Permaculture theory – Alanna's Field Study

Permaculture Theory – Week 3

This week we have been at Ahimsa Sanctuary Farm on the north shore of Maui, 14.5 miles down the road to Hana. We mostly dived into design methodology and approaches in preparation for our final permaculture design project.

When working on permaculture designs, the first step is to draw a base map. This is not to add anything new but to show all the existing elements and sectors on the land. “Design by elimination,” Jenny calls it. Examples of what can be included on this are: buildings, trees, topography, hydrology, boundaries, roads/access, utilities, ponds, archaeology, waste, wildlife corridors, easements, wells, fences, neighbors’ locations, wetlands, parking, geological features, and sacred sites. Base maps must include a compass rose, scale, legend, name/address/designer’s name, coordinates, sector analysis, and the date.

The next step is where the design work comes in: adding in elements. These typically fall into five categories: food, water, waste, energy, and natural building, but can include anything you can dream up. Examples we came up with in class are: a greenhouse, community space, windmill, orchard, compost, nursery, hearth, solar panels, composting toilet, outdoor shower, biodigester, swales, pond, farmstand, meditation space, worm bins, hot tub, art studio, kombucha/fermenting station, woodshop, forge, yoga space, sauna, office/library, chickens/goats/alpacas, bees, flow forms, dog house, recycling, shed, barn, and a makery/workshop. The possibilities are really endless.

It is important to consider how we can design the land to make money and support itself. The best (most cost-efficient) ways to do this are through design and consulting work and agrotourism. Other ways we discussed are value-added products, teaching, row crops, lotions and body care products, specialty crops, wellness programs (like raw food, yoga, and specialty education, u-pick, ferments, woody crops, hosting events and weddings, summer camps, recovery programs, natural building workshops, and mycology. Follow your passions and get creative! What unique service can you bring to the table?

From there we moved into design methodology and approach which has five main steps.
0. Have a contract signed, sealed, and delivered before you do any work.
1. Community Engagement: Learn the history, current story, and future outlook of the people. Source this information from the people in order to ensure you are in harmony with your surroundings.
2. Data Gathering: This includes ecological, social, cultural, material, and economic resource assessment, client interview, aerial photo, topography map, soil sampling and tests, geology, land capability, land use history, and local knowledge and context. The most important aspect of this step is the client interview, in which you should meet with all the stakeholders and board members, land owners, and community to gather information on the history of the project and people related to the land, the skill sets available, and the timeline and budget for the project.
3. Observations of the land.
4. Analysis of elements, zones, and sectors.
5. Feedback loop: in which you engage with the client to hone in the design.

This week we were assigned to our design teams and chose our final design project. My group consists of myself, Forrest, Foot, and Melo. We have chosen to design one of Jenny Pell’s projects that has been put on hold: a Food Hub for Maui farmers. This will include aggregation and distribution zones, a community space, incubator plots, a permanent farmer’s market, worker co-op, two commercial kitchens, poi-pounding factory, and more. By next week we are going to establish a team name, goals, a mission statement, branding, and a base map with sector analysis.

A less obvious part of permaculture is invisible structures, also known as social permaculture. This can be broken down into financial, legal, governance, social, land access, and community systems.
Financial: Examples include credit unions, conscious banking, green investing, tithes, higher minimum wage, alternative currencies, cryptocurrency, bartering, universal basic income, universal health care, and free university.
Legal: Examples are free legal services, mediation services, recoding groups, and co-ops.
Governance: There’s a wide range of governmental systems. Examples that include both poor and benevolent systems are: liquid democracies, authoritarian, dysfunctional democracy, corporatocracy, plutocracy, oligarchy, intuitive wisdom, grassroots, consensus, sociacracy, wholacracy, dynasty, council, anarchy, theocracy, capitalism, marxism, nepotism, democratic socialism, and dynamic governance.
Community: Includes co-ops for housing and food, intentional communities, shared housing, spiritual, cohousing, community land trust, condo associations, eco villages, agrihoods, permaculture developments.
We did not talk about social and land access invisible structures yet. Land access relates to who can access the land and how, and would include national parks and forests. Social permaculture relates to the principle of integration over segregation, building resilience by building community.

Maui is absolutely glorious. It was rainy the last couple days but now it’s cleared up, and we’re hosting a Maori water ceremony and gathering tonight at Ahimsa. Last night I went to my first ecstatic dance church and tomorrow we’re going whale watching!

Mahalo!

Permaculture in Theory: Week 2

This week we were at Evan Ryan’s farm, Pono Grown Farm Center, just upland from Haiku Aina Permaculture Initiative. We delved deeper into the factors we need to consider when designing.

