Permies.com - What I learn from logging on and contributing

I have been researching how to add pictures to my profile.  Along the way, I have discovered a world of information.  Not only am I improving my Permaculture skills but along the way, I am improving my web skills.  Thank you to all the contributors, moderators and advisors.  It is a great organisation to be a part of.  Input < Learning Opportunities.
What has been your key learning from using Permies and or being a Kickstarter?

Oh goodness, I've learned SO MUCH in my years here. Off the top of my head:

(1) Communication techniques! I've learned a lot about being nice and sharing my own opinion rather than telling other's they're wrong. It's really helped me not only online, but also in real life!

(2) That just because something is "cloth" doesn't mean it's natural or good. Polyester is plastic! (I feel silly saying that now, but 8 years ago when I bought cloth diapers for my son, I thought "It's cloth, so it must be good and natural and safe." I was wrong! It sheds microplastics and gave my son rashes because it didn't come clean like cotton). I came here to learn about gardening, and ended up learning about so much more!

(3) That I can make things out of wood! I'd always wanted to carve a spoon, but never felt I could. Along came the SKIP program's roundwood woodworking badge and the badge bit for carving a spoon. Next thing I knew, I'd carved a spoon, then made a mallet, made a bench, made a stool, and used my skills to make a kiwi trellis.

(4) That my work had value to others. I never thought I could sell my stuff and people would buy it. But since the digital market costs nothing to make a listing, and takes such a tiny percentage if you make a sale, I thought, "Why not?" And people bought my stuff and I felt like I had value and skills that were worth something. (Now I'm so swamped with homeschooling my two kids and working from home, that I don't have much time to create, but the experience still really built me up in a huge way).

(5) That there's other people like me! The feeling of community and friendship and support here on permies is immense. It's neat knowing you're not the only one that piles rocks to attract snakes, or is excited about rare perennial edibles, or are proud of your clothesline (I stole these all from the 17 pages of "You Might be  a Permie If..." thread)

Wow, I just checked my join date. It was February 24th, 2014. That's  exactly 7 years and 1 day ago! Permies has been with me from when my son was just 4 months old, to when I was trying to pick a tree for his first birthday, to my soul searching as to whether we should have a second child (yes, we did, and yes, she's awesome! Though it certainly was a larger trial than we were expecting). A big thanks to everyone here at permies for being such a huge part of my life!

Nicole Alderman wrote:

Wow, I just checked my join date. It was February 24th, 2014. That's  exactly 7 years and 1 day ago! Permies has been with me from when my son was just 4 months old, to when I was trying to pick a tree for his first birthday, to my soul searching as to whether we should have a second child (yes, we did, and yes, she's awesome! Though it certainly was a larger trial than we were expecting). A big thanks to everyone here at permies for being such a huge part of my life!

Hope you have a very happy anniversary Nicole.  Thank you for your fabulous input to our learning - when the student becomes the teacher, our job is done, except that we continue to learn as peers and grow together and support each other.

Wow, I have learned so much since finding permies!

I can't even begin to tell all the things that I have learned. First, I will say the one thing I am most proud of is learning how to add pictures to a post.  I love pictures!  I love adding pictures to a post.  I am thankful to the person who was so patient and helped me through the process.

I love that I can ask a question and so many folks will try to help figure out my question.

I also love that permies is a wealth of information.  I can do a search and find all sorts of answers.

Hey Paul! Glad you're here and happy to see your pics.

I've learned an awful lot about dealing with pests, animals, and rocket stoves, but honestly the biggest takeaway for me lately is ideas for reusing things. Plus the pleasure of escaping to a place that focuses on nature, growth, and people making positive change when I have breaks during my workday.

I've got a question for you about your bananas. You have that super-cold-desert-night thing going on there? We get down to freezing here (southern Brazil, 9b, we do occasionally get a bit of snow) and the banana leaves get frost-nipped but the plants always bounce back. You figure you have to cut them anyway after they fruit, so it's just cosmetic. Or is the greenhouse more for containing moisture (since it looks really, really dry out there)?

