Social Permaculture - Designing the Relational Landscape Part 2

In part 1, we discussed how for social animals like humans, with limited time and resources to go around, the relationships we invest in have a huge impact on the kind of reality we create for ourselves. In balance, if your main goal for your relationships is to support some other goal, like making money, then you're probably a being a jerk. 

Unfortunately, for those of us interested in Permaculture, our goals aren't usually encouraged by most people in mainstream society. 

In fact, they're often mocked, marginalized, discouraged and even criminalized! 

That actually makes perfect sense, since our goals are often silly hippie dippie things like not destabilizing the climate, not flushing all our topsoil out into ocean dead zones, drinking water that isn't poisoned, eating truly good food that hasn't been drenched in poison, living with a deeper connection to nature, investing in healthy life ways, finding a more enriching relationship with work and consumption, building a connection to community, living simply instead of being "owned" by a growing pile of stuff - and those goals are a direct challenge to our insane, destructive mainstream system. In fact, when enough people begin to share our goals, that old ecocidal system will crumble away and collapse. 

For folks dependent on that system, our goals can seem like a threat. 

So, the default is that most of our relationships and interactions are going to go against the grain of our goals and values. Since Permaculture is all about holistically creating an environment conducive to success, how can we re-design the relationship landscape so that we're not swimming upstream, going agaist the herd? Can we at least surround ourselves with enough of a positive supporting network to offset the negative impact of living in an insane society? 

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Whenever I see documentaries set in horticultural societies, or tribal cultures, such as the one I recently watched about life in rural Japanese villages, I'm always incredibly envious to see 80-year-old village elders sitting around together, sharing life-long friendships that have developed depth and resonance over the better part of a century, living among rich waves of life experience, generations of their kin. 

"Talk about true wealth," my partner Kimberly Willis says, that's a fundamental, beautiful human experience that even the wealthiest of us simply cannot buy in a fast-paced, transient world where we move and change jobs every 3 years. 

So it's important to understand that our society isn't just corrosive to the environment, jobs, health, etc. it often robs us of the normal, deep human relationships that have been a natural part of being human for as long as there have been humans. Relationships that develop and grow richer over lifetimes.

Could design also help us here, too? 

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"In a longitudinal study that followed pairs of best friends over 19 years, a team led by Andrew Ledbetter, an associate professor of communication studies at Texas Christian University, found that participants had moved an average of 5.8 times during that period.

“I think that’s just kind of a part of life in the very mobile and high-level transportation- and communication-technology society that we have,” Ledbetter says. “We don’t think about how that’s damaging the social fabric of our lives.”

- How Friendships Change in Adulthood, The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/how-friendships-change-over-time-in-adulthood/411466/

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Of course, we get something in the tradeoff between folk societies and modern high-transportation society. 

Personally, there are a few people I'd simply prefer to avoid rather than having to do the hard work of getting along. Of course, these days there are more people who are hard to get along with - since it's a skill we don't have to learn anymore. 

And these days we have the ability to connect with people all over the world who share our particular passions and interests, we can learn from and mentor with ground-breaking leaders and exemplars of whatever it is that we want to do. I've had the opportunity to exchange ideas with some of the thought leaders of Permaculture and forest gardening from around the world, like Eric Toensmeier, Martin Crawford, and Angelo Eliades. 

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An ideal life design in the modern world wouldn't romanticize the past and yearn to "go backwards" anymore than it would promote an ethnocentric idealization of our present. Instead, we should seek to have the best of both worlds, minimizing the downsides and maximizing the positives. It seems it would be wise to cultivate a balanced approach, with deep relationships as well as a broad community, with branches to the world-wide community but roots in the local biome. We can each act like the tree in this metaphor, a conduit of exchange between the sky of global world and the soil of our home. 

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Many in the "life coaching" industry are quick to suggest we surround ourselves with people who are high-achievers. 

"Show me a man's friends and I'll show you his future." 

I've heard some  of these life coaches dismiss family and neighbors as meaningless accidents of birth. We should seek to maximize the value of our acquaintanceships by choosing who we surround ourselves with. Often, they go as far as to say that we should "cut out" people who aren't a positive influence on our goals, and for them, the main goal is usually cash riches. But even if you want more than fast cash, this approach leaves us impoverished in two very important ways: serendipity and synchronicity. 

