Is anyone really doing permaculture?

I love these discussions for opening up (for me) new areas of thought. Nicole pointed out what should have been obvious to me (and has been brought up before...It's just slow to sink in)...if big ag starts planting food forests that could only be a good thing...doesn't matter much what they call it....same with organics...natural...green....I get hung up with words changing meanings sometimes. (I live with a "wordsmith" of sorts).
I have come away very inspired and energized by the variety of successes posted here and in other threads.

EDIT....I won't change what I've written because it has been quoted but I could have better said what I thought as "if big ag starts planting food forests that could be a step in the right direction" I had a moment of optimism there...and I am well aware of the reality.

another EDIT...and it was my exaggeration of what Nicole actually said "if permaculture ever has an issue with large commercial food forests being planted, that will be a high class problem"...that started the following posts...I didn't realise this would go to a separate page.

Judith Browning wrote:I love these discussions for opening up (for me) new areas of thought. Nicole pointed out what should have been obvious to me (and has been brought up before...It's just slow to sink in)...if big ag starts planting food forests that could only be a good thing...doesn't matter much what they call it.

Unfortunately there is a problem with when Big Ag does it. They short cut.

I have a cousin that is a CAFO chicken farmer. He's USDA Certified Organic. His chickens never see the light of day. People think they're buying eggs and meat from "happy chickens" but the reality is his being Organic (big 'O') just means that his chickens got Certified Organic feed. They're still kept in the dark in huge, stinking, manure filled buildings and never see a blade of grass or the light of day, the sky, the rain, the wind, etc. This is not what people think of when they envision organic but it is USDA Certified Organic and Big Ag has stolen the term.

I, on the other hand, truly raise our livestock out on pasture, naturally and organically. Our animals are rotated through green fields, brush and woods filled with real forages. The pastures really are organic but we can't call them that. The livestock get to socialize with other animals of their same and other species. They live very natural lives until I slaughter them. No crating, confinement, etc. But we're not Certified Organic so we can't use the word organic. We are truly organic in the real sense of the word but the USDA and Big Ag have stolen away the term while polluting and diluting it.

So, yes, it does matter.

Walter, I think we are going in circles, this is my long held position...as follows....

Judith Browning wrote:I am going to annoy someone again and bring up what happened to the word "organic". When I first read about organics in the sixties it was presented as a whole life philosophy....one that I embraced as a lifestyle. Techniques changed over the years...acceptable farm inputs changed but basic principles/ethics remained the same (very similar to those of permaculture)..... until it became a market driven word and separated from it's philosophy, becoming just a set of techniques used by big ag for profit ( and to bend to their bottom line). Anyway, I can empathize with concern for the idea of "permaculture" and all that it embraces being missused/corrupted/ whatever.......

I haven't changed what I think about big ag organics and when I buy I know my farmer. It's still all about educating the permies.

Let's do crop circles.
Hmm... circles are endless, sustainable, permanent...

At the same time, it is easy to install an unhealthy food forest where the fruit trees are too closely spaced and there's an absence of nitrogen fixers, dynamic accumulators and insectary plants. In that case the idea of what a food forest is has been bastardized. That is my worry.

I completely agree that -- in the exceptionally unlikely event -- Big Ag starts planting food forests, they'd short cut it and do it in an unhealthy way. Still, I think it's a better problem to have than 8000 acres of conventional monocrop.

It was just an example, and not a very serious one at that.

Personally I'm slightly more worried that people won't plant food forests than that some of them might do it wrong.........

I am as curious as the OP.

I am curious to know how much each of you actually produces.

So far I have produced little because I only grew in hard conditions: first in Portugal (mediterranean) but in containers; second in Austria but in a urban garden that was shadowed by buildings; third in open space in Iceland, but the climate is cold and soil is poor. In all 3 cases the area was always a small garden (about 100m2 or 10 square feet)

NOW the HONESTY: I cannot feed myself from my permaculture garden, I cannot grow as much I as desire, so I view my permaculture experience as a failure so far. A learning failure, but it is a failure because it does not satisfies my goals.

On all 3 cases I produced a dozen of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants, peas for an ocasional meal, a couple of small potato bags, some dozen carrots, onions, enough salad for summer, pulses onyl enough for ocasional meals, no fruit rather than wild berry picking, and absolutely no other starch besides the potatoes. Nothing regarding water, house and energy self-sufficiency, because I still don't own my space.

Let's say regarding salads I am 100% self-sufficient in summer, 0% in winter; tomatoes I can be 20% self-sufficient in summer, 0% in winter, potatoes I can produce about 10% of annual need; 0% of fruits; 5% of pulses, 0% cereals, 0% corn, 0% any other starch or protein.

Not the SUCCESS side of this learning experience: other than ocasional slugs (and struggling with the Icelandic cold summer), I absolutely don't have any other pests. Intercropping does in fact deters pests to a desirable way! I still have some ocasional worms eating some leaves but not that much. Slugs are a problem sometimes, but reducing mulching works in those ocasions (as do plastic protections).

Fertility seems to come rather slowly, it requires a substancial amount of organic matter other than my own kitchen and garden compost, so I must always import some organic manner (compost or manure). Therefore I cannot be 100% self-reliant in my own organic matter. I do use my own (diluted) pee however.

I also learnt that my space is TOO SMALL to feed myself. So, hence I see my permaculture experience as still a FAILURE. I should scale the space about 10-20 times larger, maybe go for a minimum 3000 m2 (300 square feet), about 1 acre, per small family.

And because I am so fed up with the amount of work require to grow annual vegetables that usually only go for salads, I am now focusing more in perennials and only in staple starch and protein sources. But I still don't have any results regarding this, I am on early stages of growing those perennial species.