Hi Tereza,
The hot house is an experiment.  The tank in the foreground is a hot water tank that I recovered from our local tip.  I bored 6 holes in the ground 1200 mm (4 feet) deep and looped pipe from the tank onto and out of each hole then connected the free end into a solar heater I made and back to the tank.  There is a 25 mm (1") inline pump to pull the water from the tank and push to the solar heater.  It turns on for 5 minutes each hour between 10 AM and 2 PM to pull the heated water underground.  We have sweet potato and other sensitive plants there.  The Tank is painted black to increase heat absorption during the day and warm the air at night.  I have kept a thermometer in there and it appears that we can keep the temperature at about 5 deg C overnight and it also keeps the frost off.  As an experiment it is a success but there needs to be some refinements because the underground joins came apart and the antifreeze soaked into the ground.  A banana will die once it has fruited so they get cut out.  We tried dwarf cavandish and ladies fingers.  The cavandish fared a little better.  We have -5 deg C (Zone 9) in winter with frosts and up to 45 deg C in summer but most days are perfect save the odd drought or flood.  Not in the big smoke so life is a ball and everything else is a bonus
Hope that answers your questions. BTW our elevation is 493 Metres in the Central Table lands of NSW

Very cool, Paul, thanks for explaining in detail!

Absolutely loving all the comments here!
Possibly the biggest thing I’ve learned is how to think- about how I think. I know that sounds like double talk but it’s really true. At a certain age it seems like we get set in our ideas and have a hard time accepting new and different thoughts. So many threads and comments here (and now Paul’s draft of Permaculture Thorns!) that have made me stop and say ‘huh! Never thought about it like that!’. Thinking is good, because you can’t learn if you don’t. So many discussions here have triggered the desire to do more research into an idea, and led to many fascinating ‘rabbit hole’ evenings. And overall I’ve just stopped settling for ‘I know what I know’, and opening up my mind to knowing something else.
I can’t fully enumerate what I’ve learned, but one prime example is hugelkultur. I’ve heard the term for years, seen pictures, skimmed articles about it, but never really had a full appreciation for it (meaning thought about it) until this forum. Same with the value of ponds, or ‘edge’. Especially edge. It never occurred to me how much of importance happened at those transitions.
Overall, it’s just great fun seeing and hearing different ideas from around the planet. Somebody is always doing something cool and interesting that I would never get to share in if I wasn’t here!

The biggest thing I've learned about is the dynamic interplay within nature. How dynamic accumulators not only have deep roots to hold back erosion on a rainy hillside, but how they also use those deep roots to draw up many minerals that are often lacking in soils.  How certain pollinating plants can fill in the gaps and attract a steady flow of pollinators, but also harbor "the balance of nature" to keep predatory insects in check. How pioneer nitrogen fixing plants can go into a new area, grow fast and set up nitrogen into the soil before eventually becoming more scarce for other plants.  How a diversity of plants can also continue the balance of nature and set up predators to check on pests that dominate within a monoculture.  How keeping the integrity of the soil can foster the nurturing of the mycorrhizae so they can distribute the nutrients across the land.  How restoring a form of natural meadow habitat can revive native bee populations, and how having different microclimates within your garden can foster even greater diversity to grow within it.

John S
PDX OR

I have learned to many things to recount, but in my mind the most important is I can make a difference.  Before I found Permies I thought, I can't do anything about global warming, or improving our world. I'm not powerful, or rich enough to make a difference. I learned how wrong I was.  Everyone can make a difference. It's the small changes we can all make that will be the most impactful. Especially if we share what I have learned with others.  
Permies is helping me to be a better person. That sounds kind of silly, but I feel it's true.  It pushes me to keep trying to be better, to do better. To know more, to share what I know. To grow.  So I too am totally grateful to permies, and all the smart, giving, amazing open hearted people who make permies what it is.  Thanks

The interconnectedness. I look for sunlight patterns and slope/water flow everywhere I go. The "mistakes" & "things to know" are especially helpful. I find the vast mix of posters approachs very informative. And I love the absence of hostile trolls!

leigh gates wrote:And I love the absence of hostile trolls!