Serendipity is being enriched by different perspectives, different values and different experiences. These life coaches would have us silo ourselves into very small worlds, with very narrow views of life. Ever wonder why too often the leaders of corporations seem blind to the plight of people that their businesses abuse? They've literally cut themselves off to the riches of outside perspectives and lives. They may be rich, but they've utterly impoverished themselves in what science tells us is one of the most important assets for human happiness: compassion. 

Synchronicity is the understanding that accidents and coincidences are themselves meaningful and significant. "Accidents" of birth and geography are no less meaningful than relationships we've chosen out of shared values and experiences. It seems to me that "accidents of family and geography" offer us a great gift. Sharing relationships with people who have very different views and values is absolutely vital for compassion and happiness, as well as for building a just and sustainable world - something that makes us all richer. 

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The design tools of Permaculture offer us an opportunity to mindfully evaluate our relationships, helping us create a life that is better for ourselves and everyone around us, both the ones who chose us and those who are stuck with us. In part 3, we'll think aloud about some of those tools and what we can learn from them. 

Social Permaculture - Designing the Landscape of Relationships Part 1

In the mountains near Guoqing Temple, there lived a wild-eyed poet-philosopher, a great meditation master who spent his days tending his garden, practicing yoga and reveling in the deep stillness of nature. Many students made the long pilgrimage up to see him, and draw on the great wisdom he had learned from a life immersed in nature. 

Each year on the Buddha's birthday, he would come down the mountain to take dinner and celebrate with the monks and students of the temple. After the meal, the abbot stood up to say a few words. 

"Monks, as we're gathered here today I'm reminded of what a great treasure it is to have real friends, ones that help us and support us in our goal of seeking true happiness." He spoke about how such friends serve as models and mentors, challenge us towards excellence, and support us through our troubles, and when we support them through their failures we learn ourselves. "In contrast, it's very important that we recognize when our relationships are harmful to our goals. It is all too easy to fall into relationships that will lead us astray, cause us to question our own values and goals, or lead us into destructive habits. At the worst, we can inadvertently follow these destructive friends right into the deepest of hell realms. Monks, protect your goals and your own path to true happiness, surround yourself with good friends, and cut these negative or destructive relationships out of your life." 

The monks all applauded this speech, and made a toast. But then, one of the monks spoke up and said, "what of our guest, the sage from the mountain, I'd like to hear what he thinks of this speech."

After a slight pause, the wild-eyed poet said, "oh it was very good." 

Sensing some critique in the hesitation, the monks pressed him to continue. "Everything that the abbot has said seems completely true to me. But also this seems completely true: each person we meet along our path, no matter who they are, or where they are on their path, is a chance for us to learn and to practice true happiness. And when you're ready, you should be able to descend to the very deepest of hell realms and make flowers bloom."

I've always loved these Eastern stories where BOTH sides in an apparent conflict are equally right, which is very contrary to our Western "right/wrong" way of thinking. This story is about how our relationships effect our search for true happiness from a Buddhist perspective, but I think there's a wisdom here that can help us all with our goals and our search for a happy life. 

Permaculture is a holistic design system that supports our goals, whether it's increasing farm productivity, creating healthier social networks, or creating a rewarding right livelihood, by creating the circumstances conducive to naturally achieving those goals. Since these goals take up a lot of our time and energy, and we're naturally social learners, certainly our relationships must have an enormous impact on achievement. 

Yet, I think there are some really good reasons why it seems very distasteful to most of us to consciously manipulate our relationships to achieve some goal. Because most of the time when we hear this kind of advice from life coaches and self help "experts" they're talking about changing our relationships to support our monetary dreams, and for most of us our relationships should take priority over things like income goals. 

But it seems to me that good design and conscious living could support us in building better relationships as well as helping us live up to our values and meet our deepest life goals - not just buying the junk on our "vision boards."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DfYHeGD7WSM

In Part 2, we'll elaborate on the "pros and cons" of taking a mindful, Permaculture approach to designing our relational landscape. 

