Category Archives: Permaculture principles

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

 

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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

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by | August 19, 2023 · 5:07 am

Wet, Weedy And Weird: Summer 2023

When it first started raining, I was thrilled. We were starting the growing season NOT in a drought! But, as you know, it just kept coming, enough to break records in June and July and cause terrible floods in some places (we did not have that here). While I continue to remind myself to be grateful there is water coming our way regularly, it’s also true that there is such a thing as too much. As Brene Brown said: the opposite of scarcity is not abundance, it is enough.

A Good Year For Lettuce

Early on in this rainy season most of our plants grew quickly and looked great. I thought we were being set up for an exceptional gardening year and harvest. Instead, the excessive ups and downs and weird weather patterns have hindered our production.

It really started last winter.

The spring bloom – or lack thereof – confirmed that the February polar vortex did wipe out this year’s peaches. Peaches are an important crop for me. You may have read about my August and September canning marathons putting up 50 plus quarts of peaches each year. So, I did mourn that loss… but I hoped that the berry season might make up for it, since fruit set on the bushes around here looked great. There was also a late frost in May, but, luckily, that barely touched us.

A Rhubarb Plant Almost As Tall As I Am!

It was also a chilly spring so the heat lovers stagnated, like our eggplant. But the kale, collards, broccoli and Brussels sprouts flourished. The lettuce was huge, tasted great, and lasted extra long before bolting. The rhubarb and asparagus were big and beautiful.

Looking Up At The Peas

Most of our plants looked fabulous, truly lush in the gardens, orchards, pasture and wild places. Many of our climbers – pole beans and peas especially – outgrew their normal trellising, we added more, and they continued to keep going. The leeks, root crops, corn, and flowers for pollinators were vibrant and big. It was such a contrast to last year’s meager greenery in the drought.

Brussels Sprouts & Broccoli, Well-Mulched

But along with the crops growing well, the weeds proliferated. We have a low-weed system, using lots of mulch and not tilling at all. Despite that, there has still been weeding to do, especially in our newer orchard areas where there is a strong seed bank and the trees are too small to shade out new growth. So, while we didn’t have to water at all, we have had more than enough unwanted plant removal to take up that time. At least the goats love most of the volunteer plants so it doesn’t seem like a such a waste.

As the season has been moving along, many of our yields are just not spectacular. The peas grew tall and tasted great – but died after just a few weeks. Our zucchini plants had a similar trajectory. Our rattlesnake pole bean vines are huge, but not that productive. My first plantings of cukes wilted quickly – I’m not entirely sure which disease it was, but in the wet conditions it hit them hard. My later plantings look ok, but since it continues to be so rainy I won’t be surprised if it gets to them, too. The eggplant and tomatoes are only trickling in. Blueberry picking was awesome – until the spotted wing drosphilia numbers rose. We used to have over a month of picking, but the past few years only get about 2 weeks until the berries get mushy because of the larvae. 

Tomatoes Ripening Very Slowly

Also, even though there have been some serious spikes in heat, we have not had the extended, less intense heat that many plants produce best in. It felt great to us humans when the heat broke… but with highs only in the 70s, lots of plants slowed way down.

 

Lush Pasture for the Goats

Not everything is doing badly. Some other crops look good: winter squash, root crops, dry beans, yellow summer squash, our unusual berries (clove currants and jostaberries especially). Our basil has been excellent and most of our garlic is big and beautiful (the red variety is smaller than usual). Our animals are thriving with such lush grass and greenery to nourish them.

However, overall, this is turning out to be our least productive growing season yet.

In these difficult conditions, we are once again glad that we discovered permacultural principles and growing methods. Having healthy soil filled with organic matter and humus can moderate the extremes of wet and dry. Keeping the soil covered with plants and mulches suppresses weeds, retains moisture when needed, and lowers soil temperature when it is hot and sunny. An emphasis on plant and animal diversity means we never have a year that is a total loss. Earthworks such as swales help our land slow and capture the bursts of heavy rain, stopping erosion and keeping the groundwater and well charged. I can’t imagine trying to live this way without all that in place.

Permaculture also encourages big picture thinking, beyond our own place and time.

A lot of work goes into growing good food

It is very likely that weather will continue to be volatile and hard to predict, probably more than we’re currently experiencing, and it is going to be challenging to grow food. People seemed to understand the importance of maintaining our food supply when shelves were emptying at the start of the pandemic and then with recent price spikes at grocery stores. I’m not sure if people grasp how much harder it is to grow food in these times of climate disruptions.

I don’t want to frighten anyone – I am not sure fear is a great motivator of real, intelligent change. I hope that we can become aware of these issues, even though they are scary, and deepen our appreciation for food and farmers and our planet’s life giving systems so much that we are inspired to act in support of all of them. There are many ways to do so. Here’s one:

Building Good Soil Is Possible

Right now the Farm Bill is being worked on in Congress (it comes around about every 5 years). It is a great opportunity to ask for change. The bill’s current priorities favor agribusiness and destructive technological and market schemes. Instead, these resources could support the small farmers who actually feed most humans and real solutions addressing environmental problems. How food is grown deeply matters – it’s why Steve and I have committed much of our lives to doing it well! Agricultural methods can destroy the earth or help to stabilize the water cycle, put carbon where it belongs, stop soil loss, reverse desertification and more. You can learn about how to advocate for change at NOFA-NH and AFSC.

Back at the homestead, it’s hard not to get discouraged in a year like this, but we will keep our own gardens going and hope you will, too, as another way to strengthen our resilience and food security and lessen the stress on the biosphere. We’ll also remember to take in the beauty all around us this season, such as the extraordinary vista of blooms in our front yard.

Our Herb & Pollinator Garden

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