[careinke]

I was browsing through the internet and came across a video posted in 2007 with the name of this thread. It is an interview with David Holmgren, the co-originator of "Permaculture." Here is the description of the video:

Uploaded on Jul 18, 2007

David Holmgren is co-originator (with Bill Mollison) of the permaculture concept and author of the recent book, PERMACULTURE: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. He talks about the need to move beyond the lulling hope that 'green tech' breakthroughs will allow world-wide 'sustainable consumption' to the recognition that dwindling oil supplies inevitably mean a mandatory 'energy descent' for human civilization across the planet. He argues that permaculture principles provide the best guide to a peaceful societal 'powering down."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFjFG24BeX8

It was interesting to watch this from a 6 year later perspective. So far he seems right on track. I was also taken by how close some of his thoughts are to our own Pops. Holmgren believes as we continue on an energy decent cooperation, reducing long food chain links, and limiting mobility will prove to be much more relevant than the systems in place today. His basic precept is today's systems work well with continual increases in energy, but are not effective in an energy declining environment. He proposes permaculture as a way to help ease the transition and even provide for a comfortable, yet different lifestyle.

Personally, I was a LOT more doomerish before I became a permaculturist. Permaculture offers a way around the upcoming collapse (hopefully a slow one) on an individual level. The science is there, and it works. It can also be implemented without government assistance, and without directly competing with the present system.

A Permaculturist's dream would be to obtain a piece of marginal or degraded land to restore. Observe it for a year while designing the site. Then bring in the earth moving equipment to build the infrastructure to: Capture the site energies (gravity, solar, wind etc.), slow down water so it replenishes the water table, increase efficiencies, build soil, minimize future work, and eliminate waste. If done correctly the site could provide your energy, shelter, income, food, medicine, clothing, a very healthy living environment, and an example for others to use. In addition, these benefits will continue for hundreds if not thousands of years all because of the initial investment in the infrastructure combined with good design.

What really blows my mind, is pretty much anyone can learn, and have the confidence to do this, anywhere in the world, with only 72 hours of instruction and the right motivation. It's sort of like the course puts the framework on your mind, just as the permaculturist builds a framework on the land. With this framework you have the ethics, the principles, and knowledge of energy capture, water flows, climate, topographies etc. From that framework you have the ability to continue to expand and more importantly use this knowledge.

Permaculture by its very nature cannot be political or religious (although some keep trying to make it that way). You can have your beliefs, but that is not part of permaculture. I think that is why it is attractive to both the right and left, the preppers, the environmentalists, libertarians, wickens, heathens, anarchists etc etc.

I plan to use this thread to post examples of successful powerdown taking place right now, along with some of the ways we will take over the world bwahahahah......

[Loki]

Thanks for the video, I've downloaded it and will watch it soon. I like a lot of the concepts of permaculture. That said, the permie clique can often be rather irritating. There is no "one true way."

with only 72 hours of instruction

This also bothers me. I've been doing horticulture and organic farming full-time for more than six years now, and was a backyard gardener and amateur botanist for a few years before that. I feel like I've only just begun to get a dim grasp of the subject.

[careinke]

Thanks for the video, I've downloaded it and will watch it soon. I like a lot of the concepts of permaculture. That said, the permie clique can often be rather irritating. There is no "one true way."

with only 72 hours of instruction

This also bothers me. I've been doing horticulture and organic farming full-time for more than six years now, and was a backyard gardener and amateur botanist for a few years before that. I feel like I've only just begun to get a dim grasp of the subject.

I know exactly how you feel, I've been doing it for a long time too (over ten years), and feel I've just scratched the surface in all the things I want to learn and do. But permaculture isn't really gardening, or horticulture. It is a design science that deliberately crosses multi-disciplines and connects them in as many ways as possible. A couple of examples may help.

For example, I don't need to know how to operate an excavator to build swales, or dams, or ponds. I just need to know where to place these structures, how they work, and how to explian to the back hoe driver what I want.