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For those in the S.W. Michigan area, you'll have an opportunity to surround yourself with like-minded Permaculture enthusiasts next weekend, October 1st at 9:00 am in Lawton, at our Van-Kal Permaculture meeting. We'll discuss all things Permaculture, talk about our Fall Permaculture Design Certificate Course and help our host PJ with some work on his forest garden. For more details, visit: 

http://www.meetup.com/Van-Kal-Permaculture/events/233957570/

Transform Your Yard to a Permaculture Oasis

Permaculture News published this nice write-up about our project. It's really gratifying to see our project inspire people around the world.

If you've ever wanted an example of how to transform your property, this details the process we used.

http://permaculturenews.org/2016/08/18/urban-permaculture-transformation-michigan/

Prolific Plants for a Rapidly Expanding Garden

(A beautiful new forest garden we're helping with, in the very beginings of establishment!) 

"Establishing a Garden is Expensive!"

I recenty spoke to a gardener who said they thought they had spent countless hours and thousands of dollars establishing native plant gardens in their landscape. Many of these plants are sold for $10 -$25 and up per plant at the nursery. And most can be very difficult to start from seed. 

You can absolutely spend that same kind of money in establishing an edible forest garden, with some rare edible plants starting around $10, and some fantastic edible tree species hard to find under $50.

At least a forest garden pays you back in food. In fact, a well-designed forest garden should be able to pay for itself in the first year, and quickly require far less management and maintenance than other kinds of gardens, including "native" gardens.

But Permaculture founder Bill Mollison proposed a somewhat different model, that starts outside the front door and uses that first garden area as the nursery that will provide you with the plants to convert an entire yard. This first planting bed/nursery is sometimes called a "first locus" by Permaculturists, and it's often the first thing that gets planted when we start converting a site. 

This was exactly the strategy we used, establishing our first couple of plantings with a set of high-value edible plants that could fit together like a natural ecosystem, or "guild," and from there, those first plantings have provided a large percentage of the plant stock for our entire garden. 

Which means there are two basic charactaristics of the plants that work for such a plan:

1. They're high value. They provide high-quality ecosystem and edible functions. If you're going to be using these throughout your entire site, then you have to be able to use these plants and their products in large quantities! 

2. They have to be "prolific," having the ability to rapidly multiply or be easily propagated out to cover an entire landscape. 

Now, the drawback to that second charactaristic is that such plants are often called "weedy," usually by gardeners who don't understand ecology or the process of natural succession. All the same, understand that we're choosing these plants BECAUSE in early succession, on a newly prepared site, they are going to spread rapidly, providing you with high-value plants to cover your garden. 

If you've chosen "high value" plants, this is a good thing. A very good thing. 

From then on, instead of "weeding," you will be "harvesting" valuable plants that you can eat, transplant, mulch with or sell! With such high-value agressive plants in the garden, you'll have very little room for low value "weeds" that will be more burden than boon. Many of these actually act as "fortress plants," staving off the encroachment of weeds and grasses. 

And this is even more important on very "extensive" low maintenance food forest gardens, such as public projects, church and work gardens, etc, where we need to get nature to do as much work for us as possible. If you're worried about the labor problem of "weeding" these high value plants, then perhaps the project could use a little more consideration and design before planting begins, since these plants will ultimately reduce garden maintenance. If you don't have time for these plants, you certainy don't have time to garden without them!

So, there are many fantastic plants that fit this bill, but to avoid getting too overwhelming, I'll keep it simple and recommend:

10 of my top "essential" pioneer plants for a forest garden

Plants that are very high-value, great to eat, highly useful in polyculture "guilds," and prolific:

1. Egyptian Walking Onions. 3 onions in one, available all through the year. And since onions can go in just about everything savory, it's great if they fill the garden. 

2. Sorrel. Lemon-flavored spinach, very nutrient rich, and available in early Spring. Excellent as a "mulch-maker" plant and dynamic accumulator.

3. Blood-veined sorrel. Slightly less good to eat, though very pretty, and better in its ecological roles. 

4. Plantains. Pretty much all of them are terrific, though "minutina" is the best-tasting. Rugels plantain gives a native option. 

