3 missing permaculture stewardship principles--mine
Permaculture follows 12 principles. I have a few bonus ones that I follow.
Permaculture’s principles include:
Observe and interact
Store energy
Obtain a yield
Accept feedback
Use renewable services
Produce no waste
Design from patterns to details
Integrate
Iterate slowly
Use diversity
Use edges
Creatively respond to change
The 12 principles, like months on a calendar, or a dozen doughnuts (yum), fit neatly in expectation. Even though these principles feel ecologically obvious, I had never heard them articulated until I discovered permaculture. I started practicing permaculture when I planned my first garden a handful of years ago. I was fascinated by the design system, and saw so much abundance from the practices, that it motivated me to get my permaculture design certificate.
Over the past few years, this design system has driven abundance, resilience, and life while at the same time evolving my spaces to require fewer resources and less work (from me). This holds true in a variety of garden spaces, from perennial edible landscapes to woodland areas with annual interplanted crops, to more traditional home garden spaces dedicated to annual food production. Some seasons might not produce as big a yield as others, but the spaces create their own abundance whether you consider foliage, wildlife, or their sheer numbers.
Resilience is remarkable. Last summer was the hottest summer ever recorded and I often worried that I had forgotten to irrigate some spaces, but when I’d check them, they were fine and productive. Designing with permaculture principles year-over-year builds layers that get stronger and evolve over time.
This drive to survive preserves life and attracts life: above and below the soil. Perhaps harvests weren’t what was expected, but maybe that season the network of mycelia (essentially mushroom root systems that help deliver nutrients to plants) below the soil surface tripled in size. Or maybe a chop-and-drop practice (cutting spent or end-of-season plants at the base and leaving the aerial parts on the soil surface to decompose) has created sufficient biomatter after each season that your soil hydrology can better support filtering and storing water than ever before.
With all of these things and the traditional principles in mind, I have 3 stewardship principles that I created, which I feel are the missing permaculture principles:
Fanatical value awareness. As the vision of the content that I create and how I want to support others, I believe in designing life around one’s values and helping others do the same. The charm in this is that our personal values vary. Even though we approach things differently and the outcome could look different, every outcome is a success because it’s scaffolded by a person’s values. Permaculture extends beyond the garden. For example, when my husband and I are making a big (or even small) decision together, I often ask, “Will this make our life easier?” Right now, we value simplification. Back in the garden, this year I’m valuing using the plants and seeds that I have. Every year that I’ve gardened I’ve lost plants that I purchased or that I was given because I didn’t have the time or energy to transplant them. This year I don’t want that to happen. This year when I see trees at the garden store, or a friend asks if I want extra tomato seedlings, the answer isn’t necessarily no to both. Definitely no to buying the trees, but instead, this year I’m moving trees from different parts of my property to areas where I feel they’ll help create habitat and support. For the tomato seedlings, it’s a yes IF my friend will swap with some of my own seedlings. This prevents an expense and prevents more work in transplanting more plants than I had expected. Value awareness is constantly on my mind and drives all my decisions, from the garden, in our marriage, to work.
Soil health as greatest importance. I’d love to re-write “All You Need is Love” and make the lyrics “All You Need is Soil Health.” Cue the music. Prioritizing soil health in every landscape creates radical positive change. Whether that’s with chop-and-drop methods, deep mulch, keeping chickens near a garden to compost their bedding, applying worm tea, shredding leaves, or a combination of all of these things—soil is the keystone to a healthy landscape. These regenerative practices also produce more nutrient-dense food. The authors of WHAT YOUR FOOD ATE conducted research that showed “soil health and nutrient density were compared for fields growing the same crop variety. On average the regenerative fields had twice the topsoil organic matter and three times higher soil health scores, and produced crops with higher levels of certain vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals.”
If I was going to take a break from gardening, I would either make sure the entire space is covered in leaves (to prevent moisture loss and create wildlife habitat) to preserve soil health, or broadcast a cover crop. The latter could provide important nutrients—depending on the type of cover crop—and the roots help aerate and draw life to the soil. Later, the foliage can be tarped and turned in or chopped-and-dropped as a green mulch.Systemized randomness or instinctual decisions. This was on my mind recently because I decided to toss the design I had made for my garden this year. I decided it while in the garden and about to transplant the year’s first seedlings. This stewardship principle leans on the permaculture principle of diversity. In a way, randomness is using and valuing diversity. In another way, it’s prioritizing placement of plants by chance and instinct. When I’ve embraced randomness, I find better pest and disease tolerance. For instance, when I planted out salad seedlings over the weekend, I didn’t plant lettuce in the same spot. I planted salad greens in sets of five: kale, spinach, arugula, green lettuce, and red lettuce. I sited these diverse bunches in random spaces in the garden. If a pest shows up, it may stay with those handful of plants and not move 10 feet to the next cluster of plants. I could lose some of the plants, but if I had plotted the garden design with rigid structure and monoculture, a row of the same plant could be easily enjoyed by a pest much faster.
Are you practicing some of these principles already, or are you planning to? What other areas of stewardship do you think are missing? If you’re curious about learning more on your own, here’s the list of permaculture books and podcasts that I recommend.