Hops and fennel sharing close quarters
Permaculture, also referred to as Biodynamic or French intensive gardening, is a system of farming or gardening that generates high crop yields from small spaces -- from four times to some reports of 31 times the yields of conventionally-farmed acreage. For those of us gardening in tiny urban or suburban lots, permaculture concepts offer the possibility of genuinely productive food gardening.
Permaculture gardeners see the farm or garden, and the soil, as holistic, living organisms. They mimic relationships found between plants and animals in nature, and adopt an intensive-management approach to plants.
What this means for the backyard gardener is that with a little attention and patience you can grow a lot of food in very little space. It's a subject big enough to fill a number of books, but here's the high-level view:
- Soil: Permaculture takes a very active role in soil management. Biodynamic planting beds are usually "double dug" to a two-foot depth to allow a very light, soft soil texture. This allows young plants' tiny roots to grow and thrive with little effort. Organic fertilization methods such as composting and careful use of nitrogen fixing legume crops also maximize nutrients in the soil and keep it from becoming depleted. Mounding also allows more plants per bed, as the curve of the mound adds surface area. It also happens to look pretty, which is not insignificant when trying to build home landscapes.
- Plants: Biodynamic gardens do not have neat, monocultural rows of like plants. Instead, almost-touching leaf crowns create a layer of "green mulch" that helps to suppress weeds. Biodynamic gardeners also utilize a layering method -- root crops, leaves, fruits and vines can grow in very close quarters because the "action" is happening at a different level, keeping crowding to a minimum. (Think of wine glasses on a shelf: You can fit twice as many if you turn half of them upside down.)
- Beneficial Interplanting: Aside from issues of packing density, biodynamic gardeners know that some plants have speciic beneficial actions upon each other and upon the soil in which they grow. Plant "guilds" that work together include the "Three Sisters" system commonly found in Mexico: corn, beans and squash. Beans add nitrogen to the soil, compensating for the nitrogen-hogging corn. The bean vines twine up the living trellis of the cornstalks, and the squash snakes along the ground in between the rows. Interestingly, this group is as complementary in the kitchen as it is in the garden, with the three crops making up the foundation of a nutritionally complete meal. Companion planting can discourage ravenous insects, encourage pollinizers, promote each other's preferred soil conditions and act as physical supports for one another (more specifics on co-planting will appear in a future article -- stay tuned).
- Animals: The modern food chain, in which cattle are raised in feedlots, chickens in battery pens, and row crops in vast multi-acre fields stripped down to one species, is a recent phenomenon. Despite the current widespread belief that separating animals from food crops promotes hygiene and food safety, the preponderance of evidence over our whole history says otherwise. Animals, vegetables, soil and sun are a perfect circuit, feeding, sustaining and yes, even keeping each other clean and healthy. While most East Bay backyard gardeners are unlikely to keep beef cattle in their backyards, it's worth noting that farm animals do have a place in our growing system. Chickens, which are enjoying increasing resurgence in American backyards these days, exert a very reasonable influence on the productivity of a garden. They are compost machines, and turn garden and kitchen scraps into a valuable soil conditioner (not to mention that they pay for their room and board in delicious fresh eggs). They are biologically programed to dig and scratch at the soil, aerating it. And caterpillars and grubs are their version of caviar -- voila, organic pest control.
All too soon, summer veggies will start flagging and it will be time to prep your beds for fall. So stay tuned for more tips on incorportaing biodynamic principles into your space.
Comments
Biodynamics is not the same as permaculture, and as for it generating 4 to 31 x the yields of conventional farming, that's just plain wrong.
Hey Simon, thanks for that very helpful clarification. Permaculture, Biodynamics and French Intensive method cropping do have distinctions but I'd be happy to point you to a host of resources that use them pretty much interchangably. As for the yield numbers, readers might want to know more about *your* sources so they can understand why the ones I've read are so wrong. Can you provide some links? Thanks a ton! Or a 31st of a ton, anyway. And thanks for reading.
I'd just like to know whether Simon works for Safeway or United Trucking. Anyway, I wouldn't care if the yield was X 1. The effect on the garden is beautiful to the eye and to the soul. The effect on children who do the harvesting is not quantifable at all.
Great post and clarifications if anyone would like to find a great permaculture resource site check out the various links and post at www.punkrockpermaculture.com great job fellow examiner Amy.
Very nice Amy. I'm glad you are putting this out there. However I have a few clarifications I think you will find useful.
First, what you are referring to as biodynamics is actually called the bio-intensive method (or Grow Bio-intensive). It is a term coined by John Jeavons of Ecology Action. Check out their site for more information on the subject: www.growbiointensive.org/
Secondly, biodynamics is something developed by the Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner in the early 1900's. Biodynamics is primarily a study and practice in the realm of metaphysics, esotericism, astronomy, and the study of the universe -- applied to natural farming and gardening practices.
