What went well?

Finally doing it, I’ve been thinking about doing a soil fertility design for a few years now but never got any further than telling myself I’ll do it next. This is my sixth diploma design; I now feel I have a better understanding of how permaculture principles and ethics are used when researching a design. Soil fertility is such an important topic so an improved understanding of the principle and ethics when designing has probably helped put this design together.

 

What was challenging

I was forced into starting this design having invested both time and money into the kitchen garden reloaded design, it wasn’t long into that design that I felt I was getting distracted with composting systems. Removing the thought process into a new design around soil fertility was the correct thing to do but it also gave me much more to think about.

If I could roll the clock back, I would have put this design together before I even started the redesign of the kitchen garden, the challenge then would have been the locations of the composting systems. It was not until I was working on that design that I hit a problem with the proposed locations of some of the elements in that design that forced me to do another redesign of most of the elements.

Having two designs with a few of the elements so closely entwined was always going to be a challenge. Thinking about it now, I could have worked on the soil fertility design first, left the compost systems fluid until those two parts of the designs overlapped. Then joined the designs to work on the locations after which the designs could part again.

Perhaps I’m way overthinking things and the real problem was trying to do too much at the same time. I’m out of the house ten and a half hours, five days a week, I have a house to keep clean, along with all the other tasks that need to be caught up with on a weekend, then doing a major redesign of the garden that went on for six months. I think it’s not until you sit down after the fact, write it out like this that you realise it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Yes, I felt quite good about the design until I wrote this.

 

What are my long-term vision and goals for this design?

Soil fertility is an ongoing process, the long-term vision and goals are to be doing lots more observing and tweaking. I should also keep coming back to the evaluation section and adding at least a yearly update using the same tools, the PMI and SWOC to help evaluate the progress.

 

What are the next achievable steps?

When thinking about what to include in this design for ways that I could improve soil fertility, I came up with a few more “out there” options. For the design, I skipped including these to keep a tighter focus on the soil and to remove the need for people to do the eye roll.   

In the past, I’ve grown with the moon cycle calendar for a few seasons and had much better results when sowing seeds. I’m already following this system this year. I’ve also used biodynamic preparations and enjoyed stirring the water in the bucket. The compost company I’ve been using for a few years has started putting the biodynamic preparations into one of their ranges, so I have been using this.

In the design I did touch on companion planting, I will be putting a greater focus on this, considering which permaculture guilds, companion planting, polyculture to use this season.

All these methods could be a whole design on their own and probably will.  

For the soil fertility design, my next achievable step is to enjoy what I have created. I have been moving from one big design to the next never stopping long enough to fully enjoy all that I have done. By saying no more groundworks for a season I am going to make sure I enjoy the gardens this year.   

 

The PRIME design Framework

 

This is your second time using the PRIME framework, how has it worked for you this time?

The PRIME design format is one that I am enjoying working with. It’s a simple process to follow. State the “Problem,” do some “Research” as to how best to solve the problem, use the research to form the “Idea” the permaculture design, next you “Make” the design, followed by, “Evaluate” how it has all gone.

For myself, this process flows well allowing me to contain the information needed to move from a problem to a solution in a manner that I can understand.

When I look at some of the permaculture design frameworks, they get far too complicated for my understanding. The more steps a framework has, the more information I need to hold together at the same time, often this can be overwhelming for me. I tend to be a more visual thinker, holding everything together in my mind, I’m easily able to do this with the PRIME framework.

Not being very academic, I find PRIME a good format to present to other people. The webpage layout for this design was very easy to create without much thought.

PRIME is a framework I will keep using.    

 

Permaculture Principles and ethics

 

Which of the principles were most significant for you with this design?

This is a difficult one to answer, so many of the permaculture principles heavily influenced this design. If I was going to choose one, probably “Obtain a Yield”.

The whole premise of the design is to grow more food. This is the top-level result of a good working design. The whole process of getting to the improved crop yield by design has to be beneficial to all layers involved with producing fertile soil. Each layer will need to produce a yield for the next layer to benefit. By its very nature, we are starting with nutrient elements both micronutrients, (iron, manganese, copper, zinc, boron, molybdenum, chlorine, cobalt) and macronutrients, (nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulphur) these are the building blocks of our design that go on to provide the ecosystem as explained in the soil food web (see research section) for those above them to profit. This process is also reflected in how the different elements of the design (compost locations, composting systems, composting materials, etc) all work together to produce a higher crop yield.  

Though obtaining our crop yield, each layer has also to obtain its yield, therefore this whole design is based on obtaining a yield.

  

Which ethic was most significant?

This question follows on from the last and should answer itself. Earth Care is the ethic most significant.

Without caring for the earth this whole design falls apart. We are nurturing soil to be a sustainable ecosystem with a by-product of crops that have a very high nutrient value. At this point, we move onto People Care, then onto Fair Share when we distribute the surplus food to others encapsulating the three ethics.

I like how this design focuses on the Earth Care ethic but with a multifaceted outcome influencing so much that I normally take for granted. A very simple example is sitting in the garden reading on a hot summer's day listening to the birds foraging through the garden accompanied by the songs of the insect world. Through caring for the earth with fertile soils the garden would have neither the birds nor the insects. Here, we again see how closely the three ethics work together creating symbiotic relationships.   

    

Any reflections on using the design tools, which was most useful?

The more designs I do the more value the design tools add to my designs. As with my last design, I like Wilf Richards’ version of the “functions and Elements Chart”. It’s a very fun chart to use and admittedly I did sneak a couple of shall we say more out-there elements into the chart to understand whether to encourage them into the garden or not. The outcome was positive, but I choose not to mention them in the design to keep the focus on soil. Perhaps one for a future design.  

Like everything else, I do like simple design tools, and I find the PMI, Plus, Minus, Interesting, one tool I keep on using. When I’m struggling to put my thoughts together it acts as a great prompt tool.