Permaculture

What Is It?

Permaculture is normally thought of as a technique for farming or agriculture, but it is, more broadly, an orientation towards various kinds of planning. In the words of the person who originally coined the term, Bill Mollinson, “Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.” The word is portmanteau of “permanent” and “agriculture” but it could be more broadly defined as a combination of permanent and culture.

What Does it Do?

Sustainable farming; personal gardening involving less labor; community planning with long-term vision. We are planning our Toolshed garden using permaculture techniques, but it can be utilized at any scale: backyard garden, even windowsills in cities. The concepts can help with everything from planning your own business (for-profit or non-profit) to negotiating your relationships to making policy.

How Can It Be Accessed?

There are many permaculture resources out there, everything from how to guides to philosophy.

Here is a website with tons of resources on farming/gardening specifically.

If this site seems like too much to sort through, this guide is good. (There are several others).

For a very entertaining / illuminating read of some of the thinking behind permaculture (even though the author does not use this term but rather “natural farming”), we recommend Masanobu Fukuoka’s One Straw Revolution. (Link goes to a non-Amazon book buying alternative). More on Fukuoka is here.

For thinking and general principles of permaculture there is this book by David Holmgren.