Permaculture - so much more than a word

Quoting the definition of Permaculture from the free online permaculture course I am doing  at  #freepermaculture.com

"Permaculture is a strategic, systematic approach to changing our homes, gardens, and lives so that they regenerate, rather than annihilate, the Earth."

These are the principles that I have been striving to live by. 

Where ever possible, I try to reuse, repurpose or recycle as many items as I can to reduce what goes into landfill. 

Here are some of the ways I have been trying to 'reuse' and 'repurpose' 

For the last year I have been given empty large water containers from various people, and I am using these to make seaweed manure and water storage to use over the dry summer months. 

When I was at school in the 60 & 70's, we were taught that water was a renewable resource and it was used with gay abandon. 

The opposite to a 'renewable' resource is a 'nonrenewable' resource which is a natural substance that is not replenished with the speed at which it is consumed. 

Places around the world have been using water faster than it has been saved, and consequently are experiencing a water shortage. Panic has set in with the huge problem of how to get water to reach the 'dry' places. "Rob Peter to pay Paul" seems to be the government and local body's solution to tackling the problem.

My personal opinion is that this should have been foreseen and acted upon decades ago, and it should be law that all new houses have mandatory water tanks installed,  collecting rain water for their household use, and for existing homes to catch their own rain water - if for nothing else - to water their gardens.  

Here at Greenhills Paradise, we are in the process of hooking up 4 x 1000 L containers that have been repurposed from stock feed. These are getting filled from the rainwater coming down our down-pipes off the roof, and will be our water for the gardens over summer. We will be linking up 2 tanks in series from the downpipe shown in the image below, and will repeat this system on the other side of the house from another downpipe.  We have bought a small submersible pump which will give us enough pressure to run the water down to the back garden.  This pump will be able to be easily swapped from one set of tanks to the other. 

Simple, cost effective, and easy. 

 

It is near the end of June and there is still so much to do in preparation of the upcoming spring and summer garden. I have planted out one of my hugelkultur beds in veges, herbs, and flowers, both perennials and annuals.  There are 2 more hugelkultur beds made and are set aside for spring planting. I am really happy how the plants in the first bed are growing. It will be an interesting comparison to see the difference in growth between plants in this bed, and plants in an existing vege garden I have got plants in as well. When I have been digging wee holes to plant plants in the hugelkultur, there is a noticeable raise in temperature the deeper I dig. A real hot bed going on.  

Very exciting.

I have a wide range of seeds that I have purchased over the last few months and I will allow 1 or 2 plants to go to seed in each variety to enable me to harvest their seeds so I can start my own seed bank. 

I have sorted out the seeds that I can safely sow now and get a wee jump start in the season. So lucky we are in a warmer area that does not have frosts very often. 

This year, I have experimented sowing all the seeds into seed raising mix inside empty cardboard roll tubes. 

I have planted outside in the garden a few of the tubes when the seedlings were still pretty small but because I wasn't disturbing the roots and was planting them as is, I decided to risk it and experiment. So far these seedlings are looking really good, and I am keen to see how they develop long term. 

I have planted a lot more seeds inside and these are germinating well. I am going to be tempted to plant these out early too. This will be our first winter up here in Coromandel, and I know it doesn't get nearly as cold as where I have lived in the past.  

So with winter being a traditionally 'slow' time in the garden, I seem to have never ending tasks to do which fill my days.

With the shortest day been and gone - we are now going to start seeing longer days and it won't be long until we are complaining of the dry weather and heat!! 

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Happy days everyone, and as Heather Jo Flores  says - 

"Remember to

Care about the earth

Care about the people

Care about the future.

Take responsibility for ourselves and who we bring into the world. "