Lastly, permaculture is a design philosophy or system, meaning one uses permaculture, but does not do it. For example, gardening may be applied in a permaculture design, but is not on its own "permaculture". There are thousands of more examples. For a comprehensive guide: www.permacultureprinciples.com/
Mark, thank you so much for that -- sometimes in a brief span of a couple hundred words I don't do the world's awesomest job of hair-splitting, and I unfairly conflate related but separate terms. I will follow this up with some more specifics and will take care to observe the distinctions you note. Your clarifications are suave and meaningful. More to come!
As for the yields, those numbers are certainly in reach, depending on the experience of the grower and quality of the soil. And no matter what, it will always be more efficient than conventional farming, hands down.
Just one more comment, haha. You should check out what is known as Edible Forest Gardening, or Agroforestry. It is a system of growing (mainly) food, using trees, shurbs, and perennial herbs. Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier have written two outstanding books on the subject: www.edibleforestgardens.com/ and a man named Martin Crawford of the UK is doing some amazing work in the field. Check out these links as well, I'm sure you'll enjoy:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ggwa5irxmg
www.agroforestry.co.uk/
& do check out this BBC Documentary, A Farm for the Future: video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2750012006939737230&ei=cHx3SpfbOYOCqgLMi-D5Cg&q=a+farm+for+the+future&hl=en&client=firefox-a
Enjoy!
Mark, that rules, thank you and I will check it out. I have read up on so called agroforestry a little but not that much. I'm still chewinbg on your mention of biodynamics as a metaphysics -- most of the sources I've tapped on this subject don't discuss it quite that way but I totally get what you mean and think it bears a lot of thought and investigation. This is so cool. do you have an ag background?
Hi Amy. Great article. I have just come across your work for the first time and like the vibe of all your work. I have featured your article on Ooooby.org which is a food gardeners network with over 1400 members. I'm sure they will like your work too. Looking forward to reading more. Kind regards, Pete.
Peter -- thank you so much! I'm on my way to check out your site too. The kind words mean a lot and so does the linkup. -- best, amy
Thanks for choosing to write about Permaculture! Permaculture Design is by no means interchangeable with Biointensive or Biodynamic practices which are two distinct practices not the same as you state. You confuse biointensive double digging practices with Biodynamic Rudolpf Steiner Practices and Permaculture practices through out the article.
Please write another article because it is propogating the myth and story that is Permaculture is simply a gardening technique. Permaculture is a whole systems design science that was inspired by the sustainable agriculture but is much much larger. Some of its gardening and food production common techniques may include biodynamic and/or biointensive practices but are not limited to are even necessarily included at all. Please take a permaculture course so you can understand what it really is before writing artilces that have titles like Permaculture 101.. Very, very misleading. Please do more research and fact checking.
Katherine -- yes, I have gotten several notes to this effect and intend to write several additional articles highlighting the distinctions. There are MANY resources online and in print that use the terms interchangeably, and I understand that there are distinctions in practice and philosophy when you get deeply into it. I am constrained from getting that deep in a single article but I apologize if I have misled. There will be more to come, I promise.
Katherine -- I've posted a follow-up that tries (i hope to your satisfaction) to define the terms which, I agree with you, were not sufficiently clarified here. I don't really feel my fact-checking or research were at issue (I've read quite a bit about these ideas from a wide variety of sources), but I think I must have done an unusually poor job of representing the point I really intended to make in all this stuff, which was that there are common principles to all three systems which a lay gardener can easily begin to apply without being an adept, acolyte or initiate of Steiner, Bill Mollison, or any other particular guru of this space. Your comments were articulate and fair -- I appreciate you taking the time to write them. Hope I've done a little to rectify any potential misunderstandings.
I actually don't have an ag background, but have self-educated myself on these subjects and started putting them into practice. I'm just scratching the surface, all of this is quite a rabbit hole. But experimentation is the best teacher, hands down. If you are DOING anything related to these subjects, you are way ahead of those still caught up in the words. And certainly much of permaculture is about seeing relationships, which you are obviously doing.
Mark -- BINGO, and thank you for coming back and replying. I think the posters who were concerned about my conflation of terms had a point -- I should have been clearer about the distinctions before holding forth on why they're the same. Yes, it is a rabbit hole, and yes, it's all about practice and experimentation. Thanks again, so much, for your very meaningful remarks.
We are looking for people to create a permaculture paradise with us (three households aiming for thirty) at White Hawk Ecovillage, www.whitehawk.org.
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