I need to know that a forest has seven layers of plants starting with the forest canopy, understory trees, bush layer.... down to the root layer. I need to know that those layers will always get filled no matter what I do. So I research plants to fill each layer that also provides me with the yields I want. There are plenty of resources out there to help me. A good horticulturist knows maybe 500 plants well. There are over 4,000 types of apples alone. But I can find the plants I need, or want to try pretty easily.

I guess what I'm trying, not too successfully, to get across is the Permaculture Design Course gives you the framework to build systems that produce enough excess energy to be able to reproduce themselves at least once over their lifetimes.

Permaculture gives you the ethics, principles, and techniques to apply this world wide. Here is a two hour video by Jack Spiro covering six permaculture techniques.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxAUJ77UGXs

from his description:

In this presentation I cover

6 Core Permaculture Techniques

Forest Gardening / Food Forest Establishment
Creating and Using Seed Mixtures
Lawn to Pasture Conversion
Zone Planning and Implementation
Mob Grazing / Small Livestock Paddock Shift Systems
Developing Regionally Adapted Seed Strains
Contour Based Wood Core Beds

It actually covers more than that, it sort of demonstrates applying permaculture principles, while covering specific techniques. Jack has also put on You Tube, a free series of lectures, covering the basic permaculture course. It will not get you certified, but it looks like it is very good, and will cover most of the 72 hours. The first couple of vids had some technical issues, but he keeps improving them. I like his non political, no nonsense style.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgRwtMGcNe4

So, watch his permaculture videos, maybe one a night, instead of a TV show. If you do that, I can almost guarantee you won't be bothered as much by the 72 hours, have a better understanding of where I am coming from, and pick up some very useful info to boot. If you actually do a property design, you have basically got the course for free. Heck, I would even critique your design for you, for free.

[Shaved Monkey]

Ive been watching and helping my dad organically garden his plot for nearly 50 years.
I have gardened my plots for over 30 years
Bought Mollison's big book about 25 years ago
Im still learning.

[careinke]

Ive been watching and helping my dad organically garden his plot for nearly 50 years.
I have gardened my plots for over 30 years
Bought Mollison's big book about 25 years ago
Im still learning.

Mollison's big book is basically what a PDC course covers, but it is certainly not an easy read. Some people, like Joel Salatin, are not trained in permaculture, but inherently practice it with great success.

[Quinny]

+1

We're not even scratching the surface of self sustainability, but we have significantly powered down. Our grocery bills are small, power consumption down, living in a rural we managed to reduce petrol consumption by carefully planning journeys. This has gone up recently since I got a job mainly to integrate and learn the language.

We do love the life, we also wear more jumpers

[Shaved Monkey]

Ive been watching and helping my dad organically garden his plot for nearly 50 years.
I have gardened my plots for over 30 years
Bought Mollison's big book about 25 years ago
Im still learning.

Mollison's big book is basically what a PDC course covers, but it is certainly not an easy read. Some people, like Joel Salatin, are not trained in permaculture, but inherently practice it with great success.

These guys didnt read the book either
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hftgWcD-1Nw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ZgzwoQ-ao

[KaiserJeep]

Why can't people do simple arithmetic? Permaculture crop yields are substantially lower than conventional mechanized farming crop yields.

- Examples for row crops include Winter Wheat 60% of overall average, Corn 71%, Soybeans 66%, Spring Wheat 47% and Rice 59%

- Examples for fruits include Grapes 51%, Apples 88%, Almonds 56%, Avocados 62%,Oranges 43%, Strawberries 58%

- Examples in Vegetables include Tomatoes 63%, Potatoes 72%, Sweet Corn 79%,Celery 50% and Cabbage 43%

Today, using intensive petroleum powered mechanized agriculture and pesticides and fertilizers derived from petroleum and natural gas, the USA can feed it's own population of 331 million people, plus net food exports that support hundreds of millions of other people. The resulting "food power" has enabled the USA to exert economic influence and control over other countries that exceeds even our military power.

If we converted ALL of the croplands in the USA to Permacultural methods, we could feed about 220 million people. One third of our current population would starve, not to mention extensive famine in other countries such as China, India, and numerous African countries.

