its purpose. With all this, it's no wonder that cutting-edge Permaculture designers like Geoff Lawton have begun to implement Miyawki's research for such applications as forest gardens, ally cropping and, of course, hedgerows. </div>
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As a very rough guideline, my recommendation for a hedge where production is the main goal is to plant into a 10' wide strip of at least 30' of length (to have much room for diversity) with larger woody perennials at 2'-3', and with smaller woody shrubs and herbaceous perennials filling in the gaps to create approximately 1' spacings. I typically don't plant anything direcly between woody perennials, except perhaps for short-term crops like Jerusalem artichokes, which can provide a big yield in early years, ensure a complete hedge effect in the first season, provide ample biomass for mulch, and then die back as woody perennials establish. For best results, very plants by height, and species, planting main species such as hazelnuts at standard spacings, and filling in the gaps with smaller species. For larger hedgerows and windbreaks, I recommend multiple rows of woody perennials, but still at tight plantings. For hedges where security or animal enclosure is the main goal, I recommend 1' spacings, with a high percentage of thorny species such as hawthorn, blackthorn, or sea buckthorn. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_ec97_4d2c_87ba_3d13" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieeE0TmuTgxSy5PLsH5xsiEvEtfVvW6BnHPCAFa6qQ824R6RtuhXwRcivCA__lzrSJsZeEaqR-sqNLBfFMzFJ0BOHFaQh7ovSUPlxQOu0OXvQrtP0dyoVc30rscQLg_uizg_ZDx6MJi2U/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 560px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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<b>Permaculture Design Parameters:</b></div>
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With hedgerows being so useful, it's no wonder that many of Mollison's early designs included hedges, shelterbelts, sun-traps and windbreaks. Permaculture 2 is filled with whole sections on these features. </div>
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In addition to siting the hedgerow to provide as many benefits as possible, one should consider mechanisms to insure adequate water and appropriate drainage. Hedgerows are excellent features on swales or micro-swales. Net and pan design can be used to make watering easy and help plantings be self-watering. We used a system of net and pan along with trench composing swales to make sure that water would flow down our hedgerow, providing adequate water to our young trees during establishment while also keeping water from completely filling planting holes on our very compacted soils with extremely poor drainage. This can be seen in some of the establishment shots in our Hedgerow video. Integration with keyhole gardens and "edible border gardens" are an excellent idea, and common in the English and French gardening traditions. </div>
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<b>Species selection for Temperate regions</b></div>
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For our main woody perennials, we'll need plants that share a few major charactaristics:</div>
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1. They can thrive in tight, wild plantings.</div>
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2. They are disease and pest resistant.</div>
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3. They take well to coppicing, or hard pruning techniques where they are periodically cut back to the ground. </div>
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Traditional hedge management simplifies pruning and maintains health and productivity.<br />
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Major species will make up 50-60% of the multi-purpose edible hedge, and include hazelnut, hawthorn, blackthorn or bullaces, sea buckthorn or autumn olive if it is not invasive in your region. Note that European wild plums take to coppicing well, but according to USDA research American species of wild plums do not. Also note that there are some American species of hawthorns that take well to coppicing and are high quality edible fruits, which far surpass the European species. To maximize productivity, these major species should be spaced at essentially orchard spacings, approx 12-15' depending. </div>
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Support species should fill in the gaps between, still alternating heights when possible. My recommendations for these include: Asian pears, wild pears, rugosa roses, goumi, elderberry, medlar, currants, and brambles. Note that I do not include apples, European pears, or other common culinary fruits, as they are unlikely to be healthy and productive in such conditions. Occasionally I encounter an instance which excepts this rule, but in most cases, I would not expect them to do well in an edible hedge, and are more appropriate to other growing systems. </div>
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Finally, a great deal of additional plants can add to the productivity and biodiversity of the edible hedge, including: </div>
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<b>For more information, ideas, and resources on hedgerow culture, visit our previous article on <a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2014/11/designing-permaculture-hedgerow.html" id="id_7128_5af8_42f3_739a">hedgerows</a> </b> </div>
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NOTE: in the following list, care should be taken to ensure that species are not invasive to your region, are appropriate to your specific sites and soils, and appropriate to "coppicing." </div>
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1. Suitable species for Australia, from a Permculture perspective: <a href="https://permaculture.com.au/venerating-and-regenerating-hedgerows/" id="id_9a17_36f0_5df5_a7b5">https://permaculture.com.au/venerating-and-regenerating-hedgerows/</a></div>
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2. Suitable species for humid tropical climates: <a href="https://steemit.com/permaculture/@reville/living-fences-in-indonesia-50-species-to-use-in-the-tropics">https://steemit.com/permaculture/@reville/living-fences-in-indonesia-50-species-to-use-in-the-tropics</a></div>
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3. Hedgerow medicines: <a href="http://www.hedgerowmedicine.com/">http://www.hedgerowmedicine.com/</a></div>
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4. Hedgerow foraging in UK, applicable to mant temperate climates, <a href="http://www.wildfooduk.com/hedgerow-food-guide/">http://www.wildfooduk.com/hedgerow-food-guide/</a></div>
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Selected Citations (more research sources appear in text above)</div>
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1. Countour Hedgerows increase soil and water health in the tropics: <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167880995010122">https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0167880995010122</a></div>
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2. Incease wildlife and biodiversity, UK: <a href="http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/index.php?page=21">http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/index.php?page=21</a></div>
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2. Hedgerows reduce risk of food contamination: <a href="http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=26370">http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=26370</a></div>
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3. Hedges reduce pests and increase pollination.<a href="http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.2017a0020">http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.2017a0020</a></div>
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4. Hedgerows and bocage in France: <a href="http://www.polebocage.fr/-Bocage-and-hedgerows-in-France,136-.html">http://www.polebocage.fr/-Bocage-and-hedgerows-in-France,136-.html</a></div>
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5. Miyawaki technique effective in dry Mediterranean climates: <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226157594_Effectiveness_of_the_Miyawaki_method_in_Mediterranean_forest_restoration_programs">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226157594_Effectiveness_of_the_Miyawaki_method_in_Mediterranean_forest_restoration_programs</a></div>
<a href="http://calag.ucanr.edu/archive/?article=ca.2017a0020" id="id_f7e1_d0ba_5502_2089">reduction in pests, and increase in pollination. </a><a href="https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/all-seasons-hedge" id="id_2b33_982_dbd9_7209"> 1- <span style="font-size: medium;">2</span> 1/2'. </a><a href="https://www.ashridgetrees.co.uk/all-seasons-hedge" id="id_f557_5dc5_9ab7_b551">1- <span style="font-size: medium;">2</span> 1/2'. </a>Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-25127120824932127562018-08-13T13:04:00.002-05:002018-08-13T13:04:31.565-05:00Espalier Training Lillie House Style, Summer Pruning<div>
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Espalier training for apple trees! </div>
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This is one video on a whole series we're putting together for our Community Supported Forest Gardening Course. </div>
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This Fall, I'll finally be releasing this whole course as an online class for folks planning to Permaculture up their yards in 2019. And of course, these - and MORE - will still be available through our Community Supported Forest Gardening program here on site. </div>
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Here's another place, along with perennial border design, coppicing, and hedgerow planting and maintenance, where my advice differs from that of many mainstream sources like extensions because I think the ol' timers who evolved smart techniques and plant selections over centuries, actually knew a thing or two about their areas of expertise, and often, modern advice is based on research that was intended for entirely different outcomes and has never even been researched for the applications these folks are making recommendations about. </div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp56l4ipPr4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp56l4ipPr4</a> Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-69547029479467878112018-08-01T10:57:00.000-05:002018-08-01T11:50:19.414-05:00Permaculture and Money: Investing in Transforming our Lives, Livelihoods, and Society<div>
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<i>"I'm not interested in what you do in your garden. You can read any one of 1,000 books on the topic. What I want to talk about is where you're banking your money, and how you're spending it." </i></div>
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Bill Mollison, the Founder of Permaculture</div>
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As a system of design, Permaculture can be applied to almost every aspect of our lives, including how we structure our finances and fund our endeavors. It's worth noting that far less than half of the Permaculture Designer's Manual is about growing food. And for me and Kim, it is the materials on Social Permaculture design, money, assets, investing and funding that have been the most profound and transformational! </div>
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Hardly a week goes by that we don't discuss these tools and put them to use. <b>Ironically, it has been these tools for MONEY and FINANCE that have actually had the largest impact on how we garden, farm and grow food! </b>That's right, it's the materials on money which have come to completely define our whole approach to gardening and managing our landscape, by helping us cut right to the core of what gardening activities are TRULY valuable to us, and which are just a waste of our time, energy and money. </div>
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Unfortunately, since Permaculture is "revolution disguised as gardening," most people enter through the garden gate, as we often say, and many never learn or engage with these most impactful and transformative applications of Permaculture design. </div>