Neverthless, between my poor permaculture efforts and conventional agriculture, I still choose for the permaculture (for sake of the environment, my own health and also for fun); I know it will get better over time, it requires much empirical trying, trial and error, until it gets better. My long term goal is to be able to feed myself completely with what I grow. Yes, its a big challenge but I will never quit, it's my passion and my cause. I believe it is possible. However for that I will have to move to a warmer country and get my own wider land. Because with the present situation its nearly impossible to feed myself.

Jay Green wrote:
Another thing I see is people thinking that, if you live off grid, this means you never leave your homestead to hold down a real job in the outside world. This simply isn't realistic for many people and working off your land doesn't mean you cannot live off the utility grid, grow most~if not all~of your food needs and treat your land like a living, growing, breathing thing instead of something to exploit for awhile until you've drained it of all it's natural beauty and health.

The only way you will ever know if it is profitable and sustainable in YOUR life is to get out there and DO it. Don't wait until you have proof of someone, somewhere, doing it and being a success at it....their success and proof of such doesn't insure that you will have the same results. Only you can determine if something is a success in your life.

I too grow weary of talkers and dreamers that never really implement the things they talk down to a rag...they just plan to do it someday. Stop reading, discussing and debating if something really works and just TRY it. Do the heck out of it and not just for a season or two...do it for years, refining it down to the bone and THEN decide if it was worth it all. What have you got to lose, really? Years of your life? Well, you can either dream or debate for years and still have years invested....or you can actually DO for years and have knowledge, experience, real life happening every moment.

My advice? Stop waiting to see if someone else can make it work and be profitable at it...it's not really about earning a living off the land. It's about living, eating and improving on the land~no matter if you have an acre or many acres.

I really identify with what has been stated.

Now, for the dream to manifest, I must say the following:

- Grow the best possible: add plenty organic matter and a good structure that is porous. You do this by adding plenty compost, leaves and some trunks.

- At end of growing season, deposit as much organic matter there as possible.

- Mix the crops. Because it deters pests and avoids depleting the soil. Plant lots of flowers and herbs in between.

- Choose staples, because you want to feed yourself. Lots of roots and lots of pulses. Lots of filling food. Also choose food you really like. Fruits, berries, nuts. Grow a lot and can/dry/freeze the excess produce. Remember what you will eat, plant lots of those!

- Plant plenty of perennial food (they are stronger and need less care). Much easier to just harvest asparagus, than growing those annual brassicas. Spend an hour planting strawberries and you will eat them for many years. You get the idea: perennials are easy food.

- Have different "habitats" in your garden, for example do not mulch everywhere, so that you have slug-free places and so that self-seeding species can sprout in there.

- Install drip irrigation if you live in a dry climate. Consider growing with mulch, partial shadow, thick planting. This reduces evaporation.

- Start seedlings indoors, and add sand to soil, to avoid root rot. When you plant them out, plant them in soil that had plenty of leaves and compost incorporated, so that soils warms faster and transplants grow faster.

- Consider edges in your garden to shelter from cold winds, fires, floods, excessive sun in summer.

- Regarding financial self-suficiency, don't ask me that, because I still have a job. I think the easiest self-sufficiency to achieve is in food, at least to a large percentage, over a few years of trial and error.

Paulo Bessa wrote:

- Choose staples, because you want to feed yourself. Lots of roots and lots of pulses. Lots of filling food.

If you have limited space it might make sense to grow fresh vegetables such as salads and herbs because they are expensive in the shops and lose nutrients quickly in transportation, whereas staples are inexpensive to purchase and tend to transport better than fresh vegetables. Of course growing what one likes to eat as you mention!

Jason Matthew wrote:I'll tell you about my experience so far. I have been at this location for two years now. I have planted 8 different types of bamboo in various locations on 6 acres, and I have planted 8 apples, 5 peaches, 2 figs, 1 almond, 2 pears, 2 cherries, 2 mulberries, 2 persimmons, 2 pawpaws, 3 chestnuts, 2 pecans, 2 hazelnuts, 6 grapes, 15 blackberries, 5 raspberries, 50 strawberries, 8 blueberries, 1 goji berry, and 1 chokeberry. I have so far gotten 3 peaches, 1 fig, a few strawberries, and a few blackberries off these plants.

Two years and almost no results to show for it. I have felt some discouragement;

Lots and lots of work; the trees and shrubs handle the compacted clay better than annual vegetables. They have survived, but not thrived, yet. I keep planting and working the ground. I have deadfall that I will dig in for hugulkulture beds this fall. I hope to get enough growth from my seed mixes to be able to dig them into the ground after they are cut.

I have exactly the same situation as yours plus a polar climate. What have I learnt? To the conventional annuals I really must dig deeply plenty of organic matter to form a fertile and good structured (porous) soil. Perennials: one must first grow them for one or two years in containers (otherwise they might die or eaten by slugs). Then, you plant them in holes filled with organic matter. Make the holes deep and wide, otherwise they will not thrive. Enough for the mature size of shrubs. For trees, make holes even wider. It's best to invest in making a good soil within that hole before planting, than be sorrow later. Of course, some trees like acacias are ok with poor soils. They grow "everywhere".

I have failed on about 5000 square feet for the past 2 years. I have fruit trees and berries growing, edible bamboos in another area covering over 10k square feet. I have another 5000 plus square feet that I will begin cultivating maybe next year. These areas are all behind the house in a couple of small pastures. There is a lot of lawn area close to the house that could be cultivated as well. The bamboo should really go nuts next year unless there is a serious winter or a very late frost. I am sprouting a number of peach and apples from seed, and I just put about 50ish chestnuts into some bags of compost yesterday.