If we were to convert existing forests into croplands, we might just be able to feed ourselves, the cost would be giving up wood as a construction material, plus giving up bio-fuels made from grains.

In actual fact, we have handled the World population increase since 1960 (when 3 billion inhabited the Earth) to today (7+ billion) with only about a 10% expansion of croplands, because of crop yield increases via intensive mechanized agriculture and petrochemical fertilizers and insecticides. Had we not done so, there would not be any forests or rainforests left, along with approximately half of the animal/plant species that live in them.

The bottom line: Advocating Permaculture without first reducing the human population to a sustainable level, is to advocate the starvation of 2 to 3 billion people. As late as 100 years ago, this idea had merit - but inconveniently, the population increased as the food supply increased, to a point where Permaculture can no longer sustain the globe.

Sources for these statistics:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47829728/A-Detailed-Analysis-of-US-Organic-Crops

http://www.wfs.org/futurist/2013-issues-futurist/march-april-2013-vol-47-no-2/how-innovation-could-save-planet

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/table4_5.pdf

[Pops]

Dang, I need to write a book, I could call it PopCulture! Thanks C. I take the compliment.

My connection is painfully slow right now, I'm going to down the video later but one of the Principles of PC is:
Obtain a Yield Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.

To me it isn't hard to figure out that the best place for the kitchen garden is close to the kitchen and the best place for the woodlot is farthest away. To me the hardest thing about transitioning to a different world is surviving in this one. The inescapable fact is that most of us still must get by with one foot in this world and that entails making a profit and making a profit sustainably is incredibly hard when the competition is cheating via the "Better Living Through Chemistry" method - unless making a sustainable living part includes writing books and giving classes about how easy it is for others to do it, LOL.

To "Obtain a yield" sustainability when society is everywhere and in competition with everything you do is very hard in my experience. The bottom line is even canning some green beans in a sustainable manner is very much more expensive than buying a can off the shelf so entails a high level of devotion. Similar to this and by way of example, I see Amish folks bending over backwards to remain "plain", which in part means not being "connected" via electricity to the greater society. Instead they use diesel powered compressors to run air-powered washing machines, well pumps and hand tools - an air powered worm-drive circular saw costs them $500! I understand what they are trying to do and admire it but I also think they are fooling themselves into thinking they are "separate" just as much as the farmers market customer who pays the the organic grower a premium to pay for his plastic mulch and multiple applications of industrially made insecticidal soap, etc, etc. Just as I would be by fooling myself that grazing dairy bulls for beef is sustainable without dairies or a beef market or antibiotics.

Having said that, I've resigned myself to doing the best I can in the best way I can. I had internalized lots of ideas over the years reading MEN, a library full of miracle garden methods, Foxfire books, etc, etc. It's taken me years to get those out of my system, LOL. In that way I'm somewhat like Toby the Permie guy out in OR who found he actually didn't like being a permie farmer guy and moved back to town to teach others how - except I'm not moving back to town, just accepting of the fact that I've got one foot on the train and one on the platform and hope I can jump if required.

[efarmer]

We are running at a grand scale and scope of humanity and mobility and comfort from millions of years of energy stored as hydrocarbons exploited over a several hundred year period of usage.
It is sort of like being Cinderella at the ball, having no idea when it will be midnight,
and loathing the idea of chasing the rodents home down the road with pumpkin mashed
between the toes on your bare feet.

[Shaved Monkey]

Why can't people do simple arithmetic? Permaculture crop yields are substantially lower than conventional mechanized farming crop yields.

Permaculture is about polyculture , layering and stacking the return from a square foot of permaculture would massively outstrip the supply from a square foot of a traditional modern monoculture farm.

Today, using intensive petroleum powered mechanized agriculture and pesticides and fertilizers derived from petroleum and natural gas, the USA can feed it's own population of 331 million people, plus net food exports that support hundreds of millions of other people.

True ...today

If we converted ALL of the croplands in the USA to Permacultural methods, we could feed about 220 million people. One third of our current population would starve, not to mention extensive famine in other countries such as China, India, and numerous African countries.

