I've been watching this channel for a few months now. I really appreciate the ability to see exactly how someone sets up a self-sufficient food system on their own property and how they...
I've been watching this channel for a few months now. I really appreciate the ability to see exactly how someone sets up a self-sufficient food system on their own property and how they incorporate "permaculture" techniques. I'm on the fence as to whether or not "permaculture" is some kind of marketing buzzword or pseudoscientific set of agrarian principles. I've done a bit of research on the topic but haven't actually talked to anyone with an opinion or knowledge about it.
The most interesting aspects of this setup are the chicken composting system and their approach to water management on their property (manual labor over a long period of time).
I know a bit about permaculture. We covered it briefly in my undergrad, and I spent 3 months working on a local permaculture farm. It's interesting to see it taking off in the USA. It feels like a...
I know a bit about permaculture. We covered it briefly in my undergrad, and I spent 3 months working on a local permaculture farm.
It's interesting to see it taking off in the USA. It feels like a local movement here - on the farm I worked at, the farmer knew/knows the men who first coined the term.
It isn't really anything revolutionary in terms of science, the basic principles have already been practised by small-holder farmers around the world for centuries. It's more like a change of philosophy. It's just a way to try and grow food within the various natural cycles, rather than bringing in things like fertiliser, pesticides, and petrol (for farming equipment). You then try to keep good things like nutrients and top soil within the farm, rather then letting them wash away and pollute local water ways.
The system at place at the farm I worked at was called a mandala garden. They had chook cages shaped to sit over garden beds.
First they'd put the chickens over the garden bed. They would eat the weeds and any bugs there, their poo would fertilise the soil and their scratching would lightly till it. Also - your chooks are fed and you harvest their eggs.
Next you plant a mix of plants on the garden bed.
Weeding was the most time consuming part, but often useful seedlings would pop up as well that naturally fell from else ware in the garden. Weeds were fed to the chooks or put into compost.
After the food was harvested, the chooks would be put back on the garden to eat the rest of the plants and the weeds and the pests again.
The garden beds were all in a big circle (that looked like a mandala), and so the chook cage just went around the circle and each garden bed was at a slightly different stage.
It was labour intensive, but it worked well enough. The farm was able to fill around 12 vege boxes a week that were bought by people in the local community.
In your opinion, do you think that permaculture can work on a larger scale? I know next to nothing about it, but I like the idea of farmers working with nature rather than against it.
In your opinion, do you think that permaculture can work on a larger scale? I know next to nothing about it, but I like the idea of farmers working with nature rather than against it.
Some permaculture methods are easy to implement and could work at any scale. But generally permaculture relies on mixed crops, so you can't harvest or plant mechanically. You need a lot more human...
Some permaculture methods are easy to implement and could work at any scale. But generally permaculture relies on mixed crops, so you can't harvest or plant mechanically. You need a lot more human labour in order to get food, which isn't economically viable at a large scale within our current food systems.
At uni, permaculture was mostly discussed in the context of food security and peak oil. At the moment, conventional agriculture relies on a huge amount of finite external inputs. Natural gas is used to synthesise artificial fertiliser, phosphorus is mined, and a huge amount of oil is used in both farming and transporting food and food inputs (eg. pesticides).
If oil became more expensive then permaculture would absolutely become a viable alternative to conventional agriculture.
The benefit of permaculture is that it doesn't rely on external inputs, and so it is a more secure source of food. Permaculture methods are also designed to be more resilient and to work with local conditions (even those that aren't ideal for growing food), and so it's better for growing a wide range of food locally rather than importing from all over the world. In my opinion, all local communities should have permaculture farmers gaining and passing on the skills needed to grow food self-sufficiently.
I've been watching this channel for a few months now. I really appreciate the ability to see exactly how someone sets up a self-sufficient food system on their own property and how they incorporate "permaculture" techniques. I'm on the fence as to whether or not "permaculture" is some kind of marketing buzzword or pseudoscientific set of agrarian principles. I've done a bit of research on the topic but haven't actually talked to anyone with an opinion or knowledge about it.
The most interesting aspects of this setup are the chicken composting system and their approach to water management on their property (manual labor over a long period of time).
Chicken Compost - Designing the System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe6M9CkvKEU
Water Management
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GINQvtKaZGY
I know a bit about permaculture. We covered it briefly in my undergrad, and I spent 3 months working on a local permaculture farm.
It's interesting to see it taking off in the USA. It feels like a local movement here - on the farm I worked at, the farmer knew/knows the men who first coined the term.
It isn't really anything revolutionary in terms of science, the basic principles have already been practised by small-holder farmers around the world for centuries. It's more like a change of philosophy. It's just a way to try and grow food within the various natural cycles, rather than bringing in things like fertiliser, pesticides, and petrol (for farming equipment). You then try to keep good things like nutrients and top soil within the farm, rather then letting them wash away and pollute local water ways.
The system at place at the farm I worked at was called a mandala garden. They had chook cages shaped to sit over garden beds.
The garden beds were all in a big circle (that looked like a mandala), and so the chook cage just went around the circle and each garden bed was at a slightly different stage.
It was labour intensive, but it worked well enough. The farm was able to fill around 12 vege boxes a week that were bought by people in the local community.
In your opinion, do you think that permaculture can work on a larger scale? I know next to nothing about it, but I like the idea of farmers working with nature rather than against it.
Some permaculture methods are easy to implement and could work at any scale. But generally permaculture relies on mixed crops, so you can't harvest or plant mechanically. You need a lot more human labour in order to get food, which isn't economically viable at a large scale within our current food systems.
At uni, permaculture was mostly discussed in the context of food security and peak oil. At the moment, conventional agriculture relies on a huge amount of finite external inputs. Natural gas is used to synthesise artificial fertiliser, phosphorus is mined, and a huge amount of oil is used in both farming and transporting food and food inputs (eg. pesticides).
If oil became more expensive then permaculture would absolutely become a viable alternative to conventional agriculture.
The benefit of permaculture is that it doesn't rely on external inputs, and so it is a more secure source of food. Permaculture methods are also designed to be more resilient and to work with local conditions (even those that aren't ideal for growing food), and so it's better for growing a wide range of food locally rather than importing from all over the world. In my opinion, all local communities should have permaculture farmers gaining and passing on the skills needed to grow food self-sufficiently.