I will probably import some wood chips this fall if I can get them for free. The only other inputs I have brought in are straw bales that go through the chicken coop first and leaves raked up in the fall. The addition of copious amounts of organic matter would certainly speed of establishment of my forest garden.

Paulo Bessa wrote:I am curious to know how much each of you actually produces.

We are capable of producing all the food, energy and shelter we need from our land. However we produce excess of some things so that we can sell them to pay the mortgage, real estate taxes, internet connection, buy luxury items like chocolate which we like but can't produce.

So as to what we produce:

A) Enough meat, fruit and vegetables for a family of five. We eat a lot of potatoes, pumpkins, root crops, tomatoes. Corn does not grow well here. Not entirely sure why but I rarely get a good crop - I keep trying. Peppers, melons and such like warmer climates than ours but greenhouses, hot walls or even just a translucent overhang help and in a warm year I get some, not a lot.

B) Tens of thousands of eggs which are great animal feed in addition to the hens' main job of being organic pest control and breaking up manure patties out on the pastures. We eat a lot of eggs. Good protein.

C) Pastured pork - this is our main 'crop'. We have about sixty breeding sows plus their boars and about three hundred feeder pigs that come from them. We raise ours from breeding through finishing selling directly. We will soon have on-farm USDA slaughter, butchering and smokehouse as well. The pigs are truly pastured, we don't buy any commercial hog feed / grain for them as they get most of their food from pasture in the warm months and then hay in the winter (which we do buy in) as well as whey from a local cheese and butter maker just over the mountain from us. We also grow fruit and veggies for them, field sowing kale, rape, turnips, beets, pumpkins, sunflowers, sunchokes, etc. The pastured pork delivered weekly to local stores, restaurants and individuals is our main farm product and what pays the bills. The dairy ads lysine which is an amino-acid which is low in pasture. We can raise the pigs without the dairy but the dairy helps them grow about two months faster and gives a wonderful flavor to the meat. See http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs

D) Sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, etc - incidental animals that are part of the system but not sold at this time.

E) Timber in the form mostly of high quality furniture hardwood but also lumber, veneer, firewood and biomass (for making wood pellets). This is something we sell. Long term crop.

I'm an economic omnivore. Animals are an important part of the full cycle of permaculture. Just look at nature. In our climate vegan/vegetarian diets are a high nosed luxury diet that requires shipping in and supplements. Meat makes it sustainable and local. In other places other ways work.

Paulo Bessa wrote:So far I have produced little

It takes a long time to get things established to the point where your feeding yourself, paying the taxes, the mortgage, the bills, etc. It's all steps. It takes time to put in infrastructure, terracing, planting perennials. Keep working at it and make progress every day, every month, every year. In time you get systems established.

Paulo Bessa wrote:I only grew in hard conditions

Hard conditions are where the land is often cheap. We have cheap land. Rocky, northern, mountainous, steep, steep, did I mention steep?, acidic, thin top soil... On the other hand, we have good water and we are high enough up that we don't have the problems with flooding that occur down in the river valleys. I grew up watching flooding so I bought land high up. Down in the river valley they have deeper, richer soils but lack selenium, the land is far more expensive to buy and pay taxes on and they must deal with occasional floods that wipe them out. Tradeoffs.

Paulo Bessa wrote:NOW the HONESTY: I cannot feed myself from my permaculture garden, I cannot grow as much I as desire, so I view my permaculture experience as a failure so far. A learning failure, but it is a failure because it does not satisfies my goals.

Keep working at it. It takes a long time to develop the skills, the patterns of life, the systems. It can be done. In time you may get to the point where you not only feed yourself but have bounty to share. When you can do that consistently then you have the potential to farm and sell to pay the bills. Even if you own the land out right there are still costs like computer internet, real estate taxes, things you can't produce, etc.

Paulo Bessa wrote:Let's say regarding salads I am 100% self-sufficient in summer, 0% in winter; tomatoes I can be 20% self-sufficient in summer, 0% in winter, potatoes I can produce about 10% of annual need; 0% of fruits; 5% of pulses, 0% cereals, 0% corn, 0% any other starch or protein.

Have you tried using cold frames, warm frames and greenhouses yet? These extend the season to year round growing. It can be done without any heat other than the sun. Lots of articles on the web and in books about passive solar heating. Same for heating your home. We use less than 0.75 cord of wood a year to heat our house. Nothing to cool it, of course given our climate. Our house (http://SugarMtnFarm.com/cottage) is small and well built, by us, so that even if unoccupied and unheated it doesn't fall below about 45°F in our cold northern Vermont mountain winters. That makes it easy to boost to the 65°F or so that my wife likes in the winter.

Paulo Bessa wrote:Fertility seems to come rather slowly, it requires a substancial amount of organic matter other than my own kitchen and garden compost, so I must always import some organic manner (compost or manure). Therefore I cannot be 100% self-reliant in my own organic matter. I do use my own (diluted) pee however.

We originally got livestock in part because we wanted the manure. Livestock produce a lot of good shit. That's gold. Not buying it means I know it doesn't have antibiotics, herbicides and pesticides in it. The animals harvest the plants from the fields. Over the years they've improved the fertility of the fields. Planting legumes (e.g., clover, alfalfa, etc) sucks nitrogen out of the sky - free fertilizer. We had very poor soil to start with. Now it is much richer throughout all the pastures due to the legumes, grazing and grasses (pull down CO2). Our garden areas are now deep rich soil. It does take time. We do it the slow way rather than buying fertilizer but it is a lot cheaper.