The problem wouldnt be that you couldnt produce enough food it would be more cultural,that the people arent where the food is and may not want to eat whats being produced or know how to prepare and harvest it,let alone grow it.
Localising is the key to permaculture so China India and Africa would have to sort their own food too.

The bottom line: Advocating Permaculture without first reducing the human population to a sustainable level, is to advocate the starvation of 2 to 3 billion people. As late as 100 years ago, this idea had merit - but inconveniently, the population increased as the food supply increased, to a point where Permaculture can no longer sustain the globe.

Successfully feeding the globe is the problem,the solution is to not feed them unsustainably.
Nature,maths ,logic,science or economics will find its balance one way or another.
The bottom line is not advocating permaculture and trying to maintain the current agricultural system and current population, knowing it will eventually collapse and result in the death of 2 or 3 or 4 billion people is a far greater crime on humanity.
Permaculture is a long term sustainable solution.

[Quinny]

Have you actually read your 'sources'?

Have you got a clue what Permaculture is about?

Permaculture will kill 2 to 3 billion people, but developing space travel is the way forward.

Sorry but you are seriously delusional. I suggest seeking help.

Why can't people do simple arithmetic? Permaculture crop yields are substantially lower than conventional mechanized farming crop yields.

- Examples for row crops include Winter Wheat 60% of overall average, Corn 71%, Soybeans 66%, Spring Wheat 47% and Rice 59%

- Examples for fruits include Grapes 51%, Apples 88%, Almonds 56%, Avocados 62%,Oranges 43%, Strawberries 58%

- Examples in Vegetables include Tomatoes 63%, Potatoes 72%, Sweet Corn 79%,Celery 50% and Cabbage 43%

Today, using intensive petroleum powered mechanized agriculture and pesticides and fertilizers derived from petroleum and natural gas, the USA can feed it's own population of 331 million people, plus net food exports that support hundreds of millions of other people. The resulting "food power" has enabled the USA to exert economic influence and control over other countries that exceeds even our military power.

If we converted ALL of the croplands in the USA to Permacultural methods, we could feed about 220 million people. One third of our current population would starve, not to mention extensive famine in other countries such as China, India, and numerous African countries.

If we were to convert existing forests into croplands, we might just be able to feed ourselves, the cost would be giving up wood as a construction material, plus giving up bio-fuels made from grains.

In actual fact, we have handled the World population increase since 1960 (when 3 billion inhabited the Earth) to today (7+ billion) with only about a 10% expansion of croplands, because of crop yield increases via intensive mechanized agriculture and petrochemical fertilizers and insecticides. Had we not done so, there would not be any forests or rainforests left, along with approximately half of the animal/plant species that live in them.

The bottom line: Advocating Permaculture without first reducing the human population to a sustainable level, is to advocate the starvation of 2 to 3 billion people. As late as 100 years ago, this idea had merit - but inconveniently, the population increased as the food supply increased, to a point where Permaculture can no longer sustain the globe.

Sources for these statistics:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47829728/A-Detailed-Analysis-of-US-Organic-Crops

http://www.wfs.org/futurist/2013-issues-futurist/march-april-2013-vol-47-no-2/how-innovation-could-save-planet

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/table4_5.pdf

[KaiserJeep]

-snip-
Permaculture is about polyculture , layering and stacking the return from a square foot of permaculture would massively outstrip the supply from a square foot of a traditional modern monoculture farm.

-snip-
True ...today
-snip-
The problem wouldnt be that you couldnt produce enough food it would be more cultural,that the people arent where the food is and may not want to eat whats being produced or know how to prepare and harvest it,let alone grow it.
Localising is the key to permaculture so China India and Africa would have to sort their own food too.
-snip-

Successfully feeding the globe is the problem,the solution is to not feed them unsustainably.
Nature,maths ,logic,science or economics will find its balance one way or another.
The bottom line is not advocating permaculture and trying to maintain the current agricultural system and current population, knowing it will eventually collapse and result in the death of 2 or 3 or 4 billion people is a far greater crime on humanity.
Permaculture is a long term sustainable solution.

So let me ask you one question: When will the USA convert from mechanized agriculture to permaculture?

