When Orthodox Science Meets Permaculture Principles, Techniques and Design Process
Animal Forage, Bird Life, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Insects, Livestock, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Nicollas Mauro January 20, 2012
Design science is at the root of any definition of permaculture or put simply, permaculture is design science. — Bill Mollison
Permaculture is a design/holistic/integrative science, whereas the mainstream/academic science is reductionist — that is, to understand how things work, scientists break a system and study the tiny parts.
Nevertheless, permaculture can benefit from reductionist science, to find relevant knowledge and new design ideas, but above all to gain some academic arguments to demonstrate the validity and legitimacy of its principles and techniques.
This is an article which shows some of the links I’ve found between scientific articles published in national and international journals, while searching facts and numbers to help me design my property. During the process, some ideas just popped, so I included them to make the article a “live performance” of the usefulness of lurking in the scientific jungle sometimes.
Comments (3)The Urban Permaculture DVD and the Sound-Proof Chicken House
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Building, DVDs/Books, Livestock, Urban Projects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor August 1, 2011
The biggest problem with chicken houses in urban settings has got to be the hyper-vocal rooster. If you want to avoid having tired grumpy neighbours, what can you do? Even giving them a few eggs per week is unlikely to assuage their wrath. There are obvious options to deal with this situation, but they’re not pretty — like a shotgun, for instance. Some say that if you want to ensure a rooster doesn’t crow on Sunday morning, then you have to eat him Saturday night….
Once again, permaculture turns the problem into a solution. Featured in this excerpt from our soon-to-be-launched Urban Permaculture DVD, is a great chicken house by Penny Pyett, from the Sydney suburbs. The solution to sound also brings other benefits as well — that being improved conditions for the chickens themselves. Watch the clip to see it in action, and you’ll also be treated to an excellent rooster impersonation by our own Geoff Lawton!
Further listening:
Comments (6)Animal Systems at HEPA, Vietnam
Aid Projects, Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Fencing, Fish, Livestock, Working Animals — by Marty Miller-Crispe May 19, 2011
At SPERI’s Human Ecology Project Area we have a number of Farmer Field Schools (HEPA FFS) which are host to students from a variety of indigenous minority groups from Vietnam and Laos. The students are here to learn about eco-farming and permaculture whilst respecting traditional laws and customs.
The main focus of the farms isn’t to be productive, but rather to provide an environment where the students can experiment with various farming methods of growing crops and raising animals. So, although we do obtain a yield from the farms, the greater yield is the knowledge the students gain from trial and error.
HEPA FFS is in lush rainforest near the Laos border south-west of Ha Noi. The weather here varies from very cold winters (no snow but feels like it could!), to hot dry summers toasted with hot winds from Laos, and moving into cold monsoons and flooding at other times of the year. As such it is a challenge for the students to obtain a yield from the crops year round, and even more of a challenge to keep healthy animals.
Comments (4)Spring Permaculture Tips and Tricks
Bird Life, Building, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Livestock, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Chuck Burr April 11, 2011
by Chuck Burr
Here is the Spring collection of permaculture tips and tricks from the Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute. Enjoy. The top photo is the winter Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course students getting a little help from the chickens to establish a block-rotation intense veggie garden in Zone 1 at Restoration Farm.
Comments (1)The Private Life of Chickens
Bird Life, Livestock, Working Animals — by Kelly Pagliaro January 28, 2011
Have you ever wondered what goes on in a chicken’s head? Maybe you’ve pondered why humans have chosen chickens as the domestic farm bird of choice. You might think the chicken is a rather “bird-brained” animal, but in reality they are much more complex than we give them credit for. In a BBC documentary titled “The Private Life of Chickens” we follow Jim Doherty as he learns about chicken pecking orders, how chickens deal with predators, interactions between mother hens and their chicks, and much more. Watch the videos below if you too would like to delve into the private life of the world’s most populous bird.
Part I
Ecofilms 2011 – What Are We Working On?
Animal Forage, Animal Housing, Animal Processing, Aquaculture, Bird Life, Breeds, Courses/Workshops, DVDs/Books, Developments, Fish, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Ecofilms January 2, 2011
We’re planning a number of exciting new titles to be released in 2011.
Urban Permaculture DVD
One of the complaints we often get from people living in the city is that we focus a little heavily on Permaculture titles that require a large scale farm to get the most benefit from practicing Permaculture.
So we are happy to announce that in 2011 we will be working on the Urban Permaculture DVD with Geoff Lawton.
