Survivalist Vault

Take Control Over Your Life & Be Ready for Anything!

How to Start a Permaculture Garden

by

There is a different kind of satisfaction and happiness when you remain close to nature. A great way of doing it is by growing your own vegetables, fruits and herbs.

Permaculture gardening is a great way to grow your own food and use what nature gives to to make it happen.

In simple words, permaculture gardening is “permanent agriculture” using the natural resources provided by nature – Wind, Sun and Water to maximise the produce by using minimal resources and without destroying the land.

Here are few points to keep in mind while approaching towards a permaculture garden:

Design of the Garden

For a successful permaculture garden, you need to have a good planning that will make the work smooth. You do not have to take random garden supplies or random fruits and vegetables and start growing. A perfect study of plants who take less water and yield more should be prioritised.

First, you have to decide what area you will use for your garden from the overall space available with you in your backyard.

Then decide whether you have to go for a traditional garden with few permaculture design features or you want a complete stacked permaculture garden.

Design Features

Important permaculture gardening features are:

  • Soil Preservation

Protecting the soil includes some points. They are:

  1. Use of ground cover crops that protects the soil and keep it in place
  2. Do not dig. Tilling the soil will disturb the structure of the dirt and expose the lower layer of the soil to sunlight. This might destroy the beneficial nutrients and living creatures beneath the soil.
  3. Compost your soil
  4. Use crops that protect your soil like beans or peas. They will keep the soil in place and before they seed you can cut them and let them stay there to decompose and feed the soil
  • Plant Stacking

Plant stacking is the best way to maximise the use of natural resources and produce more in the limited space.

  • Succession Planting

You should organize your permaculture garden in a way that you plant new plants when the existing ones are to the end of their production cycle. This will keep your soil always full of nutrients.

  • Companion Planting

Planting crops that have similar growing habits and intake is beneficial in reducing the amount of resources used.

Avoiding Analysis Paralysis

The best way to have a successful permaculture garden is to break down the big task into small tasks and complete them to create the final result.

Few things to keep in mind:

  1. Design your overall garden but when building it, start with small pieces.
  1. Have a proper calculation and idea of the space you will be using and the area that will be feasible for you to cultivate to avoid any bad effect later.
  1. Plan the amount of water needed. Also look for the sun and shade requirements of your plants.
  1. Start your garden at the time of fall and spring.
  1. Construct the largest piece of the garden first. If you use the stacked design, plant your trees first, make sure they have enough water and then plant smaller plants.

Make proper plans and map before you start your permaculture garden. Summer is a great time to start planning and build your garden by fall.

Benefits of Starting Your Own Food Farm with Permaculture

by

Permaculture has various benefits and an attractive option to the landowners. Some of the benefits include:

  • Less Waste – Permaculture is a sustainable kind of cultivation. Everything within the system is utilized. The major reason why permaculture is sustainable is the use of waste and by-products as fertilizers.
  • Saves water – Unlike other farm activities, permaculture uses rainwater and wastewater that makes it more efficient and cost-effective.
  • Economically feasible – It is one of the most cost-effective farm practices. You don’t need to use pesticides and most of them require less maintenance.

Also, permaculture is a practice of farming that is very healthy for the environment. This benefits sustainable production for a longer period of time.

If this process is done with planning and with a map, it can be more efficient than a regular farm and can produce more crops with very less use of resources and very less maintenance.

Different Types of Permaculture Process:

Depending on the need of the land, many permaculture processes are used by the landowners. There are different practices to yield the best results out of the available area and the kind of soil available for cultivation.

Some of the practices used by the landowners are listed below:

  • Natural Building – The natural building process of permaculture includes the practice where land sustainability is the major factor. It includes building systems directed towards improving the land’s sustainability. It creates a durable environment where crops can grow despite bad weather or landscape.
  • Sheet Mulching – This gardening technique includes recreation of natural process within  a property or a forest. One of the unique qualities of sheet mulching for example, is that it can mimic leaf cover found on the forest floor.
  • Agroforestry – This practice includes agriculture and forestry techniques to recreate the natural ecosystem of the land. It is a combination of trees, shrubs with crops and livestock.
  • Hugelkultur – It is a permaculture practice that involves using large numbers of wood for soil water retention. The wood acts as a massive sponge that can hold water, and during the dry season when there is not plenty of water to be given to the crops, this system sustains them easily.

So, you can use some of these basic techniques if you are striving towards the permaculture garden. The best part of all these systems are they do not disturb the natural ecosystem and rather contribute towards the well-being of the system. This way, there is a to-and-fro relationship between the natural ecosystem and the farming done by you.

Also, when you yield maximum results out of minimum resources, nature tends to give you the best out of the resources, a longer produce and an overall healthy ecosystem.

Preparing For A COVID-19-Like Pandemic – A Permaculture Perspective

by

You must be wondering what I mean by a permaculture approach. So, the permaculture approach means relying on your own self more than the market for the supply of your food, energy, water, medicines etc.

It does not mean that you have to build a factory inside your house to make these things but having an approach that minimizes the usage of outside supply and preparing ourselves to make best usage of the available resources in the house.

Things that include permaculture approach are:

  • Growing some of your own food and saving it
  • Installing and maintaining a rainwater tank
  • Energy sources like batteries, fuel, firewood etc.
  • Maintaining excellent relations with your neighbors

Let us see how permaculture preparedness look like:

1 The first point includes all the points that I have stated above in the permaculture approach.

2 The second point is to take care of other basic hygiene, medications and building up your pantry. Also, it is very important for you to take care of the members of the family and if possible to help in need the neighbors in the tough time of pandemic.

3 Third, it is important to create preparedness in your community as well. Donating to local food banks, providing legal expertise to the needy people and taking care of their problems also list in permaculture preparedness.

Do Not Depend On Others, Be Self-Prepared

There will be media, there will be government and there will be people in your surroundings that will assure you that there is nothing to worry and that you should keep enjoying the holidays until the very last minute, before the real crisis affects everyone.

The shortage of food, drinkable water, loss in mobile network and lack of access to roads and transport are some of the problems that nobody is going to tell you but you have to be prepared for all these situations.

Preparedness will help you, your household, and your community to be more resilient, in times of crisis.

Complete others if you find yourself complete

If you think you have done everything that is needed to fight through the tough time, it is time to help your community. You should leave all the selfishness behind while working in these kinds of pandemic situations. You should hold out every possible help and support you can provide to the community at this time.

Do not be overconfident if the pandemic has not hit the area where you are living. If it is spreading all across, it is soon hitting your area as well. So, preparation is always beneficial.

Approach While Keeping Community in Mind

As you prepare for the pandemic, you will find different kinds of benefits. For you will be connected to your community, your garden and your ecosystem.

You have to start preparing at your own household level and then think of the community and work for the same.

Permaculture preparedness is all this and more. Climate action is a form of preparedness. Preserving energy is one kind of preparedness as well and so is regenerative agriculture-that increases soil carbon and ecosystem health for the benefit of the ecosystem.