The first idea we discussed was Yeoman’s Scale of Permanence, asking ourselves what the most important things to work with are. These are broken down into climate, geography, water, access, forestry, buildings, fencing, soils, economy, and energy. If we begin by observing and understanding these components, we will establish a solid foundation for further developing the land.

Next we talked about zones and sectors, which are a crucial part of permaculture design and also help us become ecologically connected to our sense of place. Zones are the areas around our living space, and they are relative to each person. They depend on the distance from the center, frequency of use, access needs, and daily schedule.

Zone 00: Your body and own physical space, self care. This includes sleeping, eating, and drinking.

Zone 0: Your home and living space. Includes kitchen, water, bathroom, temperature control, hearth, studio, pets and family.

Zone 1: Places you are visiting multiple times a day. Can include an herb garden, composting toilet, pathways, communal gathering spaces, outdoor shower, fire pit, tool shed. There are also seasonal zone 1s, such as when a certain fruit tree is in season and you are harvesting from it multiple times a day.

Zone 2: Typically areas 25-75 ft from your house (although that can fluctuate). These are areas you are visiting less often, normally once a day. Can include chickens, orchards, food forests, compost, nursery, greenhouse, or in an urban environment cafes, library, school, or temple.

Zone 3: Often areas 75-100 ft from your house. Includes grazing animals, wind break, erosion control, beehives.

Zone 4: Can include food forest, orchard, perennials, gray water or water purification systems, ponds, firewood, agroforestry, hiking trails, meditation yurt.

Zone 5: Wild and undeveloped land.

Sectors are the outside influences on the land. When designing land, we can decide if we want to repel or attract them. They include sun, wind, water, frost, people, noise, smells, fire, energy, microclimates, urban, disaster, view, plants, and wildlife.

Water is one of the most important sectors in permaculture and life. Our bodies are composed of 73.7% of water; without it, we would not survive. Of all the water on the planet, only three percent is freshwater, and only a quarter of this is usable (that is, not locked up in the glaciers). We are depleting our aquifers and lowering our water availability at an alarming rate. We are polluting our rivers and watersheds and chopping down our forests, so our freshwater is getting poisoned and less water is getting transpired into the atmosphere and recycled. Meanwhile the freshwater in the glaciers is melting into the ocean. It becomes essential in permaculture design to maximize the use of water in the landscape. Our motto for water this last week has been “slow it, spread it, sink it,” so water is returned to the aquifers and the soil instead of running off the surface. Ways to store water that we have discussed are: dams and reservoirs, Swales, chinampas, rain catchment, water harvesting off roadways, plants and trees, soil, mulching, sediment traps, water generators, cloud harvesting, aquifers, terracing, and aquaponics. It is key to find the simplest solutions and to have back-ups in order to be resilient.

Evan defined soil as minerals in active biological processes in process. There is an infinite number of best practices to alchemize soil to our needs, but ultimately it comes down to how we can capture free carbon energy to build our soil. Soil can be broken down into nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, calcium, and trace minerals. Nitrogen supports leaf growth, and can be increased by nitrogen fixing plants, animals, and blood meal. Phosphorous supports flowering and can be built up by animals, bones, and fish bonemeal. Potassium supports vigor and vitality and can be increased by wood ash and green sand. Calcium helps the shell or skin of the plant and can be increased by eggshells, sand, lime, and oyster shells. Trace minerals support the overall health of plants and can be added with seaweed, saltwater, cinders, kelp meal, and rock dust. It is important to keep a balance of all these components, although you can increase specific minerals based on the plants’ needs.

The key to creating good heathy compost is to have the right ratio of carbon to nitrogen, or brown/dry matter to green/wet matter. A good ratio to aim for is about 15-20:1 carbon:nitrogen. It is important to keep the compost aerobic instead of anaerobic so there is enough oxygen to break down the matter and prevent it from smelling too bad. On the other hand, having too much carbon makes the breakdown very slow. The goal is to reach a temperature of 135-140 degrees in order to burn out dangerous bacteria and promote decomposition. The most successful compost piles are a minimum of three feet by three feet by three feet.

The mismanagement of animals is inhumane and leads to factory farming, water pollution, overconsumption, deforestation, and abuse of workers. In permaculture, we can strive to be a part of a cycle that creates a harmonious impact. The benefits of having and caring for animals are: manure, fertility, companionship, food, fiber, fuel, warmth, soil building, pest management, protection, therapy, education, habitat, contributions to the ecosystem, pollination, reclaiming marginal lands, and indicators of change. Caring for animals is about building a relationship in exchange for mutual benefits.

Permaculture in Theory – Week One

“Permaculture is saving the planet and living to be a hundred years old while throwing impressive dinner parties and organizing other creatures to do most of the work.”

This is Jenny Pell’s favorite definition of permaculture. Others she gave us are “the conscious design and maintence of agricultural systems that are diverse and stable,” “the harmonious integration of land and people,” “perennial polyculture,” and “the philosophy of working with instead of against nature.” My personal favorite is “how to maximize hammock time.”

