Yes.

Six years working through my diploma in applied permaculture design has certainly been a learning pathway.

It’s now August 2022 and as I once again sit at the table in my kitchen garden, the hot morning sun shining down on me, a pair of bull finches chattering away to each other as they hop through the goji berry bush, I’m feeling as though I’ve used up all my words in writing up these past ten designs. All I feel I have left are words to describe the plants growing around me.

I’m not quite sure how I managed to plant a summer squash in the place I planned a cucumber to go. Being not one for moving a plant that is seemingly growing so well, but with a little creativity, it’s now growing along a bamboo cane from one raised bed trellis to the next. I’ve been eating out of this garden from late spring, and I watch with fascination as the cucumbers start to form. Last season the same raised beds were overtaken by bush tomato plants which prevented access to anything behind them for too many weeks. This season not to be beaten I opted for windowsill-size tomato plants; these plants fit well growing down the side of the path.

In both gardens, I’ve been able to water the plants with rainwater from the system I built earlier this year. The plants seem to be doing okay with the homemade compost, another design implemented these past six years.  

When I moved into this house, an earlier design was used to help me make a few decisions before buying the house, I moved all my fruit bushes from an allotment which was the first permaculture design I planned and implemented. This year those six same current bushes produced 20kg of picked fruit. The forest garden design in which these bushes grow seems to be working well and as I’m writing this; I’ve noticed that the goji has finally come into flower after ten years.

It’s this same forest garden that has caught the attention of many people passing by. One of these people has become a friend and is now a founding member of the Richmond Permaculture Network. Time will tell how this project goes but thanks to my mental health design I feel much more content in myself and I’m looking forward to enjoying where my permaculture learning journey takes me next.

Each of the designs, I’ve worked on all have provided me with the opportunity to learn. From a comment after a PDC in the summer of 2014, the past eight years have been all about studying permaculture. I’m now at the place where I feel a change is needed. I may not know what the future holds but I do know I’ve not wasted these past several years learning the things I have and my permaculture learning pathway has been a long and enjoyable experience.

 

In concluding my learning pathway I will close with a final SWOC analysis.

SWOC is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Challenges. Here this is used as a tool to focus on the key areas of the design.

In concluding 

 

Strengths

I would like to stand on the crate for a moment and admit my biggest strength was my ability to keep on keeping on. I’m not sure if six years is a bit long, most people I speak to seem shocked that I would work on a diploma for so long. Admittedly these are the people who know nothing about permaculture, but I get the impression they know much more about my life than I do, and they also know what is best for me so I should not judge such wise people.

As I’m still standing on the crate I might as well add that I did okay when it came to implementing my designs.  

Standing back on terra firma, as with this design when I start something I like to see it through to the end, and this is where I now find myself with regards to the diploma. The process may have been a long one, but my knowledge of permaculture has gone from strength to strength. I’m understanding much more about what makes a permaculture design work and I’ve managed to keep my passion for permaculture alive throughout the whole of the diploma even now my passion keeps on growing.

A big strength has been my competence or perhaps my obsession with reading many books. These have been a key resource for me and have held my diploma journey together through the more challenging periods.

Another strength has been the design assessments I’ve received from Wilf. These have given me just the right amount of direction to keep going especially in my early designs when it was all a bit confusing for me. I would read and then reread Wilf’s comments over and over until I felt I’d included all the advice and suggestions he made along with recommendations as to what I needed to add to my next designs. As simple as it may seem these made me go to find other people's designs to see how they presented their work until I finally started to figure the design process out.    

 

Weaknesses

Hindsight is a wonderful thing; I probably should have reached out for help when I was struggling with writing up my earlier designs. At the time I just never realised how much I was struggling, it’s only now when I look back and think about the past six years that I can see what I couldn’t see then.

Most of all I was probably a bit too solo during the six years working on this diploma. I lacked the confidence to work with other people in permaculture guilds. The few times I’ve met other people taking the diploma at Wilf’s they all seemed so much more switched on academically than myself that I felt a bit like I needed to be in the “special” permaculture class.

As a side note, the number of intellectually intelligent people I’ve met who have done the diploma or are working their way through it is incredible. I must have missed that tick box when I signed up.   

 

Opportunities

Everything has been an opportunity for me, I’ve learnt much more about permaculture design through taking this diploma than was possible by just reading books, watching videos, and listening to other people. Therefore, my allotment design is an important design for me, I did this before the diploma, and I thought this was all permaculture design was. My PDC only really covered the things I already knew about permaculture so even after that I didn’t know how little about permaculture design I knew. It was not until I tried to write up designs that I started to learn what needs to go into a design.

 

Challenges

Getting my head around the permaculture design frameworks, and the design tools have been a major challenge. The whole writing up a design has been challenging, everything from how to present it, grammar, and spelling, and what should go where.

Understanding how to incorporate the permaculture principles into my design write-ups has been a challenge. I can’t forget the permaculture ethics, like the principles, figuring out how to show my understanding of these in my writeups was a challenge.

In short, everything to do with the write-up process was a challenge.

Another challenge was finding Wilf place - Abundant Earth. Sat-nav weren’t much help here either. Despite knowing where it is I keep getting lost each time I go there. Life is very confusing at times, mostly when I’m driving a car.  

 

 

So there we have it, other than a few personal reflections to end with I’m now at the end of my design write-ups. For each of the ten designs, I’ve enjoyed the final evaluation section of each. I was especially looking forward to completing this design not because it signalled the end of the diploma but because I wanted to see how it ended. I feel my goal for this design has been fulfilled.