5. Endives. All are great in their ecological role and spread nicely. These include Belgian endive, frissee, radichio, and a few other expensive vegetables, but only choose one, because they'll cross and lose their mojo. Even then, all can be celar-forced for fresh greens in January. 

6. Turkish rocket. An amazing vegetable, a great insectary plant, and "fortress plant" to be reckoned with. 

7. Dames rocket. A relative of #6, but better tasting, in my opinion. However, its "ephemeral" growth pattern means it needs to be interplanted with a good summer species to take over when it dies back. Here at Lillie House, we're actually developing a "hairless" version of this delicious , but slightly fuzzy veggie. 

8. Jerusalem artichokes. One of the only native vegetables that can be put on this list, I recently spoke to a native plant gardener who called this lovely edible native "terribly invasive!" Go figure.

9. Oregano, thyme and other mints. That's right, understand that planting mints in a garden without barriers is not for the "faint of heart." IF you actually USE these herbs, they will not become a "problem." But don't plant more than you plan on using, and keep them to plantings that can be controlled by mowing around them. Thyme deserves special mention as the only real "ground cover" on this list. We recommend planting a large variety of thymes, lemon thyme, orange thyme, mastic thyme, etc. to make your ground-cover as useful as possible, since it's likely to take up a lot of room in the garden. But if you're worried about mints escaping, don't plant them! Don't say I didn't warn you. 

10. Crosnes. Speaking of mints, here's an old forgotten gourmet vegetable that deserves to be remembered. Excellent as a "fortress plant," vigorously spreads and produces a tuber much like a water chestnut, but corkskrew shaped to liven up salad and stir-fry.     

Bonus: A few woody perennials that also fit this description:

1. Black raspberries and blackberries. I recommend planting both to extend harvest time. Blackberries have superior fruit but can be more challenging to tame, since they spread by runner. Black raspberies only spread by "tip-rooting" when the tips touch the ground, so they can be controlled by pruning. Good quality blackberry plants are expensive, though, so they can provide you with a valuable nursery yield in addition to fruit that costs a fortune at the store. 

2. Elderberry. Another "cane fruit" that spreads rapidly and is very valuable. 

3. Gooseberries and currants. Great fruit, easy to propagate via "tip layering."

4. Cornelian cherries. Good to eat, easy to propagate. 

5. Nanking cherry. Precocious, fruiting in a few years time, and Readily spreads by seed.  

6. Mulberry. You can keep them "coppiced" into bush form for easy picking. They produce huge amounts of biomass to mulch the garden with and leaves can be fed to livestock or herbivore pets. 

And remember the keys to quick establishment are high diversity and high density, so I recommend starting with as many of the above plants as possible. 

Polyculture Design Class

We still have a few spaces left in Sunday's Polyculture Design Class. 

Establishing good, self-maintaining polycultures has been the key strategy in quickly transforming our site at Lillie House, allowing us to get an area "finished" so we can move along to the next project.

Polycultures are plantings that incorporate multiple species of plants, not just one as we see in a conventional crop field, or a suburban lawn. "Perennials" are plants that come back year after year, instead of needing to be planted and re-established each year.  

When you create a new conventional garden, you create more work for yourself: tilling, planting, weeding, watering, pest prevention, disease intervention... and each year the work starts all over again. If it took 50% of your free time this year, it will take the same next year, which is why people get "stuck" in their projects, never able to move forward. 

But when you invest your time in creating a perennial polyculture, it might take 50% of your free time the first year, but in the 2nd year, it might only take 3% or 4%, allowing you to move on to the next area of your yard. In this way, you can build a complete edible landscape, or "food forest garden" as a tapestry of polycultures. 

In this class, we'll learn about a variety of approaches to polycultures and study dozens of models that can be put to work in gardens in the Great Lakes region.  

We'll also be releasing this class as an "online" class for those who can't make it this weekend. 

SPACE IS LIMITED: To register, contact Mike at lillie.house.kzoo@gmail.com 

Time: Sunday, 9:00 am, suggested donation $25, ($40, includes online materials and videos.)