posted 10 years ago
My notes...
2 - Concepts and Themes in Design
2.1 - The Hierarchy of Soil Creation in Natural Systems
Shallow marine areas are the most soil productive, followed by shallow lakes and ponds. These soils contain anaerobic life which, if brought inland, feed aerobic soil life as they naturalize into the new environment. Forests are the third most productive, followed by savanah and prairie.
2.2 - Elements: Needs and Products; The Sun the Source of Energy; Characteristics of Natural Ecosystems
Aim to create a system that is an organism unto itself. Elements include plants, animals, structures, etc. Each has needs and each produce things. Design synergies to create as much internal conversion as possible. An interconnected web of life can rebound quickly after harvest or disaster.
2.3 - An Example of Designing Elements Into A System: Tagari Farm, Norther NSW, Australia
Tagari Farm was a 5 acre property designed by Bill Mollison that Geoff lived on for 3.5 years. It was a rectangular grassland with a uniform slope down to a road that had a house on it 1/3 of the way up from the road. Bill created a small dam in an upper corner with a swale across the property ending in a level spillway for overflow events. Below that, another dam and swale going the opposite direction. Below that, another dam (with a small island) and swale. Below that, a berm directing water around the house. Below the house, a dam and swale that extended underneath the driveway and spilled over on one side. Below that was a final large dam and swale and, finally, a pond near the road. The downhill side of each swale was planted in trees. Animals could be kept between swales to add nutrient. The pond was planted with reeds to gather nutrient before the water finally left the property. Those reeds were occasionally harvested and used as mulch back near the top of the property. That human interaction induced further nutrient cycling, increasing onsite fertility.
2.4 - Weeds, Pioneers, Niches
Weeds are crowded out of ecosystems.
Leaving land fallow to recover its fertility only works when there is enough native ecosystem surrounding the land in question.
2.5 - Weeds; Fast Tracking Recovery By Design Techniques
Soil may contain a startling variety of dormant seeds awaiting a germination trigger. One method of learning about your soil is to create small test plots and subject them to different treatments like compaction, plowing, burning, overcropping, flooding, etc. You will often see decompactor plants with deep taproots sprout in the compacted plot. In the plowed plot feather root stabilizer plants may germinate. Burnt land is depleted of potassium, so things like bracken fern and blade grasses that excel at finding potassium may appear. In the overcropped plot you are likely to get nitrogen fixers. This knowledge can also be used to determine site history.
Permaculture Design is about fast tracking systems to the climax you desire. It's a multidimensional approach involving patterns, processes and timing.
2.6 - Diversity Leads to Stability; Connections Between Elements; Positioning Elements
Interactive diversity leads to stability, which leads to fertility and potential productivity.
2.7 - Use of Natural Resources; Energy; Edge Opportunities
When using natural resources, minimize waste, thoroughly replace lost minerals, do a careful energy accounting and biosocial impact assessment. Buffer or eliminate any negative impact.
Any system that is oversupplied with energy that can't be put to productive use will go into chaos. However, the ultimate opportunity for creative form is on the verge of chaos.
Energy is a constant, in one form or another. Life is one containment mechanism. As we deplete the capacity of the earth to store energy, the climate is destabilized by more ambient, transitory forms.
2.8 - Capturing Energy; Extending Entropy
Entropy is spent energy. Water on a mountaintop possess a great deal of potential energy. As it flows downhill, that potential is converted to entropy.
2.9 - Categories of Resources
Five categories (examples): those that increase with modest use (pasture), those that are unaffected by use (fruit tree), those that degrade or disappear without use (annual garden), those that decrease with use (timber) and those that pollute or destroy other resources (toxic chemicals).
2.10 - Dispersal of Yield Over Time; Diversity of Plants; Perennial Food Advantages
Varietal selection (early, mid, late season) and early/late ripening situations can be employed to disperse yield over time. For instance combining early greenhouse germination with an early variety or a late variety with thermal mass.
Big agriculture has annualized many perennials through selection in order to synchronize harvest for a convenient mass yield.
2.11 - Diversity and Security; Yield and Energy Inputs; Niches
The forced production of an element typically shortens its lifespan.
Niches may be found in space, time, or both.
2.12 - Mollisonian Permaculture Principles
Water is a highly efficient medium of production. Fish produce protein far quicker than land based animals. The chinese water chestnut is a super high yield crop. Bullrush is a very fast growing animal forage.
Work with nature, rather than against it. Everything is a resource, it's up to us to determine how best to use resources. Remember that matter is energy incarnate. The problem is the solution. Make the least change for the maximum effect. The system's richness is only limited to the imagination of the designer.
Everything gardens.
QnA 2.1
Tropical topsoil is very thin, normally 1-2" around the equator.
Desert soils in arid climates are quite fertile if you can get them moisturized because there is often a lot of unused nutrient parked in them.
QnA 2.2
Nutrient often accumulates in indentations on arid land via wind deposition.
QnA 2.3
In general, water systems reach their maximum infiltration potential in about 7 years. That's about how long it takes to saturate the land to the point that water is continuously exiting the system.
If you want to maximize your swales, in general, the base of a swale shouldn't be lower in elevation than the tops of the trees (to be) planted at the next lower swale.
The environment is responsible for my participation!
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