Permaculture
Jul. 20th, 2006 10:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helen99This morning, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rialian gave me a handful of cherry tomatoes from his garden. They were from a small hanging tomato plant, which seemed to work best, because the bugs left them alone. I had them for a snack just now and they were delicious. Yay home grown food.
Speaking of home grown food, our much anticipated book order, Permaculture: A Designer's Manual by Bill Mollison just arrived. Needless to say,rialian has pretty much devoured this enormous book in one sitting (well, maybe not all of it, but a good portion of it).
Bill Mollison is an astounding and wonderful old elf (78 years old), who has dedicated most of his life to designing, developing, spreading, teaching, and implementing permaculture throughout the world. It's just now taking off, after 50 years of effort. I'm glad he lived to see the day. His book, which was $80 when I purchased it, now goes for $127 on Amazon or Borders.com. Suddenly Mollison is pretty hot, which is good, because he deserves to be. Note that it still goes for $79.14 plus shipping and handling from Australia if you buy it directly from http://www.tagari.com, in which case the proceeds go to the Permaculture Institute.
I especially liked what Mollison's people are doing in Aceh, Indonesia (of 2004 tsunami fame). These guys are serious, their actions are backed by reproducible results, they're not just some fringe nutcases, they walk their talk, and they research, design, and implement solutions rather than obsessing about millions of interlocking and self-perpetuating problems.
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual is the main teaching textbook used in the curriculum of Mollison's Permaculture Institute in Australia. To give you an idea of the level of proficiency required by the Institute before offering a diploma or certification of any kind: In order to get a degree from the Permaculture Academy (an extension of the Permaculture Institute), you would have to do at least 2 years (4 years is preferred) of hands-on field work in your chosen area of expertise. Areas of expertise include education, media, site development, site design, community services, finance and business, technical development, resource development, architecture and building, and research.
Like I said, they are serious, and they've thought this through. There may be pieces missing or pieces that could be improved, but I haven't found them yet. To completely oversimplify for the sake of brevity, their approach encompasses a philosophy of treading lightly on the earth by restructuring human habitats to work with the existing environment instead of against it (existing plant and animal ecosystem + direction and availability of sunlight + available water + available space) by:
1) creating balanced, sustainable, edible, LOW MAINTENANCE (for the busy commuter) ecosystems in very small spaces (such as yards) and making use of wasted spaces, for example lawns, to feed yourself.
2) putting back into the ground what you take out (the concept of waste becomes nonexistent - compost, reuse, or recycle everything).
3) making the best possible use of building location, orientation, and materials for energy efficiency.
I think there's a lot more to it than that, though. More later (after I read the book)...
rialian gave me a handful of cherry tomatoes from his garden. They were from a small hanging tomato plant, which seemed to work best, because the bugs left them alone. I had them for a snack just now and they were delicious. Yay home grown food. Speaking of home grown food, our much anticipated book order, Permaculture: A Designer's Manual by Bill Mollison just arrived. Needless to say,
rialian has pretty much devoured this enormous book in one sitting (well, maybe not all of it, but a good portion of it).Bill Mollison is an astounding and wonderful old elf (78 years old), who has dedicated most of his life to designing, developing, spreading, teaching, and implementing permaculture throughout the world. It's just now taking off, after 50 years of effort. I'm glad he lived to see the day. His book, which was $80 when I purchased it, now goes for $127 on Amazon or Borders.com. Suddenly Mollison is pretty hot, which is good, because he deserves to be. Note that it still goes for $79.14 plus shipping and handling from Australia if you buy it directly from http://www.tagari.com, in which case the proceeds go to the Permaculture Institute.
I especially liked what Mollison's people are doing in Aceh, Indonesia (of 2004 tsunami fame). These guys are serious, their actions are backed by reproducible results, they're not just some fringe nutcases, they walk their talk, and they research, design, and implement solutions rather than obsessing about millions of interlocking and self-perpetuating problems.
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual is the main teaching textbook used in the curriculum of Mollison's Permaculture Institute in Australia. To give you an idea of the level of proficiency required by the Institute before offering a diploma or certification of any kind: In order to get a degree from the Permaculture Academy (an extension of the Permaculture Institute), you would have to do at least 2 years (4 years is preferred) of hands-on field work in your chosen area of expertise. Areas of expertise include education, media, site development, site design, community services, finance and business, technical development, resource development, architecture and building, and research.
Like I said, they are serious, and they've thought this through. There may be pieces missing or pieces that could be improved, but I haven't found them yet. To completely oversimplify for the sake of brevity, their approach encompasses a philosophy of treading lightly on the earth by restructuring human habitats to work with the existing environment instead of against it (existing plant and animal ecosystem + direction and availability of sunlight + available water + available space) by:
1) creating balanced, sustainable, edible, LOW MAINTENANCE (for the busy commuter) ecosystems in very small spaces (such as yards) and making use of wasted spaces, for example lawns, to feed yourself.
2) putting back into the ground what you take out (the concept of waste becomes nonexistent - compost, reuse, or recycle everything).
3) making the best possible use of building location, orientation, and materials for energy efficiency.
I think there's a lot more to it than that, though. More later (after I read the book)...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-20 09:59 pm (UTC)===I just reached his discussion of patterns and I am getting quite a bit out of it. I would say that Permaculture thinking is a very good exercise for those of a more elven mindset.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-07-21 01:13 pm (UTC)