Eight Acres

We finally planted our food forest one year ago (you can read all about it here). It was a long time in the planning. We had to get water organised before we could plant. But when we were ready, I already had plenty of trees in pots ready to go.      We were originally going to put the trees further from the house, but then decided to set up the food forest between the house and the sheds. This gives us a lovely view through the kitchen window out over the food forest and will block our ugly power pole eventually. It also means that we walk through the food forest to get to the sheds and the veggie garden, picking things and weeding as we go. Its a perfect Zone 1 location . If you're still wondering "what is a food forest?", pop back over to my post about starting our food forest to learn more. In summary, it is a collection of trees, shrubs, herbs and perennial vegetables arranged like a forest rather than an orchard. Our layout is three rows of trees spaced 2m apa...

What is a food forest? A food forest is a permaculture concept, best explained by the following quote from My Smart Garden : A ‘food forest’ is a system of gardening using a diversity of mostly perennial (long-lived species, as opposed to annual vegetables) chosen and arranged such as they compliment and support each other, minimising weeds, pests and maintenance while providing a rich variety of harvests. (What is permaculture?  Find out more here ) The more I read about permaculture and using perennial plants, the more I wanted to develop a food forest.  I also watched a DVD called The Permaculture Orchard : Beyond Organic ( affiliate link ), which shows how perennial plants and bushes can be grown amongst fruit and nut trees. I also read some books about perennial food plants ( see post here ) and have been working on incorporating perennial food plants into my garden. The only thing holding us back from starting a proper food forest or permaculture orchard was water ...

 As you know, I am a big fan of permaculture, I read a lot of books and blogs about permaculture, I listen to podcasts about permaculture and I try to use permaculture in all aspects of my life, particularly around the farm, but also in the house.   What is permaculture?  Catch up on my introductory post back here . To summarise, the way I see permaculture is using natural systems to do the work for you , everything from worms in the garden tilling your soil to passive heating and cooling the house, I'm always thinking about ways to use less of my own time and energy to get something done.     People often assume that you have to have acres and acres of land to "do permaculture" but if you think about it how I just described permaculture, you can use it anywhere on any scale.  I get emails from people saying "I'm currently living in suburbs, but I'd really love to sell up and move the country one day".  I try to be encouraging, if that i...

 I first came across Gaia's Garden ( Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition  (affiliate link)) in 2013 and although I had tried to read other permaculture books before that, this was the one that really helped me to understand the concepts, both what to do and why.   Toby sadly died recently , so I thought it was a good time to review the book in detail.  Toby made an enormous contribution to permaculture and I'd like to remember him by reading his book again.  Throughout this post I will relate the concepts back to how I've applied them in my vegetable garden at Eight Acres, on the farm and how I want to develop my new garden.     Introducing the ecological garden In this chapter Toby explains his concept of the ecological garden as a combination of an edible garden, an ornamental garden and a wild space.  Not just combined, but connected and multi-functional.  I think I am only just starting to see this, a...

 Every property is different and every person has different hopes and dreams for their property and different abilities to achieve them, too, but I think there are some general ideas from permaculture that could help you get started with any new property.       First, do nothing (or do very little anyway). That’s right, do nothing for months. Well don’t do nothing, but don’t jump in and start any major projects until you’ve spent some time observing your property. In permaculture, this is the “Observe and Interact” principle. You need to understand as much as possible about your property before you make any major decision. This is also a good time to use the principle “Use small and slow solutions” because they are much easier to change if you realise you missed something later on, compared to big and expensive projects which you will be effectively stuck with. Things to observe during this time Water flow, rainfall (when and how much), frost/snow times and ...

A friend of mine is considering moving to a new block of land and building a house.  She has similar goals and lifestyle to me, so she asked what we considered when designing our house.  I guess she assumed that we had it all figured out.  The funny part is, the main reason that it took us over a year to get a house organised, and in the end we just bought a secondhand house and moved it, BECAUSE we couldn't decide what we wanted in a house.  ( read more about our secondhand house here ) More correctly, we couldn't decide if we should build what we wanted or build it to suit mainstream tastes, for resale value.  The main sticking point was the ensuite.  We have always lived in a house with one bathroom.  We are happy with that and would build a house with one bathroom, but new houses typically come with an ensuite and a walk in wardrobe.  Both things that we don't particularly need.  Finding the secondhand house, we overcome that proble...

In 1974, an American, Larry Korn arrived at Masanobu Fukuoka's farm in Shikoku Japan, to begin an informal internship that culminated in him translating into English Fukuoka-san's book  The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming  (affiliate link).  The book was published in 1978 and Larry then hosted Fukuoka-san in the US and started his own business teaching natural farming techniques.  Now Larry has published his own book,  One-Straw Revolutionary: The Philosophy and Work of Masanobu Fukuoka  (affiliate link). which is the tale of how "The One Straw Revolution" came to be.   I first heard about this book on the Root Simple Podcast here . I reviewed "The One Straw Revolution" back here  and I have been strongly influenced by the idea of "doing nothing" and observing nature.  I know several people who have read "One Straw Revolution" and really struggled with it.  I had to read it three times myself before I came...

The book  Holistic Management: A New Framework for Decision Making  (affiliate link) sets out a guide to developing a holistic goal for your farm or business.  ( See my introduction to Holistic Management here , and  part 2: four key insights  for the reasons why holistic management is important and part 3: holistic goal for understand what you are managing and what you want from it). Holistic management considers four fundamental and interelated processes that function within our ecosystem/environment: Water cycle Mineral cycle Energy cycle  Community dynamics These processes are the foundation on which we can build our holistic goals.  The holistic goal should be formulated around how we want to influence these processes, as any improvement in one will result in an overall improvement in productivity of the land.  I will use this post to discuss the processes and further develop the holistic goal that I drafted previously. W...

Several years ago now I introduced you to my " hybrid hugelkultur ".  The aim of this project was to try to rehabilitate and area of bad erosion on the slope above our shed.  It looked like the slope had been carved out to make room for the shed and the water flow from the driveway drain had been directed across the area, which was causing serious erosion. We started by moving the drain to a gentler angle and putting rocks in the drain to slow down the water.  Next we used electric fencing to keep out the cattle.  Then we were ready to set up a hugelkultur.  Hugelkultur describes the practice of burying wood in garden beds.  I call our system "hybrid" because we didn't bury the wood.  We didn't have any spare soil, so we piled the logs of wood on the surface across the slope, hoping that they would trap material that was washed down the hill and slow down the water, kind of like a swale, except that we didn't want to dig into the bank either. ...

I got a question from a reader about where to start with a new property.  Pete and I have started two new properties and this is what we have learnt so far. Like I wrote back in this post about designing your property with permaculture , step one is "do nothing" - just observe your property for at least a year, figure out what you want from it and what it can do, then start planning one small project at a time. When it comes to figuring out what you want and what your property can do, this post about " What to do with eight acres " might give you some ideas (adjust them to fit the size property you have). If you have more than a few acres, you might find Keyline design useful as well , it helps with placement of roads, fences and water storage on larger properties, by considering the terrain (or keylines) of the landscape. I find permaculture is the best design tool, you can read my post about David Holmgren's 12 permaculture principles here: Obser...