Observation

Observe and interact

How do you use this permaculture principle of "observe and interact"?

Has this principle helped plan your garden?

Do you use this principle with your animals?  In your garden?  Inside your home?

This is an interesting thread that some folks might find helpful to understand observation:

https://permies.com/t/56651/Principle-observe-interact

A Video of interest:

https://youtu.be/VQZl8yNp7kI

This principle could well be applied to most human interactions. People seldom seem to fully observe the disruption their presence has caused to an ecosystem.

I have clients that complain about moles or complain about dandelion in their turf grass.
                                I always say “what are they helping you with though? The dandelions are boomer growers deep nutrient pullers, drought resistant and every part is edible, actually it’s the only edible here in your monoculture lawn. Those moles are moving great soil for you and creating more water penetration for your lawn. If you can bare to see nature at work leave the clover too and you’ll have the only green yard on the block in a drought.”

Usually get *blank stare*


If instead of complaining, I am extrapolating big time here, but if everyone listened and observed the systems around them and then tried to fit themselves into that system… instead of trying to change the whole system and displace it for a new one, how I see permaculture is walking into a living system and tweaking a few details to make it work with you. That’s why my living road post was so appealing to people the idea that a dead system can be replaced with a dynamic living thriving system which has tangible fruits in years to come. I see permaculture as the ultimate stop and watch before you do anything. I think that principle attributed to life as a whole is really a great thing. Always be dynamic, but be willing to accept that nature has an idea of what true ecosystems look like, and nature’s always trying to get back to them… 🙏respect nature.

My daughter was born this year so our garden patch got overrun with milk thistle, initially I was so stressed and mad at myself for letting them all go to seed!
That’s not the first principle of permaculture! Months went by and I watched as hundreds of little birds chickadees, robins, sparrows, swallows, finches, goldfinches HUMMINGBIRDS all grabbed at the fluff or seeds and took it as a nest making material. Come to find out one of the biggest seeds for those birds on the market is THISTLE SEED nature had given my family a bird observation year. Those little birds have taken almost all the seeds. Also all those thistles allowed my berries to boom because I didn’t get to harvest any this year! So take everything as the GIFT it is and accept it and work around it.

You know, we run a very weedy dryland garden. A few months ago I was complaining that no reforestation seems to be working around us. No forests, no rains. Without reliable rains, dryland gardening is not enjoyable.

So I wondered how we could increase the chances at reforestation. Contour swales? Not likely. We don't have the resources.
Maybe planting herb hedges on contour? That could work, but the herbs need to be very resilient and thick at the base.

Among the many herbs I regularly cut for mulch, there's this one, the hyparrhenia hirta (cerrillo), which ressembles vetiver. Its base is bushy, so it looks like it can slow down runoff water. It's not vetiver, actually, it is pretty invasive, but alas, it has already invaded this ecosystem. A few more cannot do harm. Could it work? This plant is one of the few that keeps growing regardless of the draught and heat, even better than fennel. I don't know why I didn't think of using it before.

I've searched the web, and it seems that there's an organisation promoting the use of vetiver contour hedges, even with instructions on how to do it properly. Propagation, planting distances, etc. The hyparrhenia is smaller than the vetiver, so I have to reduce the planting distances, that's all. The easy way to propagate vetiver is by root division. I hope it works the same with our weed. But the terrain is too dry to do it right now.

If we got rains this Automn, I'd try a few hedges in our sloppy areas of the garden. And if that works well, I'll try a few more on the areas above ours. If it lives up to the promises, I'll promote it to the city foresters that are in charge of the local reforestation, because planting pine trees is clearly not working.

I have no knowledge of hyparrhenia hirta as I had to look that grass up to find out what it is.

We have had a terrible drought here where I live in Texas.

The temps have been so high that I don't want to go outside.  We are having a problem with our air conditioning and plan to buy a new one.

From my observation, the herb, rosemary has done very well.

Also, we have a plant in the mallow family called Turks Cap because it has red flowers that look like a Turks' caps.  It did not bloom this year though it is still green.

I am afraid that my Autumn Sage plants are dying.

My suggestion is if folks are having a drought observe and interact by planting things that are green during the drought. However, wait until spring to plant these.

Yeah, right now the soil is so hard that I can't get any plant without tearing its roots. Better wait until the soil is moist.