Actually, we really started shooting a lot of footage already that we were going to include in the Permaculture Soils DVD that we completed, but for various logistic reasons we found the segments would work best in a video that focuses in detail on adopting Permaculture techniques in small scale domestic environments instead.
From courtyards to backyards to places where you thought you could never do anything with, we want to make this DVD a Permaculture techniques DVD where people can be inspired by what is really possible.
Here’s an example of the kind of thing we mean. It’s a sneak preview of Geoff Lawton visiting a beautiful Mandala garden in an urban permaculture garden. It shows permaculture can be aesthetically pleasing to the eye with a richness of patterns as well as a productive food source:
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How to Make a Home Made Chicken Feeder
Bird Life, Breeds, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Jesse Lemieux October 15, 2010
Editor’s Note: There are still some places left on Jesse’s PDC course at PRI’s Zaytuna Farm in NSW, Australia. Book now!
by Jesse Lemieux
Last Thursday afternoon, at approximately 4:00pm Tanya asked me, “What about the chickens?”
“Oops I hadn’t thought about that.”
Recently, we got our hands on three Chantecler pullets. The Chantecler is a true blue Canadian breed developed in Quebec by Brother Wilfred Chantelain. Bred for cold hardiness these birds are a medium to heavy breed. You will notice in the picture of our three beauties almost a complete absence of comb and wattle. The comb and wattle help chickens regulate body temperature, so it stands to reason that a cold hardy bird wouldn’t have them. Their attributes make them a perfect candidate for the chicken tractor here in our cool climate in Canada.
We picked up the Chantecler pullets about three weeks ago and put them to work in a chicken tractor on the post harvest potato bed. They will give it a good scratching and scoop up the weed seeds and any pest larva that thought it a good place to settle down. When they are finished we will give the whole patch a thick mulch of sea weed and seed it up with a legume cover crop, likely winter field peas.
So why were the chickens a concern at 4:00 pm yesterday afternoon?
Comments (3)Worldwide Permaculture Network Teaser
Bird Life, Developments, News — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 25, 2010
Heads up! In between everything else, I’ve been trying to squeeze in some time to work on a new database slash social networking site (I like to think of it as a ‘Facebook for Permaculture’). This is one of several reasons you haven’t been seeing a lot of full-sized articles from me of late….
It’s not launch date yet, but since all the folks at the Australasian Permaculture Conference (APC) in Queensland are getting a preview this weekend, I thought it unfair not to give you a peek by way of a few screen shots. (APC attendees will see more – they’ll be shown through the not-yet-finished system, but that’s their privilege for attending!)
Finally – a permaculture projects world map!
Click to see full page
I conjured the idea of this database as soon as I started working with Geoff, and we’ve been trying to squirrel away finances to build it ever since. Whilst saving our pennies, I’ve had a static HTML project listing (see tab at top) in the interim, but it was always a cumbersome way to display and promote projects of course and over the last several months as I’ve been working on this database, I’ve had to neglect that section entirely. With student attendance on the increase, and the success of the new internship program, we’ve been able to make a start on something much, much better…. (See, your course fees are doing good in more ways than one!)
Comments (42)How to Establish a Small Space Intensive Food Garden
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Compost, Demonstration Sites, Fencing, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Insects, Land, Livestock, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling, Water Harvesting — by Geoff Lawton September 20, 2010
Editor’s Note: This post is a good reminder to ensure you take good before, during and after photos as you implement projects! Case studies like this become an awesome portfolio for yourselves, and help people to see the practical potential in permaculture. It can be totally inspiring, and help get people moving on the ground!
Case Study – Noela’s Garden, as installed by Geoff and Nadia Lawton
This is a story about a garden that Nadia and I were asked to establish in 2006. It’s a very small space – the area is 95m2. A friend of a friend asked if we could get involved to help to design and implement a garden. Nadia had only recently arrived in Australia and I wanted her and I to put a garden in together as a ‘start to finish’ job so she could get a feel for how we establish small space gardens in Australia, as she already had experience in small space gardening in Jordan.
The area on the North side of Noela’s house.
The Power of Enterprise Budgets: Permaculture, Holistic Management, and Financial Planning
Animal Forage, Bird Life, Commercial Farm Projects, DVDs/Books, Financial Management, Fish, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Livestock, Markets & Outlets, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation — by Ethan Roland September 7, 2010
Resource alert: At bottom of this blog post is a download option for more than a thousand enterprise budgets.