The answer would be, when we can all agree that it is best that 1/3rd of our population starves.

I understand the benefits, I know the drawbacks to mechanized agriculture. But look at relative crop yields just for corn:

Original Native American Maize: 12 bushels per acre
Hybrid sweet corn (people food) using permaculture: 59 bushels/acre
Hybrid feed corn (animal food) using permaculture: 80 bushels/acre
Hybrid sweet corn using mechanized agriculture and petrochemicals: 239 bushels/acre
Hybrid feed corn using mechanized agriculture and petrochemicals: 359 bushels/acre

Understand what "mechanized agriculture" means: First you nuke everything with Roundup herbicide, then you plant a Roundup-tolerant hybrid corn plus soil amendments (fertilizers). Then you regularly inject straight ammonia gas (made from natural gas and steam) directly onto the plant roots to feed the voracious demand for nitrogen, periodically testing for optimum potassium, phosphorus, and essential trace elements, and spraying custom mixed liquid fertilizers. You monitor the rainfall and the soil moisture levels and supplement via irrigation when necessary. You monitor for pests and spray targeted amounts of specific insecticides if required.

Your yields from such extreme and unsustainable measures are just short of 30X the original natural corn variety yields. Yet this is a fairly exact description of the hybrid feed corns grown for corn sweetener, which is used for ethanol fuels, liquor, and the most common form of sugar added to human food.

Like I said before, if we knew 100 years ago what we knew today, the population of the USA would be less than 100 million, and it truly would not matter how you grew corn or any other crop.

But it's too late to adopt permaculture today, unless you are willing to starve people.

The other factor, is that most people are not gonna want to grow their own food. The OTHER REASON that people moved to cities is that farming was damned hard work, and oil-powered machines were more appropriate to the task at hand.

[KaiserJeep]

Have you actually read your 'sources'?

Have you got a clue what Permaculture is about?

Permaculture will kill 2 to 3 billion people, but developing space travel is the way forward.

Sorry but you are seriously delusional. I suggest seeking help.

-snip-

Yes, I know what permaculture is about. I know it is insufficient in terms of crop yields to feed the population WE HAVE TODAY. I know most people are unwilling to grow food, and permaculture is extremely labor-intensive. I understand how the localization of food saves energy - but I always plan to live within a comfortable distance from a supermarket - and I think I will be able to buy food for the rest of my life - perhaps at higher prices than I would prefer.

I'm not joining the Doomer cult and I don't believe in the "fast crash" scenario.

Technology got us into this mess, and is the best hope for a solution.

[Loki]

So I research plants to fill each layer that also provides me with the yields I want. There are plenty of resources out there to help me. A good horticulturist knows maybe 500 plants well. There are over 4,000 types of apples alone. But I can find the plants I need, or want to try pretty easily.

Not really following you on this. I know permaculture is all about design, but how can you manage a food forest without knowing your plants inside and out? In my horticulture program I spent well over 120 hours of formal classroom and field time studying plant ID (yes, I think it was around 500 plants). That doesn't include homework and studying for exams. And that was just plant ID, doesn't include arboriculture, soil science, propagation, etc., etc.

Not really clear on permaculture's strong emphasis on design, either. I've met a fair number of landscape architects and landscape designers, they were good at drawing designs, I'm sure, but hands-on, practical production experience was often lacking. And in the end, it's production that matters. Landscape design is secondary.

Not trying to start a fight Careinke, I do want to bone up on permaculture concepts, but as you can see I have some gripes about the subject. My knowledge of permaculture is admittedly somewhat limited, though, I've read Hemenway's book and a bit online, but not much. Thanks for the video links, I'll download and watch them, maybe they'll soften my views.

Funny, I recently applied for a job that would have involved developing a permaculture demonstration site. It was part-time, but was within a mile or so of the new farm my boss recently bought. Would have been perfect. But they wanted a certified permie, apparently my horticulture degree and years of arboricultural and organic farming experience didn't impress. All for lack of a 72-hour course

[careinke]

Have you actually read your 'sources'?

Have you got a clue what Permaculture is about?

Permaculture will kill 2 to 3 billion people, but developing space travel is the way forward.

