Category Archives: Interdependence

by | November 30, 2024 · 5:35 am

Observe and Interact

The first principle of permaculture, Observe and Interact, is one I return to again and again. This is how it is meant to be since the principles are not a checklist to work through and be done with but a way of looking at the world that you try to deepen over time.

Bumblebee on Anise Hyssop

Observe and Interact basically tells us to pay attention, engage, and learn. This seems like it should be easy for human beings with our capacity for thinking, reflecting and remembering. At the moment, however, our culture does not seem to encourage critical thinking, seeing reality, or empowered action. It is a complex, convoluted and often overwhelming world of information these days. This is part of why the garden is such a great place to take in these principles. This sort of embodied and direct learning and feedback greatly helps us to grasp and internalize all the principles of permaculture.

So, it follows that the more that we garden and homestead the more we understand the importance of principle number one: Observe and Interact. This year we found ourselves particularly noting the benefits we get and the problems we avoid by paying attention.

It has always been my goal to carefully inspect every part of our three or so acres in use on a regular basis, maybe every other week. While I have not met that goal, I did manage to keep an eye on this land enough to catch and deal with some problems before they got out of hand. Here are some examples.

Dandelions in Spring

I have been working for years to build our soil and encourage vibrant plant growth while being picky about what plants live here. I have a long list of plants I like, including some that other people detest like dandelions, but there also plenty which I do not want taking up residence here, including some that can be very persistent. My experience is that stopping plants from establishing themselves is much easier than trying to remove them later.

This year we had garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) try to move in. I found the garlic mustard in my front orchard where I spend a lot of time. There were just a few plants when I noticed and identified it and pulled it out. Throughout the season I walked by the area and pulled up the few straggly new ones that tried to come back. I will keep an eye on it next year, but don’t foresee much of a problem. Later in the season, I was visiting the goats when I noticed a vine climbing up the fence. It was about 2 feet tall and when we dug it out the orange root confirmed that, yes, it was Oriental bittersweet. It hasn’t come back yet but we will keep watching. We’ve had this happen before with bittersweet and it does sometimes take a few rounds to get out all of the root.

While most people think of these plants as impossible to get rid of, especially without chemicals, we find any plant we can keep cut back eventually dies. The smaller it is when we start the process the faster it all goes. Again, noticing is the key. Of course, we also have goats if we needed to really keep something knocked back that has gotten established – like poison ivy was when we first got here!

This would be too many peaches!

As you know from my last post, I had a fabulous peach season this year. It would not have been quite as good if I had not been tuned into them long before they were ripe. We pruned in the late winter and thinned after fruit set in the spring. I felt like we did a good job, but another walk through in early summer alerted me to some issues. First, I tend to leave enough fruit on to make up for loss from other animals, but for some reason we had very little theft by squirrels this year. So I needed to do another round of thinning to prevent branches from breaking and to let the remaining fruit grow nice and big. Also, I could see the trees were getting very bushy and full.  Although it is not the recommended time to do a lot of pruning, we have found that a mid summer cut back is useful for our more vigorous trees. Otherwise, they put on so much leaf growth they shade the peaches too much to ripen well. So far, we have not seen a downside to careful summer pruning. Certainly this year we had a spectacular season with lots of delicious fruit, as I reported in August. Stay tuned for my harvest summary update in about a month for the final numbers!

Songbird nestlings need a lot of food

This year many people experienced high animal pest numbers. We had some problems for sure. The chipmunks stole most of my strawberries, and we had many gorgeous songbirds visiting us – and taking most of our berry crop. But our fences generally held, keeping the deer, porcupines, raccoons and groundhogs at bay. In July, however, I noticed something nibbling the winter squash leaves in one of the orchards. Just a few, but still… the next day a few more were gone and a few young squash had been gnawed on. So, we scouted around the area very carefully and, yes, found a den with multiple entrances. We were unsure if he/she scaled a fence or

Young, Vulnerable Winter Squash

tunneled in but we acted fast to refill the holes and remove the critter and managed to save a lot of our produce for the year.

 

 

Grey Tree Frog

Although my observations are particularly tuned in to catch problems, it’s also important to see the beauty, health and productivity all around me. No matter the season or the stressors, there’s always something to appreciate.

 

Life off the homestead is busy, full and important to me, too, especially this year when I have been so busy as a peace activist. Plus, I’m only human. So I miss plenty of things. I do notice, though, that with time and practice it is more natural and easy, just a part of who I am, to be connected to and observing this land that supports and shelters me.

Cleome

 

2 Comments

Filed under Gardens, Interdependence, Permaculture principles, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | May 31, 2024 · 7:39 pm

Joyful Pruning!

