Cyryl Kwaśniewski

After two years of intermediate study of the discipline I'm coming to a similar conclusion: it smells of MLM.

The reason is that it's hope given for money with no other proven benefits and evidence.

Permaculture is an interesting discipline, but in the terms of modern world reality it's not a sustainable practice as it costs more to practice then it gives back in terms of benefits.

It also looks like a MLM scheme because the practitioners who teach sell the knowledge under the promise of making a world somehow a better place. Yet, it's impossible to practice permaculture without cutting down on your working hours significantly and spending some money in advance.

What is being transferred upwards the ladder is not money, it's just plain hope.

You need a piece of land to manage, which is not easy to come by. You need significant amount of iterations to hone some skills. It starts with knowledge of plants and how to manage things as they grow throughout the season. And then, there are many more levels to learn from Permaculture perspective. You can't design system without knowing their smaller parts.

As a result I see permaculture as an intriguing hobby and activism for those who can afford to invest some significant part of their time and money. If you're young and alone, or if you're retired with grown out kids - cool. But if you find yourself discovering Permaculture is the way to go in the middle of your established life in the city, with two people working full time and a small kid that needs attention - you're cooked.

I tried this and understood how long a way to go it is. I do not own any land, I have a tiny wee garden that grows maybe 1/1000 of what we eat through out the year. Any other thing I have to pay for.

At the same time, switching from my current job to market gardening where I live is a plan to achieve in maybe 5 years at minimum. With no certainty that further mechanisation and technical progress in agriculture will not influence the margins in the small scale farming business. And those margins are already small where I live (Poland).

Remember that conventional farmers are also learning about no-till, agroforestry, agroecology... They are not stupid.

At the same time, there are many myths about the quality of organic food being superior, yet scientific evidence does not support many of them. And organic food farming is only profitable because these items sell at twice the prices of regular food.

To reiterate this: as much as I love the idea of making the Earth a better place by practicing permaculture, as much as I enjoy running my garden this way, I do not believe it will change anything.

I found a lot of useful information in this thread. I'm elevated with this, but I still have some questions/ideas lingering:

Root development with seedlings

Mold

Seeding depth

Success rates

I was hoping some more experienced of you could help me validate my ideas.

Root development
Smaller seeds like Pak Choi and Kohlrabi don't seem to develop roots deeper into the block. I'm using peat moss / compost / perlite in 1:3 ratio each. I used 1.6 inch blocks (4 cm). I put the seeds in to the hole (0.3 inch / 0.8 cm deep). I did not cover seeds with anything, just pressed them slightly against the block. The seedling are so weakly attached to the blocks that they easily fall over.

Mold
I observed mold development on the blocks. I used both fresh peat moss and compost as well as oven-sterilized substrates. Same result, only that the sterilized mix took longer time to mold. The important bonus with sterilized mix is the total lack of damping-off disease.

Seeding depth
Seems like it's better to drill a seed-sized pocket in the block. If the pocket made with the dibble is too large the seed has issues as described above. Alternatively, seeds need some cover (vermiculite, soil). Otherwise, even with damp/moist blocks the seeds take longer to germinate and require more watering. And this causes other issues.

Success rates
I tested this with four batches:

nonsterilized mix blocks - survival rate 9 out of 24 sample batch blocks (37%)

sterilized mix blocks - 83 out 100 blocks. This includes Sage which germinates longer.

traditional potting container but with the same sterilized mix: 58 out of 64 seedlings that I started in the same sterilized mix, but in traditional way - a flat potting container, 10 seedlings in a row, closely spaced, to be transplanted later to larger pots.

damp kitchen cloth (I'm starting seeds in a damp warm cloth and then transplant once they germinate into the mix): almost 100% germination rate. I didn't count as a I've thrown handfuls of seeds leftover from previous batches (:. I'm still waiting to transplant these into potting medium, but the results are promising.

There is some bias, though: with each batch I'm getting more experience with temperature and watering and I water seedling with greater care. Also, I'm a newbie, with no complete education, I'm just experimenting with whatever seemed reasonable and cool at the same time