Sorry but you are seriously delusional. I suggest seeking help.

-snip-

Yes, I know what permaculture is about. I know it is insufficient in terms of crop yields to feed the population WE HAVE TODAY. I know most people are unwilling to grow food, and permaculture is extremely labor-intensive. I understand how the localization of food saves energy - but I always plan to live within a comfortable distance from a supermarket - and I think I will be able to buy food for the rest of my life - perhaps at higher prices than I would prefer.

I'm not joining the Doomer cult and I don't believe in the "fast crash" scenario.

Technology got us into this mess, and is the best hope for a solution.

Jeep, I think you think you know what permaculture is, but you need a little more study. First off once I figured out what you were saying with the crop yields (I read your link, thanks), I noticed you were comparing Organic Farming with conventional farming, not permaculture yields to industrial farming.

Organic farming is an improvement, but you can go farther. Organic farming uses a lot of plastic for mulch, still plants as a monoculture and uses pesticides (although organic, it still kills beneficial insects). Plus as I'm sure Loki can attest to, it is pretty labor intensive.

I also noticed that though there yields were lower, the got more money for their crops. The study said input costs were also not included so they could not show which method was most profitable. Now, we own wheat land in Eastern Oregon so I am aware of the inputs required (Fuel, herbicides, fertilizer. pesticides, fungicides, equipment, etc). It is sharecropped by a cousin, who just happens to have a PHD in Agriculture Economics from Purdue. He gives us a detailed breakdown every year.

I visited once, and was struck by how unnatural the land felt, the best way I could describe the soil...dead. In case you have not noticed, nature never grows a monoculture, there is a reason for that.

Anyway, no one is even suggesting replacing the industrial farms with permaculture farms. First there is no such thing as a monoculture permaculture crop, with maybe the exception of growing sprouts. Second, most of the Midwest would be better suited as grass land savanna mob grazing protein cattle among other things.

We could however, replace the largest irrigated crop. Larger than wheat, even larger than corn. I'm talking lawns.


http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=6019

On another point, FH King in his 1911 book "Farmers of Forty Centuries OR Permanent Agriculture In China, Korea and Japan," Documents families of 11 living sustainably on just 1 2/3 acres. Guess what, they were not using monoculture. This was well before industrial agriculture practices.

[Shaved Monkey]

If you want to see yield
Find a plant that grows like a weed and requires virtually no input from you and delivers heaps of free protein and carbs in a very small area.
In the subtropics its hard to go past Madagascar beans
and their improving your soil by adding mulch and fixing nitrogen while they feed you.
and last 7 years in the ground so no need to keep replanting.
and the dry beans store well.
Pretty Zombie proof
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjEfpX4Y5oc

[Loki]

I understand what they are trying to do and admire it but I also think they are fooling themselves into thinking they are "separate" just as much as the farmers market customer who pays the the organic grower a premium to pay for his plastic mulch and multiple applications of industrially made insecticidal soap, etc, etc.

Plastic? What plastic?

To be fair, conventional veg growers also use plastic, plus plenty of restricted-use pesticides. Organic pesticides are all general-use AFAIK. But yes, organic sprays ain't perfect.

I personally think plastic mulch should be prohibited under organic standards, although I appreciate its benefits. I've laid thousands of bed feet of the stuff and taken it to the dump by the truck load. Not good. I also think tillage should be better regulated and copper sprays banned entirely.

It's all about market pressures, as you say. It's an arms race between growers, who can extend the season the longest, grow the most cosmetically perfect crop, and reduce labor costs the most. But at least organic standards set a bare minimum of ethical standards. Emphasis on the bare minimum---always room for improvement. If the backyard permaculture designers were subject to the same market pressures, they'd find themselves spraying neem, pyrethrin, Oxidate, and copper, and laying acres of polyethylene, just like us organic row croppers.