“Nature is not a place to visit, it is home.” — Gary Snyder

To plant a tree is to be connected to a place with depth and longevity. When we were finally settled somewhere, “owners” of a place, it was a thrill to plant trees and bushes and other long lived perennials – anything beyond annual crops. We started with asparagus, rhubarb, berry bushes and trees. Fruit trees especially, plus a few for pollinators and medicine: peaches, pears, mulberries, linden, and unusual permaculture choices like persimmons and pawpaws.

This signified a level of stability and rootedness that I had been working towards for years. During all of that preparation I had studied how to plant and care for trees and other perennials. Now that it was time, though, having to do all of that and do it well was intimidating. I needed to sift through all the information I had garnered to figure out how best to keep them healthy and get a yield (permaculture principle 3).

Getting and preserving a yield

There are many pruning books, videos, and methods. Having read “The One-Straw Revolution” by Masanobu Fukuoka I knew that one could choose to be very hands off. Then again, permaculture orchardist Stefan Sobkowiak has an amazing organic orchard that he prunes and shapes intensively. There are also many variations in between. What should I do?

Feeling unsure of myself, and fearing hurting the trees, I started with minimal pruning. I saw the problems with that quickly with our peaches. We’d been warned that peaches could be difficult to grow in New England, especially organically. While I can confirm that it’s not easy to grow a perfect looking peach, our experience is that they grow fast, flower like crazy and make tons of delicious fruit! We still get hit by polar vortexes or super late frosts and lose a year like everyone else, but usually they thrive.

See the two big cuts we had to make after this overgrown peach broke?

The first peach we planted and barely managed ended up leaning sunwards, overloaded with fruit on long, high branches. Unsurprisingly, a main branch cracked and broke after just a few years. Luckily, it was above the graft so it has come back, but we lost a couple of harvests and I doubt it will live as long as it could have. So, I started pruning harder.

I also began to feel more confident in what I was doing and not second guess every single cut I made. I was able to visualize how the tree would respond to my cuts and what it would look like later on. The constant worry that I was doing it wrong faded. I could even enjoy spending time with the trees in the late winter cold, looking forward to their spring growth and summer fruit.

Pruning the Red Haven Peach in Winter

The Red Haven in Summer

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found a new level of satisfaction in the process when I read “Sprout Lands: Tending the Endless Gift of Trees” by William Bryant Logan a few years ago. In it, the author describes how most people lived in close, reciprocal relationship to the forests around them. They depended on and used their products for survival, intensively managing them with coppice and pollard techniques. Not only did these pruning techniques not

Pollarded Maple

kill the trees, but they made for longer lived individual trees, and healthier, more diverse woodlands. In Sproutlands he visits England, Spain, Japan, California and other places, finding the same story everywhere.

 

 

“I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want.” -Andy Warhol

This is a narrative we recognize in permaculture. Rather than seeing humans and nature as two clashing entities, we recognize that humans are a part of the biosphere that evolved to have good, useful relationships with our fellow beings. That is how every species survives and thrives. So, I shouldn’t be surprised to once again have that reality shown to me, but given our species recent tendency to destroy things we depend on I find it hard sometimes to discern appropriate from destructive behavior.

When I first found permaculture this is part of what spoke to me. I was coming from both a farming and an activist perspective. As a farmer I appreciated permaculture’s practical improvements towards a sustainable, healthy food growing system. As an environmental and peace activist it was refreshing to find a way of looking at the world that did not assume that humans could only be problematic.

“The one who plants trees knowing that he or she will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.” – Rabindranath Tagore

This story of connection continues to this day. A 2022 study found that “the world’s healthiest, most biodiverse, and most resilient forests are located on protected Indigenous lands.” Even the World Bank with it’s poor track record of protecting land or people, recognizes that “Indigenous communities safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity and forests on their land are better maintained, with a higher preserved biodiversity than those on non-Indigenous lands.”

Now that I have gained skills and practice, and a larger understanding of what is possible, interacting and working with the plants brings me great joy. So does the abundant harvest that the trees and our work with them bestow upon us. It is my wish that all people have access to this level of interdependent security and resilience.

Unpruned Grapevines

Pruned Grapevines

Grapes to Harvest

Leave a Comment

Filed under Gardens, Interdependence, Permaculture principles, trees, Uncategorized, Weather

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

by | December 6, 2022 · 3:10 am

Culture

Zac & Ike

In August we brought two new boy goats onto our homestead. We do this every few years in order to avoid inbreeding in our herd. Over the winter we researched goat farms with different genetics from our animals who shared similar values and practices. We wanted them to allow the kids to be raised by their mothers, to keep the goats horned, to minimize medications and to breed for a good milk supply. When the kids were born in the spring, we checked them out online and reserved two: a buckling from their best milker for breeding and his polled brother, who would be wethered (neutered), to keep him company.