Paulo Bessa wrote:I also learnt that my space is TOO SMALL to feed myself. So, hence I see my permaculture experience as still a FAILURE. I should scale the space about 10-20 times larger, maybe go for a minimum 3000 m2 (300 square feet), about 1 acre, per small family.

More space does help. No argument there. We can produce all we need for our family of five from maybe an acre - that would be intense but I could do it as I have a lifetime of gardening and learned from my father. Much more comfortable is four or five acres which gives room for some wood harvest as well for heating and cooking. We have more than that as I like a bit of elbow room and knew I wanted to farm. We graze about 70 acres which is enough space to let some pastures rest in any particular year. This allows us also to manage for self-seeding. We use managed rotational grazing in the pastures containing the larger livestock. The poultry naturally follow the larger animals which saves fencing and effort. I figure on a maximum of ten finisher pigs per acre as an upper sustainable limit. That includes the chickens, geese and ducks who follow them. A pig and a sheep are about the same and co-graze wonderfully, eating slightly differently. A cow is considered one animal unit in agriculture and is equal to about four sheep or pigs.

Paulo Bessa wrote:And because I am so fed up with the amount of work require to grow annual vegetables that usually only go for salads, I am now focusing more in perennials and only in staple starch and protein sources. But I still don't have any results regarding this, I am on early stages of growing those perennial species.

Plant fruit trees and other perennials. That's the one thing I regret not doing earlier, not planting a lot of fruit trees. They take a long time to get going.

Most of all, enjoy the journey. You can't learn it all in one year, maybe not in one lifetime, not from one source. But keep at it. Winter's a great time for reading. Maximize each growing season like it is your last but planning for the future too.

Cheers,

-Walter
in the mountains of Vermont

Paulo Bessa wrote:Start seedlings indoors, and add sand to soil, to avoid root rot. When you plant them out, plant them in soil that had plenty of leaves and compost incorporated, so that soils warms faster and transplants grow faster.

I'm leaning away from this. I used to do the indoor seedlings every year. But comparing the volunteers with my seedlings I found that the volunteers in selected areas were doing better! My gosh. Was I wasting effort? Yes. This year was the first year I did no indoor seed starting. Instead I soaked seeds and planted them weekly and early in the places I knew were best for early starts. They are bountiful. It was a little bit of a risky move but I've been gradually shifting towards that, testing the water for years and it has worked.

Having cold frames, low tunnels and the like is even better.

I say this because of two following reasons:

in Iceland, the spring is really cold and late, but also windy, frosty and dry. Last frost is usually around 20th June. Seedlings often die, and if I sow nothing comes. And since first frost comes around now (25th August), I must sow indoors.

also I eat mostly vegetarian, not by ideology but by taste (I don't like meat, only fish), and this is not the country to be a vegetarian; if you see the history of this country people not only often starved but their diet was to a large extend only meat (and perhaps some potatoes but no other vegetable). So, permaculture in Iceland is a much larger challenge than in other countries.

in Portugal, I can sow both indoors and outdoors, but we, if outdoors, it should be by early March, otherwise it is later dry and warm, and you might have to water more than once a day. Unfortunately our climate is quite arid sometimes.

Because of these two challenges, I tend to think pratically in both staples and perennials, those are actually my needs. Starch staples are not so cheap here and are imported, so I really would like to grow them. I am thinking groundnuts, chinese yams, and other roots like these, to provide starch; and peas for protein (can't really think of another source of vegetable protein in cold climates).

Any ideas?

So, because of these reasons, permaculture in Iceland is actually just to be a hobbie. I can't feed myself and I see it is hard. Watching nature, I see that most animals do in fact migrate away from here, in our long (and often dark) 9 month winter.

And because of it, any annuals fare badly here. Only established perennials with plenty of energy stored on its trunks, buds and roots will do. Root stuff grow well here... As do schrubs, and some non edible legumes (because of the poor acidic soils).

Greenhouses: I do that of course, but the fun is doing something outdoors. Anyways indoor space is heated but its limited. And it's also dark over the winter.

Walter Jeffries wrote:

Paulo Bessa wrote:Start seedlings indoors, and add sand to soil, to avoid root rot. When you plant them out, plant them in soil that had plenty of leaves and compost incorporated, so that soils warms faster and transplants grow faster.

I'm leaning away from this. I used to do the indoor seedlings every year. But comparing the volunteers with my seedlings I found that the volunteers in selected areas were doing better! My gosh. Was I wasting effort? Yes. This year was the first year I did no indoor seed starting. Instead I soaked seeds and planted them weekly and early in the places I knew were best for early starts. They are bountiful. It was a little bit of a risky move but I've been gradually shifting towards that, testing the water for years and it has worked.

Having cold frames, low tunnels and the like is even better.

Maybe one should get "scientific" here. If I use for instance hay or fallen leaves, how much organic matter should I add in inch/cm, to make let's say 30cm/1 foot of goof fertile soil, considering that the matter would compact over time?

Maybe 3x more I guess. So adding 1 meter / 3 feet high of organic matter should be our min...

Jeanine Gurley wrote:On the subject of how long does it take to see results or change in your 'earth': It has taken eight years for the circle garden (in my project pictures) to become rich black earth aprox a foot deep. Large areas of my property are still only one or two inches of worthless soil over sand.

But, I keep working at it.

I figure healing my little corner of the world and making it productive is a bit like healing my body. It takes lots of time to heal a wound and some of the crappy stuff I've done to myself over the years will never heal. But I'll make the best of it - me and my little acre and a quarter.

Paulo Bessa wrote:in Iceland, the spring is really cold and late, but also windy, frosty and dry. Last frost is usually around 20th June. Seedlings often die, and if I sow nothing comes. And since first frost comes around now (25th August)

This sounds very, very much like our climate. We can't count on not having frost until mid-June and first frost often comes about now, mid-August. It is very common to get frost now but if we cover at night we pull through and can get as much as two more months through careful attention to the night time temperatures. Some years we've had frosts and even snow in July. Ugh.