Permaculture designers: It’s time to get serious about profitability.
Farmers & Greenhorns: You already know what I’m talking about. I’ve been working on an integrated ecological farm design for the Ashokan Center in the Hudson River Valley bioregion. The design calls for a mega-diversity of organic enterprises: Multi-species rotational grazing, hardy kiwi vineyards, mixed-fruit orchards, agroforestry & silvopasture, no-till & greenhouse vegetables, gourmet & medicinal mushrooms, and more. There are 200+ edible & useful species spread across 13 acres of farm and 200+ acres of forest.
Click for larger view
How to Make an Egg Mobile
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Breeds, Building, Land, Livestock, Rehabilitation, Retrofitting, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Geoff Lawton September 3, 2010
So, we wanted to make an egg mobile for egg laying chickens to follow behind our dairy cows and fertilise the pasture while scratching the manure that the cows leave behind. The chickens also leave behind their own manure whilst free ranging across pasture. This technique allows the chickens to supplement their diet and produce some good eggs for us to enjoy.
So, first we started off with a 6 by 4 foot derelict old car trailer. Here is the trailer in our workshop with our current internship students learning how to do some metal recycling work to create a good solid egg mobile. This egg mobile is of minimal size to work on a small farm.
Comments (10)PermaCooking – Your Goose is Cooked
Animal Processing, Bird Life, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Livestock, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes — by Marcelo Severo July 29, 2010
One of several Zaytuna Farm geese
All photographs © Craig Mackintosh except where credited otherwise
We killed a goose at Zaytuna Farm the other day and by my count we served out 60+ student meals from it, plus two day’s worth of wonderful breakfasts for the staff. Not a bad effort I thought. Pretty good use of a bird. Here’s what we did….
Comments (2)Mobile Chicken House Construction
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Building, Fencing, Land, Livestock, Working Animals — by Paul Kean July 8, 2010
by Paul Kean, aka ‘Ringo’, who, incidentally, recently returned from Afghanistan.
Several years ago I was living and working at Dalpura Farm in Moriac,Victoria a 100 or so acre silvapastoral project. The client, George Howson, was interested in implementing an aquaponics system so we all went for a day and a half trip to Melbourne to attend a seminar on the subject.
Leading up to this I had started gathering chickens and roosters from the local area, from people giving them away for one reason or another, to start using as workers on the farm. At that time I had sourced 21 birds, a third being roosters. The plan was to eventually separate them into tractoring groups to reduce the competition and fighting between roosters. Long term they would go into a set of 4 cell grazing areas and rotate with crop systems. Even longer term the roosters would be our meat source and hens kept for egg production. (I have always been an avid poultry enthusiast and had raised a good flock in past years in Humpty Doo, NT. I always loved to just sit and watch new chicks making their way and learning from their parents. The breed I had were ‘Old English Game Fowl’ and the hen (Ruby) and rooster (Rudy) were a fantastic pair for parenting and protection of their young.)
We had always been present on the farm during the day and the chooks would free range after being let out of their house in the mornings. Everything was great and eggs were coming daily and the animals seemed happy. Unbeknownst to us though, there was a menace lurking.
Comments (4)How to Make a Home Made Chicken Feeder
Animal Housing, Bird Life, Livestock — by Peter Dilley June 23, 2010
Photo copyright © Craig Mackintosh
In the old days, farmers would have lots of left over pieces of galvanized tin sheeting. To make a chicken feeder they made the tin into a tube cylinder and suspended it above a plate and hung it in the coop.
Today, unfortunately, most people forget how easily people made these things for a dollar or less. I went to our local Feed Store and they wanted $70 to buy a galvanized chicken feeder. I was so angry.
Comments (12)Small Scale and Urban Food Production
Bird Life, Food Shortages, Livestock, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Matt Whittley April 12, 2010
An important and often overlooked detail is appropriate size. What is the ideal size of car, house, meal, lawn or farm? Bigger is not always better. In the case of modern monoculture farms this is very apparent.
Going out of scale in farming can cause soil erosion, water pollution and the need for massive subsidies.
Our romantic ideas of what food production is supposed to look like (with corn for as far as the eye can see), may cloud our view for the greatest and most efficient opportunity for growing our food. Backyard gardens and urban gardens lend themselves to producing food that is eaten locally, produced without fossil fuels, utilizing urban wastes and do not require government subsidies.
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