Me too Leigh.  I have distilled a philosophy for life: "I don't care what you are.  I care what you bring to the table" Trolls must be very unhappy people needing to try to bring others down.  As we find out in Harry Potter, Trolls are not that bright!

If nothing else, this forum is a source of experiences from people doing crazy stuff to improve the world, tiny bit by tiny bit. It both encourages other people to try their own stuff, and check with others if that's too crazy or if that might actually work. It gave me confidence in my own projects, and also authority to defend my ideas, knowing that other people have already done something similiar with success.
Oh, I always love to share the little knowledge I possess, and here it is welcomed.

Abraham wrote: If nothing else, this forum is a source of experiences from people doing crazy stuff to improve the world, tiny bit by tiny bit.

Sooo... you’re saying we’re all a bunch of crazies right? 😎

Abraham Palma wrote:If nothing else, this forum is a source of experiences from people doing crazy stuff to improve the world, tiny bit by tiny bit. It both encourages other people to try their own stuff, and check with others if that's too crazy or if that might actually work. It gave me confidence in my own projects, and also authority to defend my ideas, knowing that other people have already done something similiar with success.
Oh, I always love to share the little knowledge I possess, and here it is welcomed.

This. The idea culture of Permies is awesome. “Crazy” ideas are the most innovative, and the acceptance of the potential value of any and all ideas, whatsoever is what makes Permies great. It’s helped me to be certain that if it works in my head, it’s worth giving a shot, no matter what anyone else says.

Myron Platte wrote:  This. The idea culture of Permies is awesome. “Crazy” ideas are the most innovative, and the acceptance of the potential value of any and all ideas, whatsoever is what makes Permies great. It’s helped me to be certain that if it works in my head, it’s worth giving a shot, no matter what anyone else says.

Since the Kickstarter for the SKiP book ended, I have taken the opportunity to click on to threads and dig into the bowels of the topics from way back.  One thing that I am learning, and I think that I have it right, is that to really be effective at permaculture one has to be a thinker, a believer, creative and adaptable. This goes hand in hand with actually doing and the more I do, the luckier I am and the happier I will be.  The other thing that is distilling out of, particularly some of Paul Wheaton's, old posts is that just because you don't get it does not make it or me wrong. And how would you know if you have never tried.

Learning is huge and having been back and reread the first post in February, there has been so much water under the bridge - received 5 BBs, elevated to the dizzying heights of pollinator and contributed heaps.  The big thing is how much more there is to learn.  The Ground Air heat Transfer system (GAHTS) is coming along swimmingly with some great advice.  Such things as when air cools it becomes more water dense and condensation will collect in the pipes and they may need to be sanitised to stop mould so it is not a health issue......  Lesson learned as a result of subscribing to Permies.com. I was once asked why I subscribed - My retort was why would you not subscribe.  A world community with a world of experiences and able to gain a world of experience simply by connecting and contributing.

First I get very good encouragement in my gardening endeavors and inspiration in seeing other people's work.

The other thing that is probably most positive is seeing a very interesting intersection of people. I had wrongly assumed that permies was going to be full of environmentalists, almost exclusively. But I discovered that people congregate here for a variety of reasons and that puts me in contact with people from a wide variety of political and philosophical viewpoints. I think this is super important in a world where social media typically isolates and hyperbolizes division. Finding common ground is the core of cooperation and a functioning society.

So there you have it, I learned that permies is how we can solve our social problems as well as our environmental ones!

19 months later, what a huge learning curve.  There remains so much more to learn.  Have nearly finished the ground air heat transfer system (GAHT) and started the root cellar inspite of la nina.
Literally, just a couple of minutes ago learned by getting down a rabbit hole from one of R. Ranson's YouTube videos that I can attach my vertical wind turbine to the peak of my roof rather then having to build a big tower.
The things I have learned are for the most part from other Permies feedback from their experiences and going down rabbit holes starting with what others post here.
I am thinking that 180 lifetimes may see all that I am learning being put out there so I can live well in my own patch of the great blue orb.