For sowing outdoors think south facing, rocks, wind block, cover, bare soil early that warms, raised beds.

Paulo Bessa wrote:So, because of these reasons, permaculture in Iceland is actually just to be a hobbie. I can't feed myself and I see it is hard.

Since our climates are so similar I think you could do it. It will take years to learn and setup the infrastructure. Good things take time. Enjoy the process.

Like here, you'll benefit a lot from greenhouses, cold frames, warm frames, etc. When I say greenhouse it does not mean that it is covered all year round. Pull the cover off the frame in the warm season days. Pull it back on when the nights and then the days chill. It extends the season. The bigger problem is light. When the light goes the plants stop growing and go dormant even if they are warm enough. One can install lights. The newer LED lights are supposed to be very efficient but from what I've seen they're also very expensive. In a few years the price will come down.

Paulo Bessa wrote:Watching nature, I see that most animals do in fact migrate away from here, in our long (and often dark) 9 month winter.

In nature many animals eat other animals. The herbivores breed to large numbers, store up fat, lots of them die of starvation or get eaten in the winter. The vegetarian strategy is to out breed the hardship. The omnivore strategy is to eat vegetarians.

Cheers,

-Walter
in the mountains of Vermont

To Paulo Bessa:

Since you are concentrating on potatoes, I thought I would share my experiences in growing potatoes in straw towers. At the end I will share how much I was able to yield in the growing season of 2011. My case will be a good example for you, because, as far as I know, the climate of Portugal is comparable to mine.

The potato towers I used were constructed and planted in the following way: (I used these materials because I happened to have them close at hand and at no charge - you can creatively make use of whatsoever you have available)
- Four corner posts of untreated 4x4" lumber, 6' long, are erected using concrete piers and spaced three feet apart, square
- Walls consist of 1" mesh, 20-gauge, galvanized hexagonal chicken wire, applied to three sides, one side left open for access
- Two three-stringer bales of straw cover the bottom of the tower, in turn layered with a 1-inch of compost, (a straw bale of this kind is 18"Wx36"Lx18"H in dimension - you can use bone meal and other amendments if you have them, but I didn't use any)
- Four seed potatoes are planted in each tower - the dimensions of the base can be divided into four equal quadrants of 18", square, with a seed potato in the center of each quadrant (a penpal told me they have had success planting them more closely, so try that if you like)
- Cover the seed potatoes with 6" of straw, let them sprout and grow to about 12" tall, then repeat a layer of straw and a few spades of compost each time they grow another six inches - this mimics the traditional method of "hilling" potatoes to improve yields
- The tubers can be harvested at the end of the growing season for the variety you are using - I harvested both varieties that I used in the last week of October after the first frost of the cold season
- (I planted from seed: horseradishes, marigolds and pole-beans sporadically on the exterior surface of the tower - success was marginal, as only the plants seeded early in the season had sufficient time to mature)

Last year, 2011, I planted three towers constructed in this way. Two towers were seeded with a late-season variety called Russet Burbank, the third was planted with early/mid-season Red Pontiac.

I weighed my harvest in at:
- Russet Burbank: 117 lbs (about 60 lbs per tower)
- Red Pontiac: 41 lbs (some were inedible because they were green, and had to be reused as seed potatoes - otherwise, the total would have been closer to 45 lbs)
- At the time of harvest, straw inside the towers was piled up to 4.5-5 feet high.

In total, I used about 40 bales of straw, at $2.35 US per bale, (I attempted to find to find some available free, but was unable to locate any in late March when I started this project - mine were purchased at a local farmers supply store - the price includes delivery). I also used about a cubic meter of compost in the process, which I made on location.

Materials costs, in my case, were zero because I happened to have everything available. I would estimate the cost at about $40-$50 for each tower at local prices, if materials were bought new.

At harvest, I had approximately four cubic meters of mostly composted straw, which I used as mulch. An advantage to using fresh straw each year is that it reduces the risk of various diseased, which potatoes are prone to and can linger is infected soil for years, in some cases.

According to one source I read, there are around 400 calories in a pound of potatoes, (450 grams).

An average adult should consume 2500-3000 calories per day - assuming a quarter of daily caloric intake is from potatoes, about 1.5 lbs of potatoes would suffice per day. Assuming little or no waste applies, my harvest would have provided one adult with a quarter of their caloric needs for approximately 100 days. (I stored my potatoes in a galvanized steel garbage can amongst damp sawdust, and they lasted around four months until they began to dry out - a small quantity were lost to mildew caused by accidental skin puncture during harvest).

I estimate the water requirements of each tower to be about a gallon per day, with a higher requirement earlier in the season, and a lower requirement later in the season when the tower has more mass and is able to hold more water - towards the end of the growing season I gave each tower five gallons of water, once a week.

So, for anyone who is interested in earnestly provided themselves with all of their caloric needs on a piece of land, you can extrapolate what you might be able to produce using this method. I think the yield is pretty good for around 30 square feet of growing space, no counting room for maneuvering.

In terms of cost-saving, the price per pound is comparable to what it would have cost to buy potatoes in local grovery stores, but the flavor and wholesomeness of the produce was worthwhile.

I think what the OP wants to know is whether permaculture can help us design a system where we are able to feed almost entirely ourselves (and our family).

Basically it's the whole idea of John Seymour, of much produce you have per acre, in order to feed yourself.

I often see that permaculture projects have mostly perennial salads and fruits, but if you would been left with your garden alone, would you survive on it?