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And from what I've seen, too many aspiring Permaculturists end up discouraged or unhappy with their path, because they've never found a Permaculture which was truly VALUABLE to them, which truly allows them to obtain a yield that funds their dreams. </div>
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I think that's why my writing, talks and workshops on Permaculture and Money have consistently had such a spectacular response. When I do this workshop, people tell me it's changed their lives. I'm not surprised, this is the material that really changed OUR lives, too. </div>
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So, here it is. Or at least, an introduction. This isn't a normal blog post or article, it's a reduced FREE blog version of my introduction workshop on Money and Permaculture. This is for people who really want to take their Permaculture to the next level, those looking to make their Permaculture business or farm into a real livelihood, or people who are looking for a way to join me in being full-time Permaculture activists BY creating a truly beautiful and rewarding life. </div>
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This workshop will probably take a commitment of at least a couple of hours, but it doesn't have to be done all at once. But if you take it seriously, I think this material for applying Permaculture to finance has the chance to transform your life, livelihood and perhaps the way you think about money, work and business. It has had that effect on us, and on our students and community members who've done this same work. </div>
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So, if you're ready and interested, let's get started:</div>
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Our first step is to dream. To think deeply about what it is that we want. How else will we know how to get it? Take some time to brainstorm, vision and mind map out the conditions and energies you want to have in your life. Some people may find it helpful to start a "Permaculture Vision Board," using a tool like Pintrest. </div>
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You may also enjoy looking over some more of my thoughts about what makes for a <a href="http://lilliehouse.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-caveman-bucket-list-20-peak.html" id="id_ad27_451d_7f36_25df" target="_self">truly priceless, wealthy life.</a> <br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Our second introduction step is to start thinking about our money as our life energy. This is something you might want to save until after completing the other steps. Then you can come back and go deeper by completing this step, as you review the others. For many, it's extr</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">emely helpful to start looking at how we've been spending our life energy and more importantly, whether it's taking us where we want to go. For the purpose of this expercise, it might be helpful just to look over our recent expenditures on our bank and credit card online statements. These days, we have some fantastic tools for keeping track of where we're putting our life energy. For a more in-depth exploration, I recommend the book Your Money or your Life, by Joe Domeniguez and Vicki Robin. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the next lesson, we'll begin to OBSERVE the basic situation most of us feel trapped into, so that we can formulate an escape plan. </span></div>
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This step is optional, but many find it helpful. Sketch a diagram of your own financial life. What inputs do you have? What are you spending your life energy on the "outputs" side? </div>
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For the next step, let's change the way we think about that "input" side of the equation. We're way richer than we think we are. Brainstorm a list of forms of capital available to you. </div>
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Now we're to the really powerful material, where we put the creative power of generative assets and natural systems to work for us. Brainstorm a list of regenerative assets that support you in getting where you want to go. Look back at your "vision." What kinds of regenerative assets will get you what you want? Which are in line with your passions, informational and experiential capital? Which give you "windhorse?" This is the most important part of our workshop. </div>
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Now, we have a life design that looks much more like a negatropic natural system. Return to your sketch and revise what your personal economy looks like. What forms of capital do you have to invest? What kind of regenerative assets will you catch and store them in? Which will you prioritize? </div>
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With that as a start, we can go way deeper into designing our regenerative assets, investments, and catching and storing our various forms of capital into regenerative assets. How do we capture our social capital into regenerative organizations? Which regenerative investments do we start with? Which ones will stack together well? Which investments are more valuable than others? But this at least gives us a framework to begin applying design to these vital support systems. </div>
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For more ideas and information, check out our links on Social Permaculture at the top of this page, and look out for our workshops on Permaculture and Money or Life Design. We may soon offer a full workshop online if there's enough interest. And if you want to go even deeper, I'd love to help you design your own regenerative life and livelihood, and choose wise ways to invest your life energy. </div>
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Now go forth and live beautifully!</div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-45678423128493056352018-07-26T13:49:00.000-05:002018-07-26T13:49:50.661-05:00Permaculture: Integrating the Ornamental, Habitat and Production Gardens<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="281" id="y_id_789c_94d0_b01f_752f" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysDJjzkzAPs" width="500"></iframe> Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-37115501076033698442018-07-02T19:35:00.000-05:002018-07-02T19:35:27.472-05:00Designing Edible Ecologies<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="281" id="y_id_9350_160f_9b5e_6d1a" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yywm94BzvWg" width="500"></iframe> Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-32720502316507826542018-06-20T13:15:00.001-05:002018-06-20T13:27:47.339-05:00Exploring Next Gen Permaculture and Ecological Succession <img alt="" id="id_83c5_a058_68c9_33e9" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BdizKTaFM9A/WyqQIJnZ-PI/AAAAAAAADdc/V2bcZHF7_C4jNnpoABro-zd6uX9L_y3MgCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 590px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(A guild that really works on the home scale: productive, very low-maintenance, and a welcome sight in any neighborhood. An indication of our emphasis on practical home-scale Permaculture solutions for everybody.)<br />
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This is for you aspiring Permaculture activists and pros out there, or others looking to find right livelihood on the land: What REALLY inspires you these days? Where is the cutting edge? What is breaking new ground?<br />
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<span data-offset-key="5h8s7-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">What is "next gen" Permaculture - what is the next stage of succession that grows the abundance and diversity of social and ecological regeneration?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This is something Kim and I have been increasingly talking about with our students and clients for the last decade or so, and now I'd like to open up this discussion to a broader circle. This won't be the same in every market and social network, but in many, Permaculture 1.0 has likely reached the peak of its succession arch in this cycle. (Yes, Permaculture has already been through a couple growth and "correction" cycles.) So if we're not thinking about new niches, adding new layers of diversity, succeeding into new edges, finding new markets, organizing new communities, exploring new paradigms - then we're not really in the game. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I don't mean to be harsh, I mean to be helpful. I mean this to be a challenge. I want all of our Permaculture careers to be rewarding, impactful, and successful, and for that to happen I think there are two things we need to understand. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">First is that I'm seeing people starting very 101 level Permaculture or "demonstration" projects, often with no project or physical site design (so not actually even Permaculture) with a couple of hugelkultures and an out-dated apple guild from 1982 and expecting folks to line up like it's the krameterhof. Meanwhile, I've watched a dozen similar projects start and stall in their neighborhood in the last few years. When it comes to that basic model with a focus on workshops and optimism, we've probably reached market saturation. The same saturation is apparent in most market for SPIN farms, "yuppie chow" factories, hog farms and most other meat, dairy, CSAs, grapes, standard vegetable farms, you pick orchards, most orchards in general, wholesale greenhouses, season-extension hoophouse operations, pumpkin patches, heirloom and native seed operations, annual veggie nursery operations, and Christmas tree farms. Also: Local-level non-profits that create community gardens, those that promote the "good food movement," and the good food movement in general. In my market I see experienced and competent entrepreneurs in all of these areas struggling. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A lot of this stuff is all about market timing and being in at the right time. And you wouldn't buy a Krispy Cream franchise with the stock plummeting due to over-saturation and 3 other stores struggling on the same block, unless you had a really good reason to think yours was going to be successful. One good sign that the market has crested is when Universities start promoting a model, extensions start offering grants for it, or people are getting rich off online classes teaching people how to do it. It doesn't take Warren Buffet to see that everybody's going to be in at once and the result is going to be the same as when Walmart opens 4 stores in the same small town knowing only 1 will survive (but they'll also drive every local grocery out of business in the process.) </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Meanwhile, I know of next generation "Unfarming" operations in many of these fields utterly THRIVING. I don't want to call them out, but while I'm watching apple orchards fail or basically continue as expensive hobbies for their owners, I know one small orchard in a hard-to-reach location that's grown to host 6 or 7 different separate stacked enterprises, and each appears to be making its owner a very decent living. A couple of those businesses provide full-time jobs for multiple adults, along with part-time labor. They're doing really visionary next gen stuff and NOBODY is even competing with them. I believe S.W. Michigan alone could support a half dozen such business complexes - at least - and we don't even have one. Yet, this year, I'll probably see a dozen people start conceptually similar businesses thinking that mediocrity is enough, and they'll either have to take their mediocrity to a national market with corporate scale and investors, or they're going to be out of business in 3 years. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Sorry, I'm just telling like I see it. </span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The average farmer across virtually every sector hasn't made a profit in about half a decade. From the research I've seen, in almost every market that's been evaluated, farmers market consumption has been declining. Even while some individual markets have been growing, this has usually been at the expense of smaller markets as rapid consolidation has occurred. Growth in vendors has come at the expense of the farmers, who've had to accept a smaller market share. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">We've all got to challenge ourselves to be better than average, or to cultivate a different product or a different market.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>But that does NOT mean emulating the unhealthy corporate/Amway BS grindstone, hustle, hard-work, positive-thinking, believe-it-to-achieve it, spread-sheet-it-like-a-dead-horse mindset and culture. And yes, some "profitable farming" and Permaculture schemes are selling exactly that, and even using the same old pyramid scam language verbatim! I can't imagine any kind of regenerative ANYTHING coming out of that kind of mind or model. </b></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">A second thing to understand is that in this stage of business succession, things can go two ways: it could start a new round of expansion and prestige, or it could collapse. It could continue to grow in a healthy way by increasing the number of interactions and diversity in the system, or we can start to get "weeds," which are difficult to utilize in a regenerative way, and will actually reduce the benefit, diversity and abundance of the system, or reduce the resilience of the individuals in the system. They'll shrink the market for everybody.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Yesterday, I was consulting with a client working for a nursery business, and we discussed this phenomenon in that sector. Historically, greenhouse nurseries spread around my city, Kalamazoo, until we had more than any other region in the world, and we were at capacity. These days most of these sit empty or under-utilized, because after the market reached saturation for that business model, weeds started to arise that could use these failing businesses as a resource. Middle-men stepped in to reduce marketing and distribution costs, typically at the expense of increased resource consumption. Short-cut suppliers stepped in to provide cheaper services at 1,000 points along the production line, again, usually at the expense of sustainability and the land. This created a fast race the the bottom, until the bar could be lowered no more, then consolidation and centralization began.</span><br />
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<span data-offset-key="2hbsa-0-0" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Already we're seeing similar weedy forces in Permaculture and homesteading. To me, these include efforts to consolidate, "professionalize," or market corporate-style peer-to-peer services that look a lot like pyramid schemes, or that aim at taking value out of small businesses and promoting the same "race to the bottom." Plastic farming, systems that hide or rename tilling, certification systems for marketing, online "profitable farming" courses that push unsustainable practices to cut costs... there are a lot of potential weeds to watch out for. Once these weeds get started in a sector, it gets much harder for any of us to interact regeneratively with that sector without racing to the bottom. Worse, many of these actually increase consumption of fossil fuels, depetion of water, carbon pollution, and reliance on the corporate economy. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">But look around the world? What percentage of people are living a lifestyle that is life-enhancing and regnerative personally, as well as to the ecosystem, social system and biosphere? Like, .2%? Max? The potential market for growth in Permaculture, homesteading and income streams based on sustainable ecosystem services is IMMENSE. Yet everyone's targeting the same few dozen poor hippies in their region who are already living pretty regeneratively, hoping to get more blood out of them there turnips.... </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">So what really has been inspiring ME these days - what I think is TRULY next-gen Permaculture - isn't a soul-sucking race to "the top," it's people just daring to be more fully, completely, eccentrically themselves. That thriving orchard I mentioned earlier, that's what they're doing, something unique, passionate, and more than a little eccentric. It's people reaching outward, intead of inward to "the community" looking to build rich, diverse social ecologies out of their lives by networking and meeting the needs of the people around them. It's people building interesting, adventurous lives and communities for themselves. I'm inspired by people mining new markets, by trying to build richer connections between nature and the people in their communities while cutting out corporate middlemen. These are people who are repairing the broken social fabric of their friend and family groups and natural organic communities. These new inspiring revolutionaries follow their passions, follow adventure and real connection, on a path to become unique and interesting persons. In the process, they build broad and diverse little social villages - then they teach them to be inter-reliant and vibrant. Instead of huddling together online with 3 dozen regen farmers as your social group all selling the same prodouce, meat and trees, we need to reach outward. What would a folk village look like if everyone was a heart-surgeon and nobody wanted to do any other work? A whole lot of heart-ache, that's what. Everyone needs Permaculture. Everyone deserves Permaculture. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Let us be literally fruitful and multiply. And if you're not discussing next-gen Permaculture with your mentor and support system, AND concrete tools to bring it into the world, then you might not be in the right game. </span></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-55282954020228905352018-05-31T14:50:00.000-05:002018-10-30T10:47:49.089-05:00Gardening Against Climate Change - 10 Tips and Techniques<div>
<img alt="" id="id_1e3e_9d54_4f6_534c" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1jK8IJEfeU4/Ww8MsrRaNhI/AAAAAAAADbw/3IQXCDwEm3AQzeRla7Kx53MUiDUj0MVkwCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 575px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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"<i>You can solve all the world's problems in a garden." </i><br />
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<i>- Geoff Lawton, The Permaculture Research Institute</i><br />
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RELATED VIDEO: Permaculture ideas for positive direct action!</div>
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Hot enough for ya? If not, just wait: According to NASA 2014, 2015, and 2016 were each consecutively the hottest years on record globally, and 2017 was the hottest year on record without an El Nino, coming in second after 2016. Already, 2018 is looking like it will be a contender. </div>
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This next couple of paragraphs are the bummer part, so first: LOOK! A BUNNY!</div>
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Of course, it would be nice if heat was the only problem. But no, the real problems caused by climate change will be ecosystem collapse, breakdown of the farming and food systems, increased disease and human health impacts, larger storms, more wildfires, potentially increased earthquakes and volcanic activity from ice melts, sea-level rise, refugee migrations caused by famine, drought, and flooding, and a whole host of secondary and tertiary affects that will be felt first and most profoundly by the globally disadvantaged. And, as researchers get a better picture of what our climate future will look like, they're increasingly predicting the most dire scenarios, unless bold dramatic action is taken immediately. Many researchers are now talking seriously of predictions of dire civilization-shaking consequences as early as 2030. </div>
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But for those of us who garden, we don't need NASA to tell us climate change is in full swing. In my biome of S.W. Michigan, an unusually brutal winter of temperature fluctuations between hot and cold left plants and ecologies reeling, then record flooding, followed by Spring starting a month late, and then going straight into more 90 degree days here than we typically average in a whole summer - and it's not yet June! Meanwhile, gardening and farming fora are filled with posts about increased pest problems, and scientific journals and extensions are noting climate-related spread of new pests each season. Others are widely reporting plagues of mosquitos and ticks. While it's hard to directly blame the whole of this on climate change, all of this is exactly the sort of thing predicted to result from climate change. </div>
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Meanwhile, political solutions don't seem forthcoming. The best chance we have is the Paris accord, which doesn't remotely go far enough to prevent the worst-case scenarios from still occurring, and places what even this environmentalist has to acknowledge are unrealistic and likely impossible burdens on the US. </div>
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However, there is good news. We each have the potential to respond in a way that is powerful and life-enhancing. </div>
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And there is still hope - if we stop waiting for politicians and start taking direct action. </div>
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While many poo poo the possibility of direct action, hoping instead to channel energy into their political candidate or cause, we know a few things for certain: </div>
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1. The consumer economy is driving the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. </div>
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2. When the consumer economy falters, greenhouse gasses go down. </div>
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And 3, as "industry murdering" Millennials have proven time and time again, consumption choices are powerful and can have a direct effect on stunting and crashing corporations and industries. </div>
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And to the extent that it is itself sustainable, and it effects our spending and the spending of others, what we do in the garden can be a truly powerful, multi-pronged way to meaningfully address climate change. </div>
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As a mode of climate resistance, gardening offers two main benefits:</div>
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Resistance & Resilience</h3>
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First, a garden offers us a meaningful way to act against climate change and the host of other negatives associated with "public/private" fascism. We'll start by talking about the mechanisms, then we'll get into the methods we can each use to make our home gardens, farms and public landscapes more effective tools in fighting climate change!</div>
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Resistance</h3>
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<b>1. Starve the beast</b>. As stated above, the 1 million articles about Millenials killing industries proves that our consumer choices DO have a powerful impact. And Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren dug into the numbers to demonstrate that it is indeed possible to mitigate or even reverse climate change via consumption changes alone. But let's be clear, not every garden is a climate-fighting endeavor. Some gardens are demonstrably worse than driving a Hummer! The change we need to make to be effective is to replace consumption of corporate food and materials with those grown sustainably closer to home. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_fcb2_f2f2_9fb_baa7" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/---TmTa4w_gI/WxAlYKoKZuI/AAAAAAAADcA/a59anupEhgIWQxSgpf_K_fNENTOV4razACHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 553px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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<b>2. Reduce, reuse recycle.</b> These are still powerful modes of reducing consumption and thus greenhouse gas emissions. Gardens give us a chance to do all three, through growing food, providing recreation at home, repurposing household items into garden-wares, and mulching and composting.</div>