LOL about teaching rather than doing. Yep. How many full-time commercial permaculture farms are there? Only one I know of in the Pacific Northwest is the Bullock's, and I've heard they earn as much of their income from teaching as they do from farming. And I believe their labor is the paying apprentice kind. A lot easier to stay in the black if your workers pay you

Don't mean to diss the Bullocks, I don't know them, haven't seen their farm, and don't know anything about their balance sheet. Just seems to me that permaculture theory hasn't been put to the same real-world trial by fire that organic row cropping has.

[careinke]

So I research plants to fill each layer that also provides me with the yields I want. There are plenty of resources out there to help me. A good horticulturist knows maybe 500 plants well. There are over 4,000 types of apples alone. But I can find the plants I need, or want to try pretty easily.

.....
Not really clear on permaculture's strong emphasis on design, either. I've met a fair number of landscape architects and landscape designers, they were good at drawing designs, I'm sure, but hands-on, practical production experience was often lacking. And in the end, it's production that matters. Landscape design is secondary.

Not trying to start a fight Careinke, I do want to bone up on permaculture concepts, but as you can see I have some gripes about the subject. My knowledge of permaculture is admittedly somewhat limited, though, I've read Hemenway's book and a bit online, but not much. Thanks for the video links, I'll download and watch them, maybe they'll soften my views.

Funny, I recently applied for a job that would have involved developing a permaculture demonstration site. It was part-time, but was within a mile or so of the new farm my boss recently bought. Would have been perfect. But they wanted a certified permie, apparently my horticulture degree and years of arboricultural and organic farming experience didn't impress. All for lack of a 72-hour course

Lets see if I can answer some of your comments, no need for a fight.

I guess the reason design is emphasized by Permaculturists is you have to take the Permaculture DESIGN Course to be certified. Design is always first, never secondary. Good design ensures good production. Bad design or no design decreases efficiency, requires more outside inputs, and produce more waste.

As far as the job, I'm really sorry you are not certified, you would have been great. But honestly, how would you be able to develop a Permaculture demonstration site without knowing permaculture. Frankly, a permaculturist would have a much much easier time developing the site.

Not really following you on this. I know permaculture is all about design, but how can you manage a food forest without knowing your plants inside and out? In my horticulture program I spent well over 120 hours of formal classroom and field time studying plant ID (yes, I think it was around 500 plants). That doesn't include homework and studying for exams. And that was just plant ID, doesn't include arboriculture, soil science, propagation, etc., etc.

Well when you plant a food forest, you know that there are layers that need to be filled.


there are lots of databases out there for finding plants based on permaculture criteria. Every plant you choose ideally has at least three uses. You stack the plants based on layers, blooming times, fruiting times, etc. You plant mulch plants where you intend to use them, etc, etc. Of course you try stuff expecting failures, but your diversity is so great, you can absorb a lot of failures and even your failures can still be used for something (think compost). And finally Permies love to tell about their projects.

At last count I have over 150 different edible things growing or living on my land. That would count apples as one thing even though I have 15 or so types of apples. Any day of the year, I could walk out my door and harvest a meal for four in less than an hour or two. It might not be a meal your used to eating, but it would have much more nutrition than you would get from Safeway and probably taste way better. That said, I have not even scratched the surface.

[Loki]

there are lots of databases out there for finding plants based on permaculture criteria.

Databases are all fine and well, I've learned a lot from books and the internet. But a small fraction of what I've learned by dealing hands-on with the plants in question.

Frankly, a permaculturist would have a much much easier time developing the site.

Perhaps. But still, I like to think there's a bit of a gap between someone who's taken a 72-hour online landscape design course versus someone who has 10,000+ hours of hands-on work experience in arboriculture and organic farming, plus 800+ hours of formal horticulture education. Not that I'm bitter

As it turns out, I think the next couple years will turn out to be just as interesting, if not as remunerative, as the permie job. My boss bought a 50-acre tree nursery, which he plans on converting into an organic farm; I'll be managing the tree part during the transition. I must say, he's lucky to have a tree guy like me on board

Might take the permie course one of these days, but arborist certification is a higher priority. I have the work experience and education, just need to take a multiple choice test and write a big fat check to the ISA. The test is easy, but do you have any idea how many tomatoes I have to harvest/process for $350? I shudder to think. Shelling out a grand for a permie cert is out of the question right now.