Charles Kelm wrote:Not sure if anybody mentioned the Dervaes' from Pasadena, CA. Not everybody is a fan since they copyrighted the phrase Urban Homestead, but I think they may qualify for what you are asking about: I'm not sure if their crops are perennials or just annuals, but their results are impressive regardless: Path to Freedom

Path to Freedom is doing a great job, but basically they admit they are not self-sufficient; only in salads. But they rely in their food sales business.

I think the key (as Eric seems to point) are staples. Staples (like potatoes, corn and beans) feed you.
As well as stuff like enset, taro, yams or manihoc.

But then we eat mostly cereals: rice, wheat or rye. It's the most of our diets. And permaculture tends to give little focus to these. The question is "how can we feed ourselves", I think this is one of the fundaments of "self-sustaining settlements" of permaculture. That's what most people are after.

- - -

I think I have found a source of inspiration. We can look at how tribes and ancient cultures live in most places of the world. Because they are self-sufficient. They have built settlements that sustained over thousand of years. Without reliance on money or trade.

You go to ethiopia, and you will find them eating millet, enset and teff. You go to Andes, and you will find them eating potatoes, maca, oca, quinoa and amaranth. You go to India and you will find them eating taro, plantains, beans, pigeon peas and chick peas. You go to the Amazon and you will find manihoc as their staple. Honestly, I know little about these culture staples. In the Mediterranean people relied (in times of scarcity) in potatoes, beans, eggs and meat, olives, chestnuts and figs. And almost everywhere in the old world, you find people making flour out of something.

I think most permaculture projects are nice, but they lack a proper amount of staples to create self-sustaining settlements for humans, as they are probably not able to even allow a human to survive solely on it. It's nice to have all those fruits, berries and greens, but we need also a "staple permaculture".

It is a legitimate question, at least in the US. Outside the US there are a fair number of farm-scale self-identified permaculture projects. Darren Doherty's numerous keyline projects in Australia, Las Canadas in Mexico are among my favorites. Outside of permaculture-identifed projects, thousands of farms are practicing what we would call permaculture, from rotational grazing to tree cropping to tropical multistory perennial polycultures.

In the US until recently there have been relatively few farm-scale projects that derive most of their income from product sales as opposed to teaching and consulting. One sample exception would be Darrel Frey, whose Bioshelter Market Garden tells the story of their last several decades of commercial-scale permaculture. Mark Shepard and several others also come to mind.

This seems to be changing. Rafter Ferguson is a PhD candidate who is investigating permaculture farms in the US. His study (www.liberationecology.org) will tell us a lot about the new wave of permaculture-identified farms popping up, he has over fifty identified already. We seem to lack a national forum for people to share their experiences at this scale, maybe we should start a thread here at permies.

Getting more people to take on farm-scale permaculture is a personal project of mine and I think important for our movement. I ran a seed company for some years myself, managed a 30-acre farm for an NGO, and have taught business trainings for new farmers for more than a decade. I think a lot of permaculture folks, like aspiring organic farmers, are not coming into this because they love financial projections, taxes, record-keeping, researching legal requirements, and market research. Farm-scale impact on the land means you need serious revenue for most of us. I've done many workshops on my recommendations about farm-scale food forestry with integrated livestock, focusing not just on production models buy enterprises, markets, infrastructure and equipment needs, and permitting requirements.

These workshop topics are getting more and more response, and I've begun to offer a three-day permaculture business intensive. The first test run was at the carbon farming course last winter, where forty people spent nine hours of design time building budgets based on real, published enterprise costs and revenues. I'll be doing it again this winter in Florida at the upcoming financial permaculture course.

Paulo Bessa wrote:I think what the OP wants to know is whether permaculture can help us design a system where we are able to feed almost entirely ourselves (and our family).

Basically it's the whole idea of John Seymour, of much produce you have per acre, in order to feed yourself.

I often see that permaculture projects have mostly perennial salads and fruits, but if you would been left with your garden alone, would you survive on it?

Charles Kelm wrote:Not sure if anybody mentioned the Dervaes' from Pasadena, CA. Not everybody is a fan since they copyrighted the phrase Urban Homestead, but I think they may qualify for what you are asking about: I'm not sure if their crops are perennials or just annuals, but their results are impressive regardless: Path to Freedom

Path to Freedom is doing a great job, but basically they admit they are not self-sufficient; only in salads. But they rely in their food sales business.

I think the key (as Eric seems to point) are staples. Staples (like potatoes, corn and beans) feed you.
As well as stuff like enset, taro, yams or manihoc.

But then we eat mostly cereals: rice, wheat or rye. It's the most of our diets. And permaculture tends to give little focus to these. The question is "how can we feed ourselves", I think this is one of the fundaments of "self-sustaining settlements" of permaculture. That's what most people are after.

- - -

I think I have found a source of inspiration. We can look at how tribes and ancient cultures live in most places of the world. Because they are self-sufficient. They have built settlements that sustained over thousand of years. Without reliance on money or trade.

You go to ethiopia, and you will find them eating millet, enset and teff. You go to Andes, and you will find them eating potatoes, maca, oca, quinoa and amaranth. You go to India and you will find them eating taro, plantains, beans, pigeon peas and chick peas. You go to the Amazon and you will find manihoc as their staple. Honestly, I know little about these culture staples. In the Mediterranean people relied (in times of scarcity) in potatoes, beans, eggs and meat, olives, chestnuts and figs. And almost everywhere in the old world, you find people making flour out of something.

I think most permaculture projects are nice, but they lack a proper amount of staples to create self-sustaining settlements for humans, as they are probably not able to even allow a human to survive solely on it. It's nice to have all those fruits, berries and greens, but we need also a "staple permaculture".