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<b>3. Protect wildlife habitat and biodiversity.</b> One of the biggest problems with climate change is that it will further contribute to the ongoing mass extinction event underway. It's extremely powerful for us to use our landscapes to provide a sanctuary for wildlife, insects, and endangered plants. Again, not every garden does this. In fact, many gardens are war zones against biodiversity!</div>
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<b>4, Sequestering carbon</b>. A garden can be designed to actually directly fight climate change by sequestering carbon in the soil and in plant tissues. </div>
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<b>5. Catching and infiltrating water. </b>Another indirect effect of climate change is that it will contribute to further depleting our aquifers. While many gardens waste water for irrigation and fancy ornamental water features, gardens CAN be designed to catch water and get it back into the aquifer. </div>
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<b>6. A garden CAN reduce our burden on the food system,</b> which will be increasingly fragile as climate change continues. </div>
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<b>7. Decrease suffering for as many as possible, and increase happiness for as many as possible, for as long as possible. </b>Even if we can't stop climate change, we can use our gardens as a sanctuary habitat for humans and non-humans alike, and model for others how to better thrive in challenging times, because gardens can be important sources of resilience.</div>
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Resilience</h3>
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1. Moderate climate around the home, providing cool in summer, warmth in the winter, and shelter in increasingly harsh storms. </div>
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2. Help us withstand shocks to the food and water system. </div>
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3. Provide recreation and stress relief during times of stress and disruption.</div>
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4. Help us to grow social capital and community cohesiveness. </div>
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Tips and Techniques:</h3>
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But in these regards, not all gardens are created equal. In fact, some may actually achieve quite the opposite effect. So here are some tips and techniques we've used and recommend to make our gardens into powerhouses of climate change resistance and resilience: </div>
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1. Grow food. Even in ornamental landscapes. Because our food system is arguably the #1 cause of climate change, and our traditional landscapes (especially lawns) are another major driver, using food plants to reform our landscape strikes to the core of climate change. While any garden that reduces lawn is likely a step in the right direction, and native plant gardens may provide increased biodiversity, a food garden reduces our consumption and reliance on the systems that are the leading cause of climate change. This does not necessarily mean having a traditional "food garden," which may actually deplete soil carbon, waste fertilizer and fossil fuels, and reduce biodiversity, but a well designed garden that integrates food plants can be especially powerful. Perennial edibles and no-till systems are two great ways to improve garden sustainability and performance. Perennial systems like edible hedgerows, edible prairies, coppices, and forest gardens may be the easiest and most climate-positive forms of garden we can grow. Every landscape should include some of these!</div>
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2. Grow fertility, healthy soil, and simultaneously sequester carbon. If we want to get serious about sequestering carbon, we need to have a plan to stop importing fertility and start growing it on site. When we import fertilizers, we're depleting non-renewable resources, and when we import compost, we're depleting carbon from someplace else, while adding to greenhouse gas pollution via shipping. Growing our own fertility ensures that we're actually sequestering carbon, reducing our overall greenhouse gas footprint, and our healthy soils will help take better care of our crops. A few key ways to grow fertility include: deep mulch gardening with home-grown mulch-maker plants, perennial fertility strips, edible hedgerows and other agroforestry systems, nitrogen fixing plants, and wetland or water gardens. Everyone should be composting, and some of the easiest methods for home-owners include sheet-composting, and trench composting, which do not require maintaining a pile or carting compost around the yard. Grow Bio-intensive is a method based on growing fertility using annual crops in the garden. </div>
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3. <span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Grow some native plants. Native plants may provide better wildlife habitat and protect biodiversity, which research shows will increase the health of your garden and crop plants. This does not mean that your grandpa's daylilies or your aunt Petunia's petunias have to go, or that you've got to ditch the tomatoes. There's no proven benefit to growing ONLY native plants, but there are proven benefits to including them. In fact, because climates and soils have changed, in many regions "native" plants may be more difficult to grow in our modern non-native soils and climates, which may require measures that waste resources, pollute carbon and harm ecosystem biodiversity. Many native-only gardens also leave the human inhabitants reliant on the destructive food system. Meanwhile, some of the best native plants to grow are edible, and some of the best fruits and vegetables are natives! In my region, that includes paw paws, persimmons, currants, jersusalem artichokes, varieties of alliums, and many, many others. </span></div>
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4. Include wildlife habitat like rockeries, wood piles, unmown grasses, and messy garden areas. These will increase biodiversity, protect climate-threated wildlife, and attract beneficial organisms that help keep the garden healthy. </div>
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5. Have a design to catch and store the water on your site and use it wisely. Permaculture design is a great resources, since it starts with treating water as a "mainframe element" and teaches that we have an ethical obligation to constructively treat the water that falls on our properties. This also includes a plan for water-wise gardening, so that we can be responsible in how we use water, too. I recommend Toby Hemenway's 5-fold water wise gardening plan, as described in Gaia's Garden.</div>
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<img alt="" id="id_dcf0_d007_5c90_5656" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBidqtqWLj3HUskqHChTpr54HoW8xODTbb3ajWceTQLfEDxmzilLIv1jWHZmSzdPVBcAj2mCY_RXs6kCUW9ovnw8VRglRGV8_JlbA_aD539P78Pb1yUVzjFcTptFmByL9FkcbXwkwfsrA/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 545px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(Water designs at L.H.)<br />
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6. Use recycled materials in the garden whenever possible, instead of buying new. </div>
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7. Avoid manufactured concrete, cement, and faux brick landscaping products, as the concrete industry is one of the leading causes of carbon pollution, and shipping further contributes to the footprint. In fact, concrete is so unsustainable, that it needed its own number. Recycled concrete, or "urbanite," can be both aesthetically and ethically beautiful. </div>
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8. Avoid the use of plastic materials and plastic landscape fabrics. Not only do these contribute to climate change in their manufacture and shipping process, they also are quickly becoming the leading cause of plastic pollution of water and soil. Plastic in food production systems has been found to contaminate food at unhealthy levels. </div>
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9. Start exploring no-till gardening. This won't necessarily work for every crop, or every ornamental in every garden or landscape. However, there ARE plenty of crops that will actually grow better and with less labor and cost, when grown in no-till systems. You might not be able to replace the entire farm or garden with no-till right away, but you might be able to start saving time, and soil carbon, by figuring out how and where no-till will work for you. </div>
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10. Utilize the power of biodiversity, Biodiversity will increase the health and resilience of your plants, while also assisting wildlife and threatened plants. Having a variety of crops will mean you're protected against crop losses, pest issues and extreme weather events in a changing climate. Again, perennial edibles and perennial systems like hedgerows and forest gardens may be the superstars of a climate resilient garden, as they build up energy and store it over many years, and have deep roots to pump water, they may be less susceptible to all forms of extreme weather. </div>
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So, that is our checklist of tips and techniques to make the most of the climate-resistance garden. Am I missing anything? What steps are you taking? Leave a comment below, or share on social media by visiting us on Facebook. </div>
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If you would like to learn more about climate resistance gardening, water harvesting, no-till gardening, growing fertility, perennial vegetables and growing systems, or see these techniques in action, consider joining us for this special event. We'll be offering this event twice this summer, on June 7th, from 2:30 pm - 5, and again on August 11th from 9:00am - noon. </div>
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Suggested donation: $20. @ Lillie House. To learn more or reserve your space, visit: <a href="https://squareup.com/store/lillie-house-permaculture/item/gardening-against-climate-change-intro-to-permaculture">https://squareup.com/store/lillie-house-permaculture/item/gardening-against-climate-change-intro-to-permaculture</a></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-68986305958984744862018-05-22T11:12:00.000-05:002018-05-22T17:11:00.203-05:00Farming Vs Permaculture: Pests, Disease, and Planning REAL Value<img alt="" id="id_aedc_79cd_64c2_5a44" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-dDue07Hwztc/WwRBD6KHSwI/AAAAAAAADbQ/YS3PVg4XqN0s4hha_TOL32Y7z1buQl0ggCHMYCw/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 666px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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'Tis peak season for the most beloved of pass-times for market gardeners and farmers everywhere: complaining!<br />
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And what a season it is: with an exceptionally harsh winter of temperature swings with little snow cover across much of the northern hemisphere, record flooding everywhere, Spring arriving a month late almost universally, then moving straight into high/dry summer temperatures, followed by prolonged cool damp weather... ecologies and garden plants are all left reeling while pest and disease pressures seem to be soaring. This makes sense whenever general biodiversity and health takes a hit, as pest and disease pressures return before beneficial populations and immune systems recover. </div>