But let’s get into specifics.

This week at Haiku Aina Permaculture Initiative (HAPI) on the north side of Maui, we started by exploring the ethics and principles of permaculture.

Ethics:

1) Care for the land: This is about planting natural plants, minding use of resources, and being humble in our relationship with the earth.

2) Care for the people: Interconnectivity, as opposed to isolationism, is crucial to the ideas of permaculture. It is only through community that we build resilience.

3) Care for the future and share the abundance: The first step to sharing the abundance is having a surplus, and the next step is to “meet the need, not the greed.” That is, giving to your community and those who have less instead of hoarding the wealth.

Ultimately, the deepest problem our society is facing is fear, and the solution is love.

Principles:

1) Observe and interact: Evan recommends doing nothing to your land for a whole year besides observing in order to gain an understanding of it. This way you will learn the microclimates, rain, wind and sun patterns, wildlife presence, and existing plant life.

2) Catch and store energy: e.g.: rainwater catchment, passive solar, dams and ponds, fermentation, canning, compost

3) Obtain a yield: Fairly self-explanatory – all the hard work and energy you put into your farm or garden will go to waste if you do not obtain a yield. Having a surplus (not an official principle of permaculture but a central idea) goes along with this: with a surplus you can not only have extra food to store for the future, but you can give to friends, family, and your community as well.

4) Apply self-regulation: This is about finding ways to not be part of the problem and make sure that you are in balance with your environment. Most importantly, it is about regulating your choices and keeping yourself in check.

5) Use and apply renewable resources and supplies: e.g.: pollination, rainwater catchment, solar energy, wind energy

6) Produce no waste: e.g.: compost, humanure, returning packaging to the store, minimizing wasteful communication

7) Stack functions: Always stack functions in design. Plants that provide food are often also medicinal and some can be used for dyes, fiber, timber, or shade as well.

8) Multiple elements for single function: Redundancy provides a safety net in case one feature fails.

9) Multiple functions for single element: e.g.: living roof underneath solar panels, a windbreak that also provides lumber or soil retention

10) Patterns to details: Start with the big picture and then work your way down to the details. Look at the patterns of the land and people.

11) Integrate rather than segregate: Bring plants and people together. Also the idea of many hands make light work and designing for the whole system.

12) Small and slow solutions: e.g.: erosion control plants, seed saving, building soil up, planting trees, starting with a small garden and then expanding, diving into one aspect until you become an expert.

13) Diversity: Diversity creates stability, balance, and resilience. There is such a thing as too much diversity, as in when you cannot obtain a yield from any one crop, but polyculture is more effective and safer than monoculture.

14) Use edges: There is more diversity in edge space because it is the meeting place of two systems (called the Edge Effect). An example of this is the keyhole space of chinampas.

15) Use and respond to change: Permaculture is anything but static, and when the only constant is change we can view this as opportunities to reinvent the space in a better way.

16) When in doubt, do nothing: If it is not a yes, it is a no.

17) Least change for the greatest effect: The idea of working smarter, not harder.

18) Give and receive feedback: By doing this we can better respond to change.

19) The problem is the solution: e.g.: humanure, compost, using pests like rabbit or deer for food

Many of these principles go hand in hand and build off of one another. They combine to form a foundation of permaculture.

To demonstrate our learning of these principles we have created and performed skits, went out on the land and drew sketches that embodied the principles, and collaborated on rough permaculture designs (with about 15 minutes per activity).

The principle we most focused on during lecture this week was (10) Patterns to details. In designing, we can mimic the patterns of nature. The key patterns we discussed are expansion, spheres, branching, spirals, waves, and netting. Examples of these in design work are branching irrigation and pathways, herb spirals, swales, and plant guilds and triangulation.

Jenny also led a lecture on climate change this week. We are entering into a human crisis change, and essentially have the next hundred years to heal and rebuild the earth, or succumb to climate change and all that will bring (famine, war, refugees, infertile land, extreme weather events, a greater divide between rich and poor). Permaculture is becoming more relevant than ever because we need to adapt and respond to the change in order to make a difference. We are losing top soil at a rate that rivals the Dust Bowl and this combined with the heating of the earth leaves the food we grow with less calories. Vulnerable areas of the world are being pressured into chemical agriculture for export. We need to teach farmers how to transition from chemical agriculture to,organic or beyond organic farming, which ultimately comes down to policy work and funding.

In the evenings, we participated in various community activities. On Tuesday night we watched Seeds of Permaculture, a movie from the Reading and Watching List about two permaculture educational centers in Thailand. On Wednesday Jenny presented a slideshow about her journey with permaculture and solutions in this climate.