Earth building has many forms such as adobe, sod, rammed earth, straw-clay, and wattle-and-daub. Cob is its British name and it is a method of building with clay, sand, and straw that is low-cost, disaster resilient, fire proof, and democratic. These are just a few of its impressive qualities. Hopefully over the length of this post you will be able find several