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So, if you've been complaining, know you aren't alone: I've been getting a lot of questions about how to use Permaculture to reduce pest and disease issues, and the farming and market gardening fora are filled with stories of rampant rodents, malicious molds, stupdendous slugs, woeful woodlice, um.. carnivorous corn seed maggot... downright ornery damping off... ... Ok, I promise never to do that again. Anyway, the point is I'm seeing a real uptick in compaints about crop losses to pests and disease this season.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hurrah! From a Permaculture perspective, this is all great work! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you're doing conventional, you just spray poison on your veggies yum yum yum. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Otherwise, in your first year gardening, your goal is to grow slugs. After that, you'll start growing things that eat slugs, like millipedes, centipedes, fireflies, predatory wasps, snakes, lizards, birds, and so on. But won't move in until you've opened the slug buffet. And it helps if you give them good habitat near your veggies. In this case, long grasses near the garden really help, as it's firefly larva that are the biggest eaters of slugs, and they lay eggs in tall, unmown grasses. If you keep grasses by the garden too trim, your slug patrol has to commute. Rockeries for snakes, perches for birds, and a nice messy winter garden with hollow reeds and stems to help beneficial insects overwinter all help, too. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the early years, we're trying to get all the slugs, voles, moles, aphids, cucumber beetles, cabbage moths, molds and mildews all up and running really good, so ecological resiliency and predators can come into play and we can start getting a more balanced system where we only lose a couple kale seedlings before the kale can take care of itself. This season, while we've had our own increased pest issues, we've yet to lose a single annual start to pests or disease (knock on wood.)</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Ideally, the pest/disease curve is gradual enough in the early years that the slugs get some kale, but we get plenty, too. But sometimes pest population spikes can be huge, especially when we're just getting started and there's low biodiversity to begin with.... This is all the worst the first 3 years at any new site. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But many producers will give up before they get there, and reach for poisons instead. But most poisons will kill of beneficial insects and predators as well as pests, keeping the land stuck in time at the point where pest and disease pressures are highest. Even pest-specific ogranic controls (like organic slug pellets, which only effect slugs) eliminate the food source for predators, and keep the garden dependent upon chemical interventions. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This is especially true if you're a farmer or market gardener dependent upon crops in order to "save the farm." Often, you may feel you have no choice but to intervene, and so the land will never become a self-regulating ecosystem. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Anyway, all these complaints have me thinking about a major comparison between modern "farming" and "Permaculture." </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Remember first of all that Permaculture is a system of holistic design for creating integreated, functional human habitats. It's not the same as farming, or even a kind of farming. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Farming or market gardening, by which I mean growing crops for sale as an income stream, is one pattern that CAN be used in a Permaculture design, but does not have to be. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In fact, while some current Permaculture celebrities strongly emphasize farming as Permaculture and Permaculture as farming, early designers so de-emphasized farming as a useful pattern that Permaculture was often framed as an alternative to farming, or even the exact OPPOSITE of farming.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>"The last thing any of us should be doing is any kind of farming." </b></span></h3>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><b>- Bill Mollison, Founder of Permaculture, creator of the PDC curriculum, and author of the Permaculture Designer's Manual. </b></span></h3>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Of course, some of this was just Bill being sensationalistic. On deeper inspection, this gets to be a debate about terms, with Mollison promoting older forms of making clever, profitable, and sustainable land investments, which were once just the definition of good farming, while "farming" has come to mean growing vegetables or commodity crops for market. However, there is a real, meaningful difference between this Mollisonian form of Permaculture and farming, market gardening or agriculture of any kind.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">From Mollison's perspective, this modern kind of farming was a "type 1 error," a system designed to fail. Consider the reasons many people say they get into farming and market gardening:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- To generate income for the family. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- To get out of the "rat race."</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- To heal the land, or act regeneratively.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- To grow good food for their family.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- To spend more time with family.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To live a slower rural lifestyle.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To reconnect with nature.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To have a higher standard of living. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To get into shape, have healthy activity.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To fight climate change, sequester carbon, heal the soil.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- To create a healthier local food system. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">If those are ones goals, it is quite likely that "farming" (vegetable farming, market gardening or commodity farming) is the absolute worst thing you could ever do to meet any of those goals. The dream, unfortunately, does not easily line up with reality:</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- The average farmer hasn't made a profit in 4 years now, and average incomes are likely around $3/hour. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Celebrity "rock star farmers" make their big bucks teaching "profitable farming" classes, but report that they themselves only earn minimum wage salaries while working ridiculous hours. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Most of these "sustainable farming" programs are highly unsustainable, arguably more unsustainable than the unsustainable industrial farming they seek to replace, often requiring more spraying, tilling and shipping footprints. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Annual gardens with heavy tilling and chemical fertilization do not sequester carbon and may even contribute to climate change.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Farmers work longer hours than virutally any other profession, and often have less time for family. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- "The customer eats first." Most farmers I know are too busy during the season to prep and cook their own produce, so they eat pizza and fast food, and supplement their diet with snap, while their customers get the all the best looking and tasting produce.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Modern "profitable farmers" describe their lifestyle as hustle-bustle, challenge, fast-paced labor and hardship, with a high necessity for sales work, marketing, and logistics which would put most corporate admins to shame. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Farming puts you in a position to have to fight against nature constantly, instead of connecting with it and learning about it. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Talk to any modern fitness professional and they'll tell you the long hours of low-intensity cardio associated with farm labor are no way to get into shape. If you knew the "ol farmers" I grew up around, you'd see why they described their work as "back breaking" labor that wore the body down and aged you quickly. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">- Modern local veg farming is highly plastic intensive, is quickly becoming the BIGGEST source of soil and water pollution, and has now been found to contribute to the chemical and plastics contamination of food, rather than create healthier food. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">So, if we have any of those goals above, "doing farming" is virtually guaranteed to fail to meet them. </span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Of course, there are goals and expectations which can more easily be met through "farming." And, there are clever ways of designing a project so that farming can be a part of meeting one's goals. But what I hear from farmers very often is the lament that they are trapped by the realities of farming to exploit the land, exploit the soil, and exploit other people in order to make a living. </span></div>
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This really is the exact opposite of the classic Permaculture described by Mollison in his work. </div>
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In that form of Permaculture, we don't start with the idea that we're going to farm for its own sake, we start by looking at our goals, what we want, how we want to live, and then DESIGN a system which will actually get us where we want to be. Often, our preconceived notions of "farming" only get in our way. </div>
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Let's get back to pests as an example. </div>
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The farmer who jumps into sales in the first year will end up trapped into spraying and fighting pests in order to keep the business afloat. They may simply have no choice. And because they're trapped on the pesticide treadmill, and have very little free time, change will be very difficult. </div>
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Whereas, the kind of Permaculture design Mollison proposed is about starting to make high value "regenerative investments" which will help meet your goals. For example, these might include investing in little healthy, diverse edible ecosystems like hedgerows, ponds, and forest gardens. These can be designed to become profitable, and start paying back in terms of food savings and even cash flow in the very first year, as all of our plantings have at Lillie House. But then they will grow in value over time, producing more food, more cash value and plants for sale every year into the future. Meanwhile, they will require less and less labor each year, so your hourly wage will always be going up while your free-time rises, too. And because pest and disease resilience are part of our investment, we can afford to take time to let diversity build. We haven't designed a system where we have to immediately spray as soon as a pest shows up. </div>
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Because we're not stuck in the rat race of farming, we have time to make regenerative investments in home energy efficiency, too. We can start saving hundreds or even thousands of dollars/year on energy and fuel expenses. We can start looking at investments which will save us money on clothing, healthcare costs, recreation, housing and so on. </div>
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We have time - and energy - for investing in our own health and fitness, and that of our family. These may be some of the most valuable investments we can make! We can invest in eating incredible food from our own garden, and reap the health benefits and food savings from doing so. For many, this will be of more value than selling vegetables at the market and buying back food! Growing our own food is a very high value activity. </div>
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And most imporantly of all, we have time to invest in relationships and social capital. For us, these have been the absolute biggest 'Return on Investments" we've had. Doing Permaculture activism, and helping other people make sensible "regenerative investments" in more sustainable, resilient living has connected us with really amazing people all over, and this has - hands down - been the best thing we've invested in. Bill Mollison used to say if you're doing it right, and you're really helping people, then resources will start to come to you and crowd around you, and many will be good people. That's exactly what we've experienced. </div>