You seem to have forgotten fruits, but have you ever checked the calories on fruit... Seems like a good staple to me. Nuts, fruits, and meats can provide someone with almost all the nutrients they need.

*edited to follow the no one is anything less than perfect rule, my comment came out worse than I intended*

Paulo Bessa wrote:I think I have found a source of inspiration. We can look at how tribes and ancient cultures live in most places of the world. Because they are self-sufficient. They have built settlements that sustained over thousand of years. Without reliance on money or trade. ... I think most permaculture projects are nice, but they lack a proper amount of staples to create self-sustaining settlements for humans, as they are probably not able to even allow a human to survive solely on it. It's nice to have all those fruits, berries and greens, but we need also a "staple permaculture".

Virtually all cultures that described, including many in India, make use of meat, nuts, tubers and fruits that grow easily in their climates. Some of these foods may be less palatable to modern western tongues. Sometimes a bit tough. Sometimes monotonous at certain times of the year. Meat tends to be a foundation food in the northern climates because other animals can turn things we can not eat into protein and fat we can thrive on. Live animals are a good way to store summer's bounty into the winter. Cured, smoked and salted the meat and fat keeps too. Seasonally these cultures tended to augment with what vegetable, nut and fruit sources were and when available. Often this is stored up for the winter season. Summer is busy. Looking to the example of primitive cultures is an excellent start. It does take a lot of work. The vegan and vegetarian diets are not sustainable for humans in the northern climates. There is a tremendous amount of scientific evidence about how we owe the development of our brains to the dietary shift to eating meat and then the expansion into all climates again to the eating of meat. We're omnivores. Look to what is natively available or that which grows well in similar climates. e.g., our climate is similar to the Andes so potatoes do very well here.

Paulo Bessa wrote:You go to ethiopia, and you will find them eating millet, enset and teff. You go to Andes, and you will find them eating potatoes, maca, oca, quinoa and amaranth. You go to India and you will find them eating taro, plantains, beans, pigeon peas and chick peas. You go to the Amazon and you will find manihoc as their staple. Honestly, I know little about these culture staples. In the Mediterranean people relied (in times of scarcity) in potatoes, beans, eggs and meat, olives, chestnuts and figs. And almost everywhere in the old world, you find people making flour out of something.

While I am a strong proponent of growing crops which do well in your region versus trying to shoehorn what you want to eat into a sub-par climate, I also think it's important to recognize that traditional subsistence diets are about maximizing calories for a minimum of effort and not about maximizing health. Most areas where people are eating a traditional diet have high incidences of diet-related diseases like diabetes and obesity, for example, rural Mexico, but getting *enough* to eat is still their first concern, followed by infections, parasites and other curable illnesses. Dying of diabetes at 62 is less of a concern than your toddler starving to death.

The sad thing is, many of these traditional diets, however lacking, are still superior to what the typical American eats today -- and diet related illness is a major problem here as well.

While there are lessons to be learned from traditional farming, that doesn't mean we should just copy their diets.

The traditional diet in my region was composed of a lot of things I'm not used to eating, such as Sotol. A large component was Bison, which is no longer available.... There's a thread over at the PRI messageboard about the "permatarian" diet, what a permaculturist would eat, which I personally think would vary tremendously depending on where one lives and what one grows. One permatarian might eat a lot of fruit and nuts, another might eat a lot of leafy greens and tubers, another might eat a lot of meat.

Paulo Bessa wrote:

I think I have found a source of inspiration. We can look at how tribes and ancient cultures live in most places of the world. Because they are self-sufficient. They have built settlements that sustained over thousand of years. Without reliance on money or trade.

Sure. But my best guess is most if not all past cultures included harvesting the wild.

I think it's wise to look at what people historically grew in your region, but I wouldn't limit myself to that. I spend lots of time researching plants that I think will grow well under the conditions I have.

I also find a lot of pleasure in growing things that are difficult to grow here. I don't grow a large amount, but to baby something you really like is worth the time.

Our plan is to live on permaculture plus minimum amount of non-permaculture-related work. We have about 3 ha of land in Southern Finland.

At present we are either producing or gathering from the nearby woodland almost all of the vegetables (including potatoes), mushrooms, fruit and berries that we consume. We are still buying a lot of foodstuffs like wheat and barley from our neighbour but hopefully we can produce the grain crops ourselves within the next 2 years.

We do not ever intend to produce everything we need and there will always be stuff that we need to buy but we have a detailed plan on how to minimize what we need to buy.
We have two children and sometimes we want to buy stuff like corn flakes because they want it even though they could eat porridge. But we don't want them to feel like they can't EVER have anything the consumer society offers and their friends have.

I think permaculture can produce everything one needs, including money. But to us it seems simpler to keep on doing what we already do but just work less and work from home.

We have calculated that our monthly expenses when we reach the level of self-sufficiency that we strive for will be about 590 euros. This sum includes eg. the following: downpayment on our house, home insurance, property taxes, insurance for the kids, medical expenses, some firewood (some we will produce but some we have to buy), travelling expenses and 40 euros worth of food that we figure we cannot produce.
This is Finland so we do not have to take medical insurances as the publice health services are good enough. The insurance for the kids just covers accidents.

We aim to produce all of our electricity by wind/ solar.

Our goal is to earn about 1130 euros (net, ie. after taxes) per month ie. both me and my husband will earn a little over 550 euros net per month. I am already earning about this much working from home. My husband has a day job but the plan is that he will be able to leave it.
This 1130 euros per month will be enough to cover our expenses AND save about 3000 euros per year in case we need to invest in something or repair something that takes money not just our labour. And we will have some money left just "for fun" which I think is very important too! Fun money includes corn flakes, chocolate, coffee, movie tickets, a trip to visit relatives etc. All of the stuff that is not absolutely necessary for survival (though I'm not quite sure that chocolate and coffee aren't!)

