Liz Braithwaite

I use a mesh dishcloth. I've had the same two for over a year...when they get dirty (which isn't that often), they go through the dishwasher or clothes washer. And it works far better than any cloth, sponge, scrubby, etc, that I've used.

The principles themselves aren't confusing. I just thought at first that there are standard permaculture principles, and they are repeated across the literature. What confused me for a bit was the principles didn't match up. With further study I realized that most authors just make their own list, and some are repeated, but not all.

Something that confused me for a while while studying permaculture were the principles. The various lists are not all the same. So I made a table that shows a comparison of the most common principles

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David Holmgren: Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability	Bill Mollison: Permaculture, a Designers' Manual	Mollison: Introduction to Permaculture	Toby Hemenway: Gaia's Garden
1. Observe and interact		1.  Relative location.	1. Observe
2. Catch and store energy		4.  Efficient energy planning: zone, sector and slope	3. Catch and Store Energy and materials
3. Obtain a yield			12. Get a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback			14. Mistakes are tools for learning
5. Use and value renewable resources and services	Work with nature rather than against	5.  Using biological resources.	10. Use biological and renewable resources
6. Produce no waste		6.  Cycling of energy, nutrients, resources.
7. Design from patterns to details		8.  Accelerating succession and evolution.	9. Collaborate with succession
8. Integrate rather than segregate	Everything gardens	2.  Each element performs many functions.	4. Each element performs multiple function
9. Use small and slow solutions		7.  Small-scale intensive systems; including plant stacking and time stacking.	7. Use Small scale intensive systems
10. Use and value diversity		9.  Diversity; including guilds.
11. Use edges and value the marginal		10. Edge effects.	8. Optimize edge
12. Creatively use and respond to change	The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited	12. Permaculture is information and imagination-intensive	13. The biggest limit to abundance is creativity
			2. Connect
	The problem is the solution		11. Turn problems into solutions
		3.  Each important function is supported by many elements.	5. Each function is supported by multiple elements
	Make the least change for the greatest possible effect.	11. Everything works both ways	6. Make the least change for the greatest effect

There's a pdf here

*Tired to see if this was talked about elsewhere, and couldn't find it. If anyone does know if it was, let me know.

I agree that it's just going to be too coarse to use on the lawn, and a mower isn't very safe. Would work well for sheet mulching though.

We have cut down a lot of trees and shrubs in our landscape after moving in. For now, they are simply piled up in the back 40, and I'm thinking that it will act as a very low maintenance mulch until we are ready to use the wood for stick fuel or hugleculture. I had a pile that had been there previously and was surprised to find that after we had moved away all the logs and remaining sticks, there was a good layer of composted mulch underneath.

In the piles that we do have, I've noticed a lot of grasshoppers (and in turn birds). But I haven't noticed the grasshoppers in my garden that bad. Any advantages/disadvantages I'm not thinking of? I know it won't look that great for a while, but I'm not too concerned about it as it will be just temporary until the wood is used elsewhere. Other option is to haul everything to greenwaste, but I would rather we kept it and used it.