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And as it turns out, we usually have both vegetables and plants for direct sale. But if we had started a "profitable farm" business or SPIN farm in our first year, we would have never had time to do any of this. We'd still probably be stuck in the farming rat race, selling veggies to buy pizza, and looking for ways to exploit people, nature and soil in order to pay our bills. </div>
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And we'd still be stuck complaining and stressing about crop losses, and spraying for pests....</div>
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In the meantime, if you're already trapped on the pesticide treadmill, here are some research-based Permaculture-ish things you could consider, which might help with pests in the short term, while moving in a better direction for the future. </div>
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- Invest in a biodiverse, healthy ecosystem. Add plant diversity, esepcially with perennial plants which will come back every year. </div>
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- Invest in perennial native plants. </div>
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- Invest in creating healthy soil, especially with deep mulching. This will improve plant immunity. </div>
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- Invest in diverse healthy agroecologies like edible hedgerows, forest gardens, and habitat strips. </div>
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- Invest in predator habitat: rockeries for snakes, wood piles, bird perches in the garden, insectory plants, bits of untidy garden for beneficial insects to overwinter in. </div>
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- Long, untrimmed grasses near the garden are essential, as they attract fireflies, whose larva are one of the biggest predators of slugs. However fireflies lay eggs in long grasses, so if you don't have patches of long grass in the garden, your slug patrol will have to commute. </div>
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- Decentralizing production. If you've got all your kale in one bed, slugs can move from one to the next easily, destroying the whole crop, then moving on the the next row of cabbages. If you've got kale throughout the garden, interspersed with strong-smelling aromatic herbs, slugs have trouble finding the kale. </div>
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- Polyculture everywhere. Same as above, pests have trouble finding their favorite foods if you're mixing them up, and they have to travel further, past more predators on their daily commute. </div>
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- Use minimal interventions. Do just enough to save the crop. For example, for slugs, beer traps and copper, or organic slug pellets that only effect slugs - used sparingly - may help reduce pressures enough that you get a crop, but also leave slugs for fireflies and vespids to feed their babies.<br />
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And, if you're farming and it's not meeting your goals, it's ALWAYS a good time to start divesting from activities that are low-value or are not meeting your goals, and start reinvesting that time and energy into things that will start moving you towards meeting your goals.<br />
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But if you're farming and happy and meeting your goals, then keep on keepin' on!</div>
Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-38035103930456548422018-05-15T09:32:00.001-05:002018-05-15T16:49:27.116-05:00French Intensive Methods for Permaculture<div>
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(Dynamically evolving French Intensive spacings and planting design at Lillie House) </div>
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I love French Intensive Gardening, or French Intensive Method (FIM.) This old evolved set of French techniques using planting designs with precise, tight, non-row spacings, interplanting, and clever companion planting - all to achieve the highest possible productivity and quality - has a lot to offer the Permaculturist and expert gardener or producer. And this goes beyond the lessons that FIM teaches us about true sustainability, companion planting, soil building, plant spacing and size, and producing top-quality produce. </div>
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FIM is one of the major things that gives our garden its distinctive look, which many conventional gardeners find incomprehensible, or even "impossible." Yes, we're now used to hearing that many of the key techniques we rely on to grow superior produce while absolutely minimizing maintenance are all impossible: no-till, continuous cropping while growing 100% of our fertility at home, exclusively polyculture growing, and of course our precise FIM plantings and spacings. Gardeners often recoil at seeing these spacings, despite them being the research-based optimal spacings for superior produce and sustainability.<br />
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(A typical FIM planting, optimizing productivity and garden health, From Sunset Magazine.)<br />
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Of our impossible gardening techniques, FIM is one of the most vital. For me, my gardening, and my understanding of Permaculture, which is about using DESIGN to achieve a goal, there has been nothing more important than understanding how to control levels of "intensivity" in the landscape. This is as true for the home garden, landscape, or homestead as it is for the profitable farm. </div>
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By levels of "intensivity," we're talking about a spectrum where we let nature do all the work on one side, and on the other side, we add "inputs" like energy, work, time, water, fertilizer, pest-control and most importantly planning and design. </div>
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And when it comes to this one point, I have learned a great deal from French Intensive Gardening, and the simplifed systems taught by Alan Chadwick (Bio-Intensive French Gardening) and John Jeavons (Grow Bio-Intensive.) </div>
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(FIM is incredibly practical, yet naturally produces beauty as a by-product. This is a low-maintenance sustainable, and highly productive vegetable garden design, via Awaken.com)<br />
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To come to the point, it's absolutely revolutionary to understand how these methods optimize the "Return on Investment" of a garden or farm system. </div>
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First, FIM gives the highest possible yield per square foot of any system. Consider this: Like historic FIM gardeners in the suburbs of Paris, Jeavons and Chadwich have both used similar methods to achieve yields that are typically 4-6 times the best conventional yields, and in some cases over 10 times! So, the FIM gardener can do on 1/4 or 1/6th an acre what a conventional market gardener using a tiller and planting in rows does on 1 acre. </div>
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Of course, this requires more work, more design and more fertility management. BUT - here's the key - NOT PROPORTIONALLY more. </div>
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<img alt="" id="id_25b_4c71_87db_74c0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO48oGIl4zjkbMCLuTwjwIabpUGLEavOAce-G2-uzoFsT47C7gwFr4WkbBcodgtOLbpJcDoMB9fS3LjcD3Zq35aWzIF4zhtrSLcgLM228sTcXrwp268pc7nK1AaKtI9fpe27G8jhqmJHA/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 567px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
(A somewhat formalistic FIM design from Sunset, uses tight plantings of companion plants like a Permaculture "guild.")<br />
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So, it will take significantly less time on average, according to Jeavons' research, to manage 1/4 or even 1/2 an acre using FIM than it would to manage that acre conventionally. And it will not require a tiller or imported unsustainable fertility inputs. And finally, quality is often higher, and so is profitability. So, while it will typically take a couple of full-time workers to manage that 1-acre farm, one person could get the same (or better) outcome from 1/4 of an acre under FIM. </div>
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This leaves 3/4 acres which can be managed in extremely "extensively," by handing management over to nature, in the for of edible hedgerows, edible forest gardens and edible-meadow type systems, or possibly small livestock. The best of these are traditional, evolved patterns with long-established proven viability and management techniques. All of this can add significantly to yield, while helping to maintain fertility sustainably. NOW, we're using good energy-efficient design! And it's also just good math. </div>
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As farm size grows, nothing changes this dynamic. The greatest yield is going to be defined by the same equation: how many labor hours you have to put in, how much can you put into intensive systems (which have the highest profitability) and how many do you need to maintain the rest of the land. Which is to say, at some point, once the farm is large enough, you will spend all your time managing broad-acre systems and have no time left for Intensive production. Because small intensive systems have been shown to be as high as 10, 30, 100 or more times as profitable per land area (University of Vermont, Berkley, etc.) Small market farms can sometimes gross in the ballpark of $100k/acre, whereas on the broad-acre, profitability is measured in hundreds of dollars/acre. So, once you are no longer doing intensive methods, to get back to the same value might require hundreds of acres with fossil fuels and chemicals, or large amounts of exploited labor. </div>
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So the best Permaculture designs will find ways to put as much land as possible into naturally managed "forage systems" to free up labor hours for more intensive forms of production with the highest ROI - this is the basis of the Permaculture "zones" system, which is radically under-apprecaited in today's Permaculture world. </div>
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However, these dramatically productive and sustainable techniques were once so associated with Permaculture designs, that it was common to hear the terms used interchangably by some observers, such as in this <a href="https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/biodynamic-gardening-zmaz80jfzraw" id="id_e4f7_10a3_cdc0_f1e9">interesting article from Mother Earth new</a>s. </div>
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(Dynamic Polyculture at Lillie House, throw-cast then selectively thinned.)</div>
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FIM gardening is a highy information-intensive form of gardening, which requires knowledge and experience beyond what I can blog about. However, there are some key points, which I've taken from Jeavons, Chadwick and Aquatias, one of the first to attempt to present French methods to an English-speaking audience.<br />
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1. Growing in double-reach sized, permanent beds, with permanent, narrow access paths. These are sized so that one can reach to the center of the bed from either side, without stepping on the beds. Certainly, the #1 thing one can do to improve the maintenance and productivity of a garden is to NEVER WALK ON GARDEN BEDS. Permaculture has improved on this with patterns like keyhole design and hierarchical path and node systems (see Gaia's Garden, or search this blog for more information.) </div>