How we aim to earn those 1130 euros per month is by me continuing to write articles and do consulting (already happening).
and selling our produce (honey and garlic) plus surplus animals and my husband's artwork.

I see permaculture as way of thinking and living. It's not just about how much you produce but also rethinking what you actually need and want.

We try to always think as Fukuoka taught: "How about NOT doing this". Could we find a way to make it with even less? Every penny that we do not have to earn, everything that we do not have to do equals more time and less worries.

Self-sufficiency-wise I think most of money goes not to food, water or energy, but rather transportation, housing and fun.

- We, as a couple, spend only about 150 euro per month, we live really simple and we make shopping only once or twice a month, most of the vegetables we grow them.
- I rarely buy other stuff, only ocasionally clothes, books and some traveling abroad. I rarely go to doctor and don´t own any insurance, loans or other bills. We have an average 50-100 eur for extra expenses.
- Housing and energy costs us about 500 eur per month (it´s a rent), so its the most expensive expense for us, but it´s only 250 eur per person (not that much).
- Transportation is also expensive: 150 eur per month in gas (car), plus ocasional flights back to my home country, once a year.
- Basically you can live on about 300-400 eur per month, if you live simply, even if you have a car and still use some money for fun.

If you have an income above this (and most europeans and north americans do), you can save a lot, in the long-term.

Then, if you own a house and grow your own food (most of it), then you will need money almost only for your car and transportation, because other expenses (taxes, chocolate, pasta, ocasional clothes, books and health bills) will be minimal compared to those. Maybe some 50-150 eur a month for a couple, will be enough. At the bare min you only need some 20 eur a month for the taxes of your property, but that is asking to be really a humble lifestyle. I think living without a job is difficult if you don´t have savings, some other income or unless you are 95% self-sufficient.

Collin Vickers wrote:Hey Permies,

"Is Anyone Out There Actually, Really, Truly Doing This? I Mean, Really?"

Mark Shepard is the farm-scale real deal. Here are a couple of introductions to him:

http://permaculture.org.au/2010/12/18/mark-shepherds-106-acre-permaculture-farm-in-viola-wisconsin/

And, here's his approach from his webpage: "Growing Staple Food Crops in Permaculture Systems"

"Permaculturists as well as the majority of humanity are currently dependent on the carbohydrates, proteins and oils produced on large-scale farms. You can prove this to yourself quite easily starting today. Simply stop eating any grains, legumes, noodles, bread, tofu, tempe, corn-syrup sweeteners or meat that is fed a ration of grain. You will find that most of you will begin to go hungry quite quickly. I personally recommend quitting the consumption of annual staple foods cold-turkey, and switching to staples from trees, shrubs and other woody perennials, but that is a discussion for another day.

How can we produce staple foods for humanity without destroying the ecological systems that we depend on and leaving deserts in our wake ? Can we produce staple food crops while RESTORING ecosystems and ecosystem functions? Can we do this on such a scale as to actually FEED the world? Can we actually INCREASE the world’s food supply?"

(This link will take you to the Media Tab. Scroll half-way down for the full article): http://www.forestag.com/media.html

Happy Reading!
Julie Gahn
northeast Oklahoma

I didn't read all the replies, just don't have time. But we have been growing using permaculture methods for the last two years. So our gardens are still in their infancy in permaculture years. I post occasionally on my blog, but quite frankly, when you are outside working all day there isn't much time for blogging. I do like to get on facebook and post little updates and photos during the day. I have dozens of blog posts started, but no where near ready enough to publish - it's a lot of work. I don't know how some permies produce so much online info - maybe their gardens are more mature.

We were able to sell at the farmer's market the first year. It seems like every few weeks I learn something new that will help us in the long run. I personally know people who are growing using permaculture and have fantastic results.

Our biggest problem this year was getting perennial seed to germinate, but more research was done and we're ready for another round! My focus this year has been on trap plants & companion planting and not using sprays for pests. Have had some good success.

Haha, no kidding, i'd love to write a blog but I am pretty busy outside.

Jamie, what is your farm's name on facebook?

Julie Gahn wrote: Simply stop eating any grains, legumes, noodles, bread, tofu, tempe, corn-syrup sweeteners or meat. You will find that most of you will begin to go hungry quite quickly. I personally recommend quitting the consumption of annual staple foods cold-turkey, and switching to staples from trees, shrubs and other woody perennials, but that is a discussion for another day.

Wow, that is precisely what interests me.

Perennial staples for permaculture. Yes, how do we make the switch? (especially if we live in the common cold temperate climate of most europeans and north americans)

Starch: Chinese yams, groundnut, arrowhead, skirret ...?
Protein: Lima and runner beans, Siberian pea, hog peanut, thicket bean, Honey locust and mesquite pods, ...?
Oils: Nuts, Sesame, Perennial sunflowers, Avocado, Olives, ...?

Chestnuts.

According to Martin Crawford, in the UK, an acre of mature walnut produces about the same number of calories as an acre of wheat, with the added advantage of being able to stack other plants into a system by inc;uding climbing vine root crops and gradations of shade tolerant understory plants.

I agree with the idea of cutting out annual plant food, but I am not sure meat belongs on the list of annuals. Don't meat animals belong on the permaculture food forest side of the equation?

Matu Collins wrote:I agree with the idea of cutting out annual plant food, but I am not sure meat belongs on the list of annuals. Don't meat animals belong on the permaculture food forest side of the equation?

I vote yes.