Permaculture mamas?

[SweetSilver]

Anyone out there who is *into* Permaculture?  

(*insert your own definition of *into* here!  I promise no one will protest!)

[limette]

I've read quite a bit on it and I love it in theory. In practice though I require things to be a little more orderly. Our farm is pretty much a blank slate so we'll be working a bit of permaculture in as we grow it in.

[Owen'nZoe]

I'm interested in permaculture, and apply some of the principles in my yard. I've never really made it past my yard, but I do dream of having a grey water system that feeds into a mini-backyard wetland, like the one in Gaia's Garden. For awhile, I collected water in a dishpan in my sink and brought it outdoors, but that was too labor-intensive for me to keep up for long. Now I only do it if we're having a drought.

In my yard, though, I've tried to plant with zones in mind, am slowly building guilds around my fruit trees, have tried hugelkulture (with mixed results...), always try for mutliple-functions, do some polyculture in my veggie garden, and am working towards a goal of having at least 300 different types of plants in my yard (right now, I'm around 140, with 80 different species - up from 0 plants 5 years ago).

Some parts of permaculture I question - some of the writers I've read seem to have a strong background in science, but others of the writers are a little free and loose with the scientific evidence, especially surrounding grey water and the use of reclaimed materials (like tires) in the garden without discussing the risks. In other cases, I've noticed that an author will present a solution for a problem that sounds great in their book - then you look up their blog and find out the solution didn't really work. It seems like in general, there seems to be a fear of permaculture authors to present the system as anything less than perfect, which makes me skeptical of some of the claims.

I guess that is my very round-about way of saying I love reading about it, love it in theory, and take what works for me and leave what doesn't. ;)

[CI Mama]

Yes! My partner does most of the gardening/yardwork and is very into permaculture, mostly at this point by reading a lot about it, and then experimenting with a few things to see if they will work on our property.

We have 2 rain barrels hooked up to our gutters. We've built a couple of hugelkulture raised beds in our backyard. We just had 2 trees cut down and we're mulching with the wood chips. The way we group our plants and lay out our gardens is inspired by permaculture. We need to build a shed where we can park bicycles and store tools, and we're hoping to use earth building method (perhaps cordwood).

I'd love to hear more about what works/doesn't work for others.

[marimara]

Yes!  I'm digging permaculture, lol.  The way I do it in zone 9b, coastal central FL, is quite different from what permaculture looks like other places.  I just started, am a complete noob, but so far it's working. I'm reading alot and experimenting alot.  (I'm also in a town on .25 acre so not big by any means).

My plan is to work with edible landscaping, native, and drought tolerant plants for my zone.  I need salt tolerant, wind tolerant, drought tolerant, and really hardy plants that will grow here.  We just planted lots of fruit trees, mango, avocado, fig, citrus, papaya.  I'm growing sweet potatoes and peanuts and aloe all in the same bed (that I did not till up, I'm using the top-down approach to amending my soil, ahem...my sand...lol.  Have sea grapes and lots of creeping native edibles like purslane crawling under the trees and plants.  

I'm composting and mulching a LOT.  I just installed my first rain barrel a couple of days ago.  We have significant droughts here some years.  

We are on a sandbar basically.  And you might think I'm crazy, and believe me I question my sanity most days, but I have the most inspiring neighbors.  Lots of people have rain barrells and have so much food packed into their lots that they don't know what to do with it all when it comes in.

I'm doing the backyard orchardist approach to keeping my fruit trees to a decent smaller size.

So far only one plant died, the key lime.  My neighbor said the same thing happened to his, need a different variety.  I'm slowing phasing out the lawn and replacing with edibles.  I've been collecting some greywater at times when it's needed, I keep a bucket in the shower and collect the water while it's heating up.  Sometimes my dd takes a shower outside in our outdoor shower and stands in a huge bucket and I can reuse all that water too.  

[SweetSilver]

Years ago--wow! 2 decades ago!  I visited central Florida for regional Rainbow Gatherings.  The people there were great and yes! I remember that there was about an inch of duff on top of sand.  Takes a special kind of patience, I imagine to grow things on that.  Some wonderful memories.
 

Originally Posted by marimara 
 

We are on a sandbar basically.  And you might think I'm crazy, and believe me I question my sanity most days, but I have the most inspiring neighbors.  Lots of people have rain barrells and have so much food packed into their lots that they don't know what to do with it all when it comes in.