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It's very important to note that these are often referred to as "raised beds," but that these differ greatly from the modern "raised beds" of wood or plastic made popular by HGTV and glossy magazine covers. These are created simply by deeply digging the soil and refraining from ever walking on it again. These actually aid good landscape hydrology and conservation of fertility and water. Meanwhile modern "raised beds" have benefits as well, looking tidy and in some cases increasing accessibility, but for both fertility and water, these have been proven to yield a decreased result. </div>
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2. Intensively managing soil. This is typically done through additions of compost, organic teas and sprays, and a one-time double-digging of the soil. In the best systems, FIM beds become no-till through a combination of careful succession planting, cover cropping and mulching. </div>
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3. "The Greenhouse" (Chadwick) - tight plant spacings with no rows. "Close plant spacings, as found in nature." (Jeavons.) Starts are spaced tightly in a grid-like formation, rather than rows, with naturalistic spacings so that there is no soil visible at maturity and leaves are brushing together. With many crops, seed are hand-cast, then thinned as they grow to dynamically maintain these dense spacings. This is what we do with most of our crops at Lillie House. Research by ecologists have discovered that plant cooperation in such conditions outweigh competition, helping to maintain optimal growing conditions in the top soil layer and the atomosphere under the plants. This is probably why FIM systems are so productive, sustainable and healthy. </div>
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4. Intercropping polycultures. While Jeavons and and Chadwick eliminated much of this tradition for their simplified versions for the American audience, intercropping was a major part of the French tradition, and one of Aquatias' 4 principles. This maximzies utility, yield, use of space, and garden health for home and small market garden systems. However, at a certain scale, it may become necessary to simplify designs. This is another major principle to our growing at Lillie House. (It is also something you can see in the FIM pictures in this post.) </div>
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5. Synergistic planting, or companion planting. This is especially done with a high percentage of strong, older, established aromatic herbs, kept in the garden over a long period of time. These are traditionally in every bed, and near every crop. </div>
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6. Growing your own fertility (Jeavons) or sourcing it smartly and sustainably (Chadwick, Aquatias.) At Lillie House we use 0 inputs, and grow 100% of our fertility on site. We feel that Jeavons was correct, that in this modern world, that is the only true measure of sustainability. </div>
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7. Use of open-pollinated seed, rather than hybrids, to enhance seed security, diversity and self-reliance. </div>
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To these Grow-Biodynamic adds some information crop selection for sustainability and self-reliance. These are excellent recommendations, but may be designed for in other ways in a Permaculture system. </div>
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Getting Started:<br />
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FIM gardening is a method that creates expert gardeners. This is perhaps one of its main benefits. But that takes time to develop as the soil develops.<br />
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Beginning gardeners may want to start with Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening program, but try also creating some FIM beds. Jeavons' How to Grow More Vegetables is an excellent place to start, with resources for spacing and companion planting, as well as sustainability.<br />
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A more Permaculture approach is to create a bed in the FIM fashion, then cast a polyculture like the Iano Evans Polyculture in Gaia's Garden, thinning to maintain good spacing as plants grow. This both forces you to learn good plant spacings through observation, and to eat a salad a few times per week!<br />
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Later, expert gardeners can integrate other patterns and techniques, such as sheet-mulch, water harvesting and perennial guild design.<br />
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Yes, FIM takes some extra knowledge and design time. But the rewards are phenomenal. The FIM garden will build soil, grow incredible amounts of superior produce, create a beautiful healthy landscape, and most importantly, grow your own knowledge of gardening, plants, and the natural world. </div>
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<b>For more information:</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.alan-chadwick.org/html%20pages/techniques.html" id="id_c005_c7bf_36e1_1df3" target="_self">Alan Chadwick Info</a></div>
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<a href="https://archive.org/stream/intensiveculture00aquarich#page/88/mode/2up" id="id_9341_36da_584b_2572" target="_self">Aquatias' classic manual</a> </div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/www.growbiointensive.org" id="id_8aee_f6bc_af38_1beb">www.growbiointensive.org</a></div>
Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-58921691978272874242018-05-07T09:13:00.001-05:002018-05-07T09:13:28.876-05:00I did a thing: Find us on Tumblr<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my quest to find the least soul-crushing form of social media, I did a thing.<br />
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You may now interact with Lillie House on <a href="https://luckymortal.tumblr.com/" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>, if that's <i>your</i> thing.<br />
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This will remain our main place for publishing in-depth articles, how-tos and analysis, but you can also follow our project on Instagram and Facebook.Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-17033918924878645482018-05-02T08:28:00.000-05:002018-05-02T08:28:25.877-05:00Functional Gardening<img alt="" id="id_1913_280e_5868_6922" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyIAJqhMGFQh74OtzF4VgHfXkM_aeRRwv3By8nRx3FRwP4YaAO9mOBH-tamZiUjNWhdxrgx0pDcA6ceVMcgaaYQjBm3_DKIQ7ZYbWAmze5oQXNDrThs-yJRrR3GC1vVttjefouXCAo-Po/s5000/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; margin: 4px; width: 575px;" title="" tooltip="" /><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The ankh here symbolizes "permanence," perhaps in the striving to create the lifeways of a truly sustainable culture, or failing that, the permanence of nature. Which is a reminder there's an end to every good story. Going back to ancient times, the layout of the garden has been an opportunity to give ourselves a reminder, to draw ourselves into the spiritual realm when we enter through the garden gate. The medieval physic gardens and Jardins de Cure that our front yard is based off of typically took the form of the cross, Roman gardens - the sun, Persian gardens invoked the oasis - itself symbolic. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For us, a "functional" garden or farm can be more than the food and medicines it grows. It can grow more perfect human beings. <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/fukuoka?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">fukuoka</span></span></a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/permaculture?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">permaculture</span></span></a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/ankh?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">ankh</span></span></a> <a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/garden?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">garden</span></span></a><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/foodforest?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span class="_5afx" style="direction: ltr;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">foodforest</span></span></a> <span class="_5afx" style="cursor: pointer; direction: ltr; text-decoration: none;"><a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/forestgardens?source=feed_text" style="cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;"><span aria-label="hashtag" class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">forestgardens</span></a></span></span></div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-76788470845093729982018-04-26T16:23:00.000-05:002018-04-26T16:23:32.153-05:00 Learning from Herbs Adventures in Everyday Herbalism<div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Wow, am I ever excited to announce this class! </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />This is the adventure people have been asking us to create for a few years now. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Make herbalism a regular part of your life. This is a learning experience designed to grow your comfort, familiarity and practice of home herbalism. Plus, you'll learn about herbs while starting your own home herbal "medicine cabinet" of teas, tinctures, salves, etc.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Plus, we'll treat food as medicine and equip you with a whole season of inspiring recipes. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />This is not a class designed for experts or practitioners, but a class optimized for people who want to up their home herb game, and build the habits of interacting with herbal medicines in everyday life and in every season. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Every hands-on class will feature a few important herbs, and includes 4 practical components:<br />1. Practical use (including getting to know some important herbal friends,)<br />2. Home processing and preparations, including teas, pestos, vinegars, oils, tinctures, salves, creams, etc.<br />3. Foraging and identifying,<br />4. Growing herbs at home. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />And we used a Permaculture design approach to create a framework that really makes sense for everyday herbalism:<br />Which herbal medicines are best to just buy from store?<br />Which are best when grown at home?<br />What are the most powerful and easiest to grow?<br />What are the best herbs to grow if you only have a small space, or just a window sill?<br />Which are easily available for foraging in the wild in our region?<br />When do we harvest these, where do we look for them?<br />And what do we do with them once we have them? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Over the course of the season, we'll cover preserving, drying, making teas, tinctures, vinegars and oils, creams, salves, poultices, etc.<br /></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And finally, how and when to you procure the services of our local, knowledgable herbalist practitioners. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />Introduction class is May 20th from 10AM to noon.<br />Monthly classes run second Saturdays, from 10AM to 11, with time after for crafting, questions, and discussion. </span><br />
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<a href="https://squareup.com/store/lillie-house-permaculture/item/learning-from-herbs-adventures-in-everyday-herbalism" id="id_d51a_884f_ca0f_240e" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="color: black; font-size: small;">Register now!</span></a></h1>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-60966757345605694002018-03-18T20:29:00.000-05:002019-05-08T09:39:46.709-05:00 Bizarre History: Frankenstein's Monster was Modern Pesticides and Herbicides - Seriously<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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(Castle Frankenstein, the birthplace of modern pyridine herbicides, wikimedia)<br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Real</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> history: Dr. Frankenstein's Monster was modern pesticides and herbicides. SERIOUSLY.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">File this away under: Life is stranger than fiction and you can't make this sh*t up. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In a few month's time, we will be launching a new project: Research-Based Permaculture, which will delve into the scientific basis (or lack thereof) for various Permaculture patterns. </span></div>
