The idea which is at the basis of permaculture: Making things natural (or "natural", as it would be if it was wild nature). Suddenly a whole new way of thinking about garden design, plant choice and companion plants. In stead of shooting in the dark as to what is good for the plants, I just have to think about how and where this plant grows in nature or how plants grow together.
- Of course the strawberries prefer a very light shade, to full sun...they grow in the open forrests, like beech forrests.
- Of course there should be no bare ground in the garden, where do you ever see that in nature except after land slides, fires, earth quakes? Bare soil is unnatural. Even i organic gardening you can see bare soil, but not only is it unnatural, using the bare-soil approach when growing organic also means that you will be toiling and breaking your back to pieces removing weeds.
- And where do you ever, in nature, see a monocrop of grass? There is always lots of other plants amongst the grass.
Amongst organic growers extensive rather than intensive growing/farming is hailed. But permaculture says:
If productivity is raised using permaculture (which makes bigger amounts of food
avalible from the same amount of land - in opposition to monoculture that is
more inefficient), not as much land needs to be cultivated and more of it can be
allowed to be wild nature. We make space for greater biodiversity.
(My parafrasing from 'Permaculture in a nutshell').
That turns things upside down for me and opens up for at whole new way of thinking.
Or what about:
Environmental problems cannot be solves through consuming more (even
environmentally friendly) or by recycling - it is only treating the symptoms.You have to go deeper and treat the disease: Consume less. Especially of unrenewable ressources of overused renewable ressources.
(My parafrasing from 'Permaculture in a nutshell').
Of course! I did think a lot about consuming less goods before (and does consume very little), mostly out of financial reasons, but this quote really put it into context for me. And made me also think about my consumption of heat, water, electricity.
And I could keep going on and on.... ;).
I really appreciate this new approach that has revealed itself to me. Organic seemt a bit stuck in "like conventional growing, just without pesticides". Sustainability just kept focusing on the latest fad, and I lacked a holistic approach. And selv-sufficiency was so focused on production, that nature's ways seem to loose ground.
In permaculture everything knits together to form a unity. It has refreshed my enthusiasm and creativity and given me so many new ideas. Looking very much forward to see where I'll end up....
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