Truly Sustainable Systems

What is sustainability--really?

One of the hardest battles I kept fighting in landscape design (never mind landscape architecture) was explaining that sustainability was NOT merely having a system that was less destructive than the ones that came along before: the system had to be proactively REPARATIVE, and to such a degree that it could continue to repair and even grow in reparative effectiveness without further human intervention. Geoff Lawton quantifies it far more clearly: sustainable systems not only produce more energy than they consume, the surplus energy produced can maintain and replace the system's components over its lifetime. Ya know, when a landscape or architectural project can boast this, then I can agree that it deserves the label of "sustainable". So how on Earth do we get a system that produces so much more energy than it takes to make it? Think of all the energy it takes to design and install a system (from the human perspective): it needs to be worked up, analyzed, re-worked, materials brought in, the land worked and shifted, materials installed, then the materials modified and worked until the system runs itself. Well, that's how many permaculture systems are put in place, in any case. How do you get enough surplus energy OUT of that system you've just made to cover its component parts for that system's lifetime?

Illustrated by April Sampson Kelly of Permaculture Visions Online Institute

Happily, on Earth, we have energy from the Sun. Through energy from the sun, plants work in harmony with microbes to produce energy. They produce this energy not only for themselves, but for other plants in the system, and more. Plants also produce energy for creatures that eat them. Then they produce energy for the creatures that live off of their eventual decay (fungi, insects, some animals, other plants). Those creatures in turn feed more creatures. So long as the initial design was conceived and executed using the principles that nature itself has always used to ensure her own abundance, it's got a fair shot at producing more energy than it needs to maintain itself, until it reaches an energy equilibrium. However, that equilibrium is another matter entirely. 

Photo from the Sustainable Vision Gallery

For now, dig this: sustainability in a design that includes humans in any way also has to design around mankind's somewhat demanding needs and quirky habits. So that system has to include ways to provide food and raw material abundance in certain zones so that human needs are met without the need for exploitative and damaging practices. In fact, that system has to ensure greater abundance than what exploitation could achieve to ensure that the humans in the system don't fall back on such measures. Permaculture provides exactly this: more food and human-useful material goods than exploitative practices have ever been able to produce in the same area and especially over a given period of time. Permaculture also excludes the need for reliance on far-flung resources in order to survive; necessary resources are kept very close, and most commodities aren't far off, either. Truly sustainable systems: permaculture's got them covered.

Geoff Lawton's PDC (Permaculture Design Course)

We began our PDC (Permaculture Design Course) training with Geoff Lawton this week and  are so excited.  We have already gobbled up the introductory sessions and are eagerly awaiting the next sections.  It's late and we've been up all night studying and doing research for our business plan and for our general plant, herb and food forest knowledge.  

Tomorrow we attend four business seminars through the Relationship and Information Series for Entrepreneurs (RISE) in an attempt to clarify our direction with our business plan for the retreat and educational center. There's one thing that seems to confound a number of the entrepreneurial speakers and educators we interact with:  We don't see ourselves as having competition as we want everyone to do this.  

We learned about this and other great resources through one of Austin's great hidden resources, Lance McNeill at BCL of Texas - Business & Community Lenders.

We just ordered Bill Mollison's "PERMACULTURE, A Designers Manual".  It is considered to be the field book and go-to guide for all involved in the field.  It can be found with other wonderful permaculture and food forest references at the Tagari store, run by Mollison.  

PERMACULTURE: A Designers Manual

by Bill Mollison

This is the definitive Permaculture design manual in print since 1988. It is the textbook and curriculum for the 72-hour Certificate course in Permaculture Design.
Written for teachers, students and designers, it follows on and greatly enlarges on the initial introductory texts, permaculture One (1978) and Permaculture Two (1979) both of which are still in demand.
Very little of the material found in this book is reproduced from the former texts. It covers design methodologies and strategies for both urban and rural applications, describing property design and natural farming techniques.

• Designers' Manual
• Design methods
• Understanding patterns
• The Humid Tropics
• Dryland Strategies
• Humid Cool to Cold Climates

• Trees and their energy
• Aquaculture
• Concepts and Themes in Design
• Soils and Water
• Earthworking and Earth Resources

How We Got Here - Our Food Forest Dream

Today, we established our DBA (doing business as)  for the food forest retreat we have been working toward obtaining.  Of course, it is not a food forest or a retreat yet; but dream it, research it, live it and it will be.

We hope to use this blog to document our adventure, allow others to learn from our successes and mistakes, and educate our soon-to-be child.  We also hope to use this as a reference for ourselves, our future students and those who share our vision.

How we got here:  We both have an interest in permaculture and food forest gardening.  We've been seeking to find ways to integrate ourselves, our communities and their communities into to a more balanced, healthy co-existence with each other, our planet and it's gifts. 

Samantha became interested in Bill Mollison's work in the years she was in Argentina and Erik did when  travelling in Northern California.  Bill is the one who coined the term permaculture.  We study his work, and the work of Graham Bell, Patrick Whitefield, Dave Jacke, Eric Toensmeier, Geoff Lawton and Robert Hart's 7-layer system. 

We not only appreciate Robert Hart's insights, but his guiding principles of democratically organized, small, self-sustaining communities.   There are few better places to start learning about the seven-layer system than from him.  Here is a rare interview with him that inspired/inspires us:  

My favorite line from this video: "The high art of organic growing is producing really good compost."

Foliar sprays of seaweed, liquid comfrey, and liquid nettles are used to feed the plants. These mixtures don't destroy bugs and germs, but build up disease resistence and pest resistance of the plants.  

Natural forests can be divided into distinct layers. Hart developed an existing small orchard of apples and pears into an edible landscape consisting of seven dimensions:

1. A 'canopy' layer consisting of original mature fruit trees. 
2. A 'low-tree' layer of smaller nut and fruit trees on dwarfing root stocks. 
3. A 'shrub' layer of fruit bushes such as currants and berries. 
4. An 'herbaceous' layer of perennial vegetables and herbs. 
5. A 'ground cover' layer of edible plants that spread horizontally. 
6. A 'rhizosphere' or 'underground' dimension of plants grown for their roots and tubers. 
7. A 'vertical' layer of vines and climbers. 

"No epicure dish served at the most expensive restaurant can compare with fresh fruit, organically grown without chemicals, picked from one's own garden." (Robert Hart, 1913 - 2000)