We manage our herd to maximize environmental sustainability and the well-being of the animals. To me, their well-being includes paying attention to their social needs. I know that some people think I’m silly, maybe even “not a real farmer” because of this. However, so many of the problems people tell me about their goat-keeping attempts trace back to their not understanding those particular needs. One of the most basic of those is that as herd animals, goats should not be alone. This is why I don’t sell goats singly, and why we brought home two when we really just needed the one buck.

The farm we were buying them from is two hours away from us. It was a fine trip there, listening to Sproutlands by William Bryant Logan. On the way back, though, each in their own dog crate separate from each other and taken away from their home, the little guys had many loud, scared complaints that I tried not to let completely break my heart.

Our New Boy Goats Arrive!

When the boys got here, they needed to be separated – quarantined – from the other goats. Although the farm they came from is reputable and does the appropriate disease testing, sometimes issues are missed and we take biosecurity seriously, prevention being worth so much more than cure. The newcomers are supposed to be adding value to the herd not infecting them with diseases or parasites. Also, giving them time to get to know the other goats from afar makes for a more

Marley, Our Resident Buck

peaceful eventual integration. These two would be going to live with our other two boys, who were years older and at least double their size.

So, we fenced off an area and set up a shelter with food and water and bedding. I was proud of the little home we put together. However, they had other priorities. From the moment they got here their focus was on our resident goats. The boys called and called to them, stood looking at them, and slept in the corner of the yard that was closest to them despite how unsheltered it was and its lack of food, water and bedding.  Listen to them here: 

 

I wasn’t terribly surprised by this behavior, figuring they are herd animals and thus want to be with the rest of the herd.

Right around this time, I happened to watch a talk from Biodiversity for a Livable Climate entitled “How Animals Shape Ecosystems” featuring Carl Safina talking about animal cultures. He mentioned programs that raise endangered animals then release them into the wild and how much more successful they are if there are still some wild animals of the same kind there for the newcomers to learn from. The way he defined “culture” amazed me. Here’s a quote from his Living On Earth interview: “Culture is the behaviors, the habits, and even the attractions that we learn socially and that are transmitted socially. The amazing thing to me is that, whether it’s human, modern, Western technological culture, or whether it’s sperm whales, culture basically does the same things for social beings. It answers the question of, how do we live here, where we live?”

My shortened version is: Culture is how we learn to live successfully in our specific place on the planet.

Suddenly, my view of what the little boy goats were doing

The herd likes to be together

took on a deeper meaning. They weren’t just looking for safety in numbers, they wanted to join the existing group to learn from them how to successfully live in this place that was new to them.

It also shifted my view on current human cultures. Previously I thought of culture as a collection of stuff (music, dance, dress, etc) that people in a place ended up doing that became important to their group identity. I appreciated and found the diversity fascinating, but saw it as somewhat ephemeral and random. Now, I see that those acts and items are an expression of what culture really is – an understanding of what to do, what to eat, what to wear, how to work together and connect that helps a group fit sustainably into a particular place (Darwin’s survival of those who best fit into their environment comes back to us here). I see also that the way so many of us have been forced out of our traditional places has us confused.  Our carefully created ways of living don’t necessarily apply to our new environment, but the work of developing new strategies takes time – and sometimes fails, especially if we cannot connect with those who have belonged to that place before us.

Maybe this is part of the reason why so many cultures right now are dysfunctional enough to not live up to the title of “culture” as they seem to teach people ways of being that actually destroy our ability to survive. It also sheds more light on why Indigenous people comprise less than 5% of the world population but protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity. Respecting and protecting their rights, saying no to market schemes that push them off their lands, and humbly turning to them as our teachers and leaders could be a key to our surviving and thriving – our goats could tell us that!

Socializing the New Guys

In the case of our new guys, we had good reason to keep them by themselves for awhile, and we were here to help them survive during the quarantine period. We took our cue from them about what they most needed and created a plywood lean-to in the spot they picked up against the barn. After two months with no health concerns coming up, we shifted fences so they could have some nose-to-nose contact with the boys they would eventually live with. The little buckling had a romantic day with Diana which seems to have resulted in a pregnancy. To be extra safe, Steve built a secondary shelter in the older boy’s yard with entrances too small for the adults to fit through. When we actually did bring them

Shelter Only Accessible By Smaller Goats

together, there was a lot of sniffing, a little pushing and shoving… and then a lot of welcome quiet for me! After months of those little boys calling and crying and worrying me that something was terribly wrong with them, it seems they really did just want to be with more of their own kind. Phew!

As a bonus, I have another book to add to my winter reading list: Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace. The promise of more rest and great learning makes the cold and dark less daunting as we enter December.

2 Comments

Filed under Goats, Interdependence, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , ,