Overview

Here I will give a short overview of each of the gardens along with resources from the outside of the garden. I will then move through each of the existing composting systems that are currently in use.

With the use of a graphic to explain the soil food web I will then look at the functions and elements to understand how much value each is providing to the gardens. This will be followed by considering how each of the permaculture ethics can apply to the design. To conclude I will examine each of the permaculture principles to help form the final design.   

 

 

The gardens

 

The gardens have two very different designs with the front favouring mostly annual vegetables whereas the back garden is designed to represent a forest garden focusing on perennial plants, several soft fruit bushes, and the recent addition of two fruit trees. Both gardens are chemical-free, using only organic growing practices that support the health of the soil.  

 

The back garden

 

Throughout the summer the soil in this garden is covered by an array of different plants ranging from ground covers of strawberries around the soft fruit bushes, dense patches of mints, whilst along the fence line on the low side of the garden, there is now an established cover of comfrey.

In autumn, a deep mulch of fallen leaves is placed around the fruit bushes and across all the soil areas in the garden.

 

The front garden

 

In the front garden, we have four different beds one of which is a raised bed used to grow salad picking leaves. The other three beds have been used to grow courgettes, squash, oca, peas, beans, and annual leaks. I also grow perennial kale and perennial leeks. I have one bed that I would like to keep for perennials.

In spring, the previous year’s compost heaps will be used to mulch the different beds along with the addition of a few bags of farmyard manure that is bought in.

The front garden design will change slightly this next year as I access areas of the design where advancements would improve the yield of the garden. This will be a separate design but will include crossovers with this design.

Located in this garden I have a wormery, a large plastic compost bin, a compost heap with a tarp over it, and a rabbit-wire cage to store autumn leaf fall for composting.

 

Outside of the gardens

 

Located around the adjacent residential car park and along the roadside are twenty mature hardwood trees. In autumn the collection of the leaves from the car park is very simple, the same goes for the roadside where the leaves can be gathered from a grass bank and the pavement. The road sees very little traffic due to it being only a housing estate road with no through traffic.   

 

The graphic below shows an areal view of the house and tree locations.  

 

The above graphic is a PMI analysis, to help summarise what is a Plus, what is a Minus, and what is Interesting with the existing composting systems when thinking about how to improve them.    

The locations of some of the compost heaps do not have good access, this is very noticeable during the wetter times of the year when gaining access to the bins and heaps becomes a task on its own.

I also need sufficient access to turn the pallet compost heap without having to move anything out of the way, otherwise, it tends not to get turned very often. The plastic bin will also need to be next to the pallet heap. The partly composted material from this bin will then be added to the pallet heap. It will get very messy if I have to move composting material to different locations in the garden.

The leaf-mould cage can stand away from any other system. I do not need to have dry mud-free access, I just need to be able to fill the cage with leaves in autumn. This heap will also need to be turned at regular intervals throughout the year so I will need some space to work. Ideally, a location hidden away would be ideal due to the size of the full cage.

The wormery is best out of direct sunlight to prevent it from overheating. Clean easy access will be required for ease, during the dark winter nights having to put outdoor shoes on to go to any compost bin is a major hassle.

Improved composting methods and the reduction of one compost heap (the one with the Tarp) will provide me with better compost along with more space for other elements in the garden.

 

Here is a graphic to help demonstrate the importance of having a heathy living soil. The community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil is often referred to a “The Soil Food Web”. It is a complex living system in the soil describing how it interacts with the environment, plants and animals.

 

 

 

In permaculture, each element needs to perform many functions for it to be considered useful in a permaculture system. In the table below I’ll explore the different elements against their functions to understand how they will work in this design.  

 

Functions and Elements Conclusions

 

The functions and elements chart provides a few interesting conclusions that need to be considered in the design.

With the highest scores are the trees and hedges, the number of people that tell me to remove my hedge is just a few less than those who constantly tell me all the trees should be cut down around the car park to prevent leaves and sap falling on their cars. Thankfully these people aren’t listened to and the trees are still there along with my hedge. With the lowest score being humans, this is understandable as when we look at a natural wilderness there is an abundance of nature providing everything needed to sustainably keep that ecosystem alive.   

 

“Perhaps Fukuoka, in his book The One Straw Revolution, has best stated the basic philosophy of permaculture. In brief, it is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labour; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system.”

Permaculture Two – Practical Design for Town and Country in Permanent Agriculture; by Bill Mollison.

Long before learning about the meaning of the word permaculture, I have been intrigued by plants, particularly the role of plants in human culture and practices. Archaic cultures the world over have performed fertility rites that were intended to stimulate reproduction in humans or in the natural world. The fertility of the soil held these ancient cultures together, if there was enough food to eat, people tended to get along. As societies grew the ever-increasing need for food grew with these civilisations often ending in wars over resources such as land, fuel, food, and water. Climate change has also played a significant role in moving populations around, we see this in the number of ancient cities that are now deep underwater miles from today's coastlines, along with cities that have been buried by desert sands.  

We are again heading towards a societal point where the distribution of essential resources is going to be significantly reduced. Increasingly we are seeing different movements attempting to persuade the power structures that control the world's recourses to change their behaviours. A problem here is often many of these movements are also funded by the same power structures they are trying to persuade to change, creating at its core the control of the outcome.

Can the ethics of permaculture change the world? At this moment in time, I would say no, the world is run on a structure of power. What the ethics of permaculture can change in our current situation is to start and remove our dependence on these power structures.

To keep it simple one simple step would be if you have the space to grow some of your food, grow it. If you have no interest in growing food but you have land that could be used to grow food, reach out to people and groups who have no access to land and form an arrangement with them where in return for the use of your land you receive a share of the food grow.

With the permaculture ethics of earth care, people care, and fair share I will now look at each separately and explore how they will be used with this design.  

 

Earth Care – Permaculture can enable us to meet our needs on a small area of land. The systems we construct to meet our needs should depart as little as possible from natural ecosystems. Living soil is about as natural an ecosystem as you can get. Caring for the soil is about keeping the soil alive. Through the practice of organic methods, this design will utilise different composting techniques to feed the soil generating ever-increasing fertility that will be made available to the numerous plants growing in these soils.     

The focus will be on using local resources from in and around the gardens to develop these systems removing the need to rely on external resources. The supply chain for many of these external resources often involves transportation, packaging, along with all the bindings that go into running the supply chain model, i.e., people, technology, office, and warehouse space.  

 

People care – Permaculture is about taking matters into our own hands than about persuading the powers that be to change things. To be able to develop composting systems that feed soils that then go on to produce high-quality nutritionally dense foods you are removing the need to be dependent on a system such as a supply chain that could break down at any moment.

Permaculture is a whole system approach to designing systems, the emotional and spiritual aspects of a design are just as important as the technical one. The growing of organic food has great benefits to us on many different levels, it helps to reduce stress through allowing mindfulness when working in the garden and connects us back to natural cycles and seasons.

 

Fair share – This ethic is a combination of the other two. Only by reconnecting ourselves with local resources can we move towards a sustainable society. A permaculture design needs to take responsibility for reducing our personal consumption of material goods. Through this design, by making changes in my lifestyle to focus on improving the soils in the gardens I will be able to produce improved crop yields providing my household along with a few friends and family, food that would normally come with the added ecological costs involved with non-organic food production and the supply chain. Recycling through composting is another step in helping to reduce my own ecological footprint.  

 

OBSERVE & INTERACT

The process of using local material to maintain a system in this case growing food is nothing new. Permaculture design lets us step away from the industrial society which depends on the large and continuous input of fossil fuel energy. With careful observation and thoughtful interaction, we can find creative solutions.

Observe, recognise patterns, and appreciate details

Part of this design is going to involve different methods  of making compost. How the compost is used will be key in helping to keep the soil fertility balanced for each variety of plant grown. Growing plants on a small-scale permits time to observe, recognise patterns, and appreciate details.

Interact with care, creativity, and efficiency

Over time, observing plants in the garden I’m learning to recognise patterns that indicate deficiencies in the soil. With care, creativity, and efficiency the resources I need to use to improve the soils these plants need will be provided by this design.   

Make the smallest intervention necessary

What works for one variety of plants may have adverse effects for other plants growing close by. A big part of this design is to allow me the time to potter in the gardens, making small interventions where and when necessary. 

Avoid too much of a good thing

Using small interventions will be a two-fold solution, unnecessary use of resources will be avoided along with the prevention of creating large-scale problems.

The problem is the solution

Things are not always as they seem, through observation the details can become clearer. Something that you imagine is going to cause a problem could also be the thing that adds to the most value.   

 

CATCH & STORE ENERGY 

Finding ways to hold onto the nutrients that pass through the garden each season along with turning energy that would be wasted into a usable form that can be turned into food.   

Nutrient storage in landscapes

With a design around soil fertility working towards helping to grow soil ecosystems that have evolved to catch and store plant nutrients in non-soluble but available forms, I will be considering approaches to keep topping up mineral nutrients that have leached out of these very soil ecosystems. Nutrient storage in landscapes will for this design be letting nature do what it does best.

Soil humus as carbon storage

Soil micro-organisms consume organic matter, particularly carbon-rich bulky plant materials. Once the soil organisms, the most well-known of these are worms have finished processing the organic matter it is converted into polysaccharides, proteins, and other products that support soil micro-organisms and plant life. As a result, most of the carbon cycles back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, leaving a smaller amount that is concentrated into complex organic compounds that are more stable such as humic and fulvic acids. It is these that increase the capacity of soils to hold nutrients, water, and oxygen. This brown or black substance that remains after the organic materials have decomposed is called humus.

Humus

One of the most important nutrients found in humus is nitrogen. Nitrogen is a key nutrient for most of the plants that I will be growing in the garden. Humus can be produced naturally through plants dropping leaves, twigs, and other materials onto the ground, pilling up forming a litter that over time decays leaving humus. Another way of producing humus is through composting.

Living Soil

Living soil is sustainable soil that has a large capacity to store water, mineral nutrients, and carbon through a high humus content along with a good structure to the soil.

 

OBTAIN A YIELD 

Having good soil fertility in both gardens provides self-reliance at the foundation level.

Increasing fertility

With fertile soil comes increased plant growth leading to higher yields of food crops. The result of this soil fertility design is to ultimately be able to continually harvest high yields of nutritional food crops from the gardens.

Increasing happiness

As a result of increased plant growth, the gardens will produce a richness of diversity. For myself, plants give me great pleasure in experiencing them grow. The plants will provide different habitats throughout the year for countless visitors to the gardens from bees to birds to hedgehogs all of which give back to the fertility of the soil in small ways.  

Increasing calmness

Sitting in the garden reading on warm summers days with the ambiance of bird song and insect chatter generates a calmness of mind. Productive gardens designed with vision produce subtle yields that feed the essence of who we are.

 

APPLY SELF-REGULATION & ACCEPT FEEDBACK

Over time some areas of the gardens mostly the forest garden (back garden) will become more robust and develop a degree of self-regulation and balance. The kitchen garden will be where the most feedback is required to track soil fertility.

Taking Responsibility

Applying different approaches to improving the different soil areas in the gardens is going to be a continual process of learning. The kitchen garden will vary yearly depending on what is growing in each of the different beds. From self-audit season to season over time a clearer picture of the needs and wants of each of the beds will add more value to the design.    

 

USE & VALUE RENEWABLE RESOURCES & SERVICES

What have I got in the gardens; what I have got near the gardens that I can use to add value to the garden soil?

Trees

One thing I have plenty of are hardwood trees growing close to the garden, leaves can be used to mulch the soil or can be composted down into leaf mould. Used with some thought the trees can add great value to soil fertility.

Composting

Garden waste along with the food waste from the kitchen, are renewable resources that go towards helping improve the soil.

Birds

Including wild birds in the system is one way of helping the soil gain nutrients from a source other than plants. The birds also help with pest control, songbirds feed on slugs, tits will spend time picking insects and grubs off plants.  

 

PRODUCE NO WASTE

For this design, produce no waste integrates seamlessly with the above principle of, use and value renewable resources and services, with composting as the key factor.

Choosing growing methods

No-dig gardening prevents unnecessary exposure of the soil to air, this allows air-loving bacteria to proliferate and in the process digest soil carbon, the by-product of this is released carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Perennial crops produce higher yields with less input. Having a mix of no-dig areas of soil, perennials food crops, along with a chop and drop mulching, (this is where branches are pruned, leaves or full plants are cut and dropped to the ground to be left as mulch) helps to reduce waste.

Waste

The time it takes to perform activities can also be wasteful, unnecessary digging, moving pruning's that could add more value if they were left to compost where they were cut are activities to be avoided.

Another area where time is often wasted is by growing only annuals, adding more perennials into the gardens saves time sowing seeds each year, potting on, and planting out. Better managed systems can save large amounts of time.

Removing the need for external resources  

When it comes to sustainability, by removing the need for external resources, no extra waste is added to the system from involving supply-chains (fuel costs, packaging, etc). This also includes the sustainability of the external resources themselves. Buying in organic compost doesn’t mean it’s a sustainable resource.  

 

DESIGN FROM PATTERNS TO DETAILS

Stepping back and looking at the larger picture we can become more aware of the nature of the system we are designing.

Zones

Permaculture zone one will be the predominant zone that this design will be built upon. Zone one is the area that has the most efficient and intensive use of the land, it is the closest to the house and therefore the area that is observed daily, the further out the zones go the less often human interaction happens, ending with zone 5, the wild zone where human intervention is ideally zero.

Close attention will be given to changing conditions in the garden, observable patterns will become apparent in how the different plants are growing, this will allow interventions to be made depending on the plant's needs.  

Optimum scales of production and growth

Again, through observable patterns, the optimum scales of production the soil can sustain using the resources available will help manage the growth of the system. With careful management, the soil fertility season to season over time needs to be maintained without the need for external resources.

 

INTEGRATE RATHER THAN SEGREGATE

“The purpose of a functional and self-regulating design is to place elements in such a way that each serves the needs and accepts the products of other elements” Bill Mollison – Permaculture A Designers Manual

Each element performs many functions

With limited space in each of the gardens, this design will focus on how each element can perform many functions. An example will be the fallen leaves of the hardwood trees growing next to the garden, these will be collected, composted in a large cage to form leaf-mould, this will then be used as a mulch on the beds in the kitchen garden. The leaves will also be used as an overwinter mulch in the forest garden where they will compost into the soil feeding the microbes and other soil life, this will also act as an area for birds to forage in looking for food, the birds will leave behind droppings that also feed the soil microbes. Placing bird feeders in the garden will also encourage more birds that will also give back to the soil.

Each important function is supported by many elements

Growing food is a highly important function in this design, having different composting systems will provide greater resilience along with providing different nutrients back into the soil.

Companion planting and guilds

Soil fertility can also be improved simply by growing certain plants together in guilds where each plant supports and benefits the others. The classic guild is the native American “Three Sisters” corn, beans, and squash. The cornstalks form a trellis for the bean vines to climb. The beans, in turn, draw nitrogen from the air, and via symbiotic bacteria convert the nitrogen to plant-available form. The squash, with its broad leaves, forms a living parasol that densely covers the ground, inhibiting weeds and keeping the soil cool and moist. Together the Three Sisters produce more food, with less water and fertilizer, than a similar area planted to any one of these three crops in isolation. Here in England, I hear mixed accounts about growing the three sister’s guild so it’s time to have my own opinion and test it out.

 

USE SMALL & SLOW SOLUTIONS 

Having a small area for this design to take place in adds great importance to this principle. Having lots of small and slow solutions will be what makes this design sustainable.

Long-term thinking

The design of the growing beds in the kitchen garden along with the design of the forest garden, long-term thinking has been put into these. Soil fertility is also a long-term thinking process. Adding quick fixes to soil is the equivalent of hoping to stay warm by burning sticks in a fire, it’s great in the short term but becomes unsustainable and involves a lot of energy having to constantly feed the fire. A few large logs added to the sticks soon generate a warm sustainable fire with little energy input needed to keep the fire warm.  

Perennial crops

The forest garden will have different fertility needs to the kitchen garden. Perennial plants are the mainstay of the forest garden, they may take a few seasons to become productive but over the long term, they require fewer needs than annual crops. Perennials can help the soil life by removing the need to dig into the soil to plant each year. Adding more perennial plants into the kitchen garden will improve the sustainability of this garden.   

 

USE & VALUE DIVERSITY

It is the functional connections between each of the elements that make the design stable. Having a range of different systems that complement each other will add value to this design. Soil is made up of a complex web of life that requires a diverse set of inputs to produce the best conditions to sustainably grow food each season.   

Rebuilding diversity

Through no-dig gardening, mulching the soil, chop, and drop, these all help to rebuild diversity back into the soil. Compost used where and when needed will also help improve the fertility of the soil increasing the diversity.

 

USE EDGES & VALUE THE MARGINAL 

Apparently, in permaculture, the edge is where it’s at, so it goes.

Realizing the edge in a garden

The edge is not just the edges of the garden or the beds. I have two very different gardens, the forest garden has a wide variety of different edges, everything from around the small ponds, the edge of the different bushes, or large plants, I have stone walls, different paths, all these create edge each with its varying quality of the soil. I also have an area with very shallow soil compared to the higher quality soil in the beds in the kitchen garden. Here in the kitchen garden, there are also many kinds of edges, the steel side of a raised bed that gets full sun will change the behaviour of the soil next to it compared to the other side of the same bed in the shade, the soil around the edge of the bird bath will be different to the soil of the same bed a meter away.

Deliberate planning

Making the most use of the space you have is very important in small space gardening, turning an area of marginal soil into one of productivity with a simple addition of compost will add value to the garden. Planting heat-loving plants next to the concrete path that is in full sun all day will benefit the plant late into the evening through residual heat from the path.

Soil fertility is important along with growing plants in the best locations suited for each plant.             

 

CREATIVELY USE & RESPOND TO CHANGE 

Design into each system resilience examining different scenarios that could come along in the future.

Accessibly of elements

Building a system in the wrong place or with difficult access could cause the system from being used in the future. This is going to be important when considering the locations of the different composting systems. Now, I’m in good health and physically fit, creating a design that allows for easy access for somebody not in good health is building resilience and longevity to the design.

Environmental change

In England, we are used to changing weather, each year can vary from one to the next. A fertile living soil in the gardens is an important resource, in the future, this could become vital to providing food. Food chains are currently breaking down, knowledge of growing our food at home is getting lost as the generations who once grew most of their produce die out. Composting knowledge also gets lost at the same time along with seeds that had been passed down from generation to generation.

Changing ourselves

The future is in our hands, it’s in the compost we make to help our garden soils stay fertile, It is in the decisions and the choices we make each day. Choosing to learn to look after and improve our soils can only be a step in the right direction.