Adventures in Permaculture

Not the beginning, and certainly not the end, but where I am right now.

I first heard about permaculture* many moons ago but my desire to get properly stuck in with the philosophy (and practical applications) of permaculture became apparent in the Autumn of 2012 when there was a residential Permaculture Design Course (72 hours of tuition) planned at a local venue...which I wasn't able to attend. 2013 saw me target finding a residential course that I could fit around other commitments. Found one, booked it - and had it cancelled at short notice. Nevermind, thinks me, I'll find another - and so I did! Booked it...and had it cancelled at short notice.

At this point it felt like I was pushing the river so I decided to stop looking for courses and see what happened. The time I'd already booked off work for the two cancelled courses was spent WWOOFing which was in itself incredibly valuable (and something I'm planning on doing more of in 2014) but I still felt the structure of the permaculture design course would help focus me on the topic in a way that reading the various books I'd got hold of hadn't.

And lo - at the end of December, I found a free online design course! Yippee! Now, I've already discovered various challenges with getting stuck into this course but I've looked for (and found) ways to make it work and am successfully trotting through the various video lectures...while undertaking various time-consuming-but-non-brain-engaging activities like stripping rosemary from twigs to dry it, or shelling cobnuts I picked in Herefordshire in October. Activities which feel pleasantly apt.

The course itself is currently covering a lot of material which is already familiar from the books I've read or other parts of my life, but is bringing said material back to the front of my brain. I'm revisiting a lot of the books which have been sitting forlornly on my shelves and I'm getting new inspiration for the various areas I can plant in.

As 2014 starts and I reflect on 2013's growing activities, I've unfortunately concluded that growing things in the area in front of my house is not energy well spent - as those plantings have frequently been targetted by vandals damaging the plants or pulling them out of the soil. I find it incredibly sad that anyone has a mindset that things vandalising plants is OK. But spending energy getting upset or angry, or, indeed, continuing to grow different things which just keep getting attacked isn't what I want to be doing just now. However, with other areas to focus on I have plenty of possibilities to keep me entertained! I haven't given up entirely on getting greenery in that area outside my house but as an "unsafe" zone for the time being it may just have to wait a little longer while I work out a better strategy.

Permaculture design focuses heavily on observation before starting to design and I can already feel the "Doer" in me wanting to get stuck in. I am, however, in the enviable position of having loosely observed the areas I can plant in for several, if not many, years. There's always more to learn from observing and I intend to continue refining my observation skills and collecting information about these different spots. But I also see 2014 as an opportunity to continue experimenting with various growings in preparation for future possibilities as yet not defined.

Already I'm seeing why permaculture holds such interest for me: much like NO HANDS Massage, it is founded on a lot of principles I already hold as important and yet takes them a step further, while weaving in new concepts I've yet to fully understand. Brilliant.


*There are a host of definitions of permaculture here - I see the applications of permaculture as incredibly diverse and exciting but as a newbie to permaculture land am still formulating what I considering to be my definition of the essence of it.