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While researching "bone sauce," a DIY pest-repellent made from bones, which was popularized by mad-scientist farmer Sepp Holzer, I stumbled upon a bizarre story including our dear Dr. Frankenstein. </div>
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Alchemist, theologian, and anatomist Johann Conrand Dippel, born and raised in Castle Frankstein (yes, an actual real place,) and thus often called by the name "Frankensteinensis" ("born at....") He was the creator of "Dippel's Oil," aka, bone sauce, which he believed to be the elixir of life, the key to immortality and cure-all for various afflictions including demonic possession. He was also famous for his experimentations on animals, blowing up a tower in a bizarre experiment, claims of grave-robbing and experimentation on cadavers.<br />
In one paper, he even claimed that in a process involving bone sauce and a funnel, a human soul could be transferred into a cadaver! Though there was no evidence that he himself ever tried such experiments, of course. </div>
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He even attempted to purchase castle Frankenstein with the recipe for bone sauce. </div>
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His offer was declined. Dippel's oil, it turns out, was no elixir of life, but quite the opposite. What it WAS good for, it turns out, was killing things. So much so, that it was used as a chemical weapon up through WWII. </div>
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In fact, it was so successful at killing things, that one of its prime constituents, pyridines, are the active ingredient in many modern pesticides, bactericides, and herbicides including the notorious persistent pyridine herbicides like Clopyrallid. Dippel's elixir of life, has become the modern elixir of death!</div>
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Sepp Holzer's bone sauce works, when it works, because it contains a potent modern pesticide. The "rebel farmer" mad-genius may have learned about this in Ag school, and realized he had access to a potent, long-lasting agricultural chemical he could make DIY on the farm, so long as he was willing to risk possible explosion and exposure to volatile organic compounds. There's of course some irony that he's teaching modern organic farmers to cook agrichemicals in their backyards....</div>
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Mary Shelly was inspired by a trip to Frankenstein Castle, where she likely heard the local stories of the mad scientist who thought he found the secret of life, but instead unleashed a monster.</div>
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On another note, TOMORROW is the last day to snatch the Early Registration pricing on our Home Garden memberships and Guild memberships for our summer program. Check out the previous post for more details! </div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-35808177598144954632018-03-16T16:54:00.001-05:002018-03-16T16:54:39.756-05:00Early Registration for 2018 Community Supported Gardening Program Ends this Weekend!Come join us in our garden for a summer of fun! Learn more and get registered at:<br />
<a href="https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com/2017-community-supported-forest-gardening/">https://lilliehousekzoo.wordpress.com/2017-community-supported-forest-gardening/</a> <br />
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8416923201642990454.post-5774772626657503782018-02-26T13:55:00.000-05:002018-02-26T15:28:20.020-05:00Why Gandhi was an A*hole and Why Permaculture has Failed <div>
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<b>(Reading time: 4 minutes.)</b><br />
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And with that title, I am now officially trolling my own blog. </div>
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Ok, so sure, cool, he helped lead anti-oppression movements in multiple countries, inspired non-violent resistance all over the world, fought against classism, and inspired several religious traditions and <i>whatever</i>. So what if hippies like me reread his autobiography every few years for inspiration (because, that's a thing I do.) Most people look at his EXTREME lifestyle and say: "Wow what a an AWESOME super-human - <i>I could never be like that</i>." </div>
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What do modern Americans tend to emphasize about him? </div>
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"He lived in shack with a dirt floor and 'wore a diaper'" (an ethnocentrism I think reveals the guilt of our consumer lifestyle.) </div>
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We know he just did all that EXTREME morality stuff just to look bad-ass on Instagram, but he set a model us little people could never live up to. Seriously though, I think we actually use these EXTREME stereotypes to justify a worse version of ourselves than what we really aspire to, as though, <i>if we can't be as good as Gandhi, then what's the point?</i> </div>
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Why do I think that? Because I've made that excuse myself. Because I've had literally over a hundred conversations where other people do exactly the same: invoke the EXTREME as an excuse to do nothing.</div>
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It's actually harder for us to accept that Gandhi was just a complex, flawed human being, who made mistakes, felt conflicted about his duty as a leader and his role as a father and husband, made some racist statements when he was young, sexist ones when he was old, failed to prevent religious/ethnic war in India, and probably inadvertently reinforced systems of racial conflict and colonial oppression in Africa. </div>
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Meanwhile, "his" great accomplishments were achieved by the work millions of "regular people" acting bravely and taking action. </div>
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And his lifestyle choices were intended as a model, inspiration and critique within an Indian cast system a century ago - it wasn't all about us - and our EXTREME stereotypes about him have very little truth to them. </div>
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So, I guess the problem is less about Gandhi being an a-hole and more about the ethnocentric, dismissive, and dehumanizing ways we "moderns" talk about him.<br />
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And we do the same thing with Mother Theresa, Jesus, the Buddha, Fukuoka, Native Americans just sort of generally, and yes, Hitler. We make Hitler an EXTREME example of evil as a way of denying that we ourselves hold the potential to do both great good and great evil. Hitler too, was just a human like you or me, and it was the complilcity of millions of "regular people" like us that caused great harm.<br />
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We focus on what <i>appears</i> BIG SHINY FLASHY SUPERHUMAN EXTREEEEEEME, and we under-celebrate the EXTREME power of regular people doing small acts of meaningful change, kindness and beauty. </div>
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<b>"Why has Permaculture failed?" </b></div>
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The answer: It hasn't. At all.</div>
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It has helped feed probably millions of people, healed millions of acres of soil, provided habitat for billions of organisms, helped change the discussion about climate change and soil loss, and helped people all over the world reclaim a better relationship with nature and community, build happier, healthier, more resilient lives - I personally believe it's been the most important and impactful work in the world for 4 decades now. </div>
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And yet, this idea that Permaculture has failed has become a major topic of conversation within the Permaculture Community. In fact, claiming that Permaculture has failed has become a pre-requisite to being taken seriously within that community and many recent books on Regenerative Agriculture and Permaculture literally start by saying so. </div>
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Why? Because we're focussed on the BIG SHINY FLASHY SUPERHUMAN EXTREEEEEME instead of what gets real world results. Even in Permaculture, with our principles of small, slow change and working with the marginal, we LOVE the BIG FAST MAINSTREAM over-complicated projects that use tons of resources, volunteers, land, fossil fuels, and non-renewable materials, and cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, but only produce a few thousand dollars of food/year. We want to follow the dirtiest, smelliest, hardcore-est guy on IG who's living an "EXTREME" looking "rewilded" lifestyle of self-reliance and renunciation - <i>the </i>ONE<i> who's escaped the cage of civilization and modern technology</i> - and documents it thoroughly with daily social media updates, the flashiest email service and the absolute cutting-edge in photography, video and sound equipment. And yes, it's almost always a guy, because it takes a whole heap of privilege to even pretend to live that way, and a whole heap of male authority for it to be taken seriously. </div>
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Now, there IS a role for legit pioneers exploring the limits of self-reliance. But I'm more impressed by the "regular" gardeners, farmers, organizers, and just plain "livers" I know who are taking small steps that reduce their footprint, cut their reliance on the psychotic corporate food system, and building healthier lifestyles than I am by somebody who's "living" (part time) in a hovel in the boondocks but has increased their personal fossil fuel and plastic consumption 10 fold to pay for it. How about starting with growing some of your own food (easy) and figuring out how to use as much of it as possible (difficult) before you go saving or "feeding the world?"</div>
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And so it goes... We raise up the EXTREME unhealthy "fitness" celeb with the well-chiseled abs cut by dangerous drugs, rather than the human-looking knowledgable local trainer with a practical, healthy lifestyle. And in politics, we gravitate towards the EXTREMES that looks ideologically pure on Facebook, over what will actually serve our cause. And diets go EXTREME on purity too, even if it costs a fortune and harms our health. Our houses? Extreme! Our cars? Extreme! Our vacations? Extreme! And our spirituality? Extremely EXTREEEEEME!!!<br />
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Yes, I have fallen into this trap myself, working on experiments so obscure that they'd only be practical for a very small group of self-reliance and natural living junkies, but impractical for almost everyone, difficult to teach, and ultimately low-impact.<br />
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So, how could Permaculture be improved? Maybe by focussing less on being hardcore and flashy, and more on being EXTREMELY practical, helpful and impactful. If we want to get serious about changing the world, we can just work on that 20% that will have the 80% most effect (the 80/20 principle I write about a lot,) rather than push our efforts well beyond the "point of diminishing returns" to get approval on social media. </div>
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We can cut the BS and be hardcore about helping real people take meaningful steps towards happier, healthier, more reslient lives with more control over their food and livelihoods, and a better connection to nature and community. We can each "be the change we want to see," model real, achievable change, and help maximize the happiness of as many beings as possible, while minimizing suffering for as many as possible. That's something every one of us can participate in, and that is extremely transformative.</div>
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Michael Hoaghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15728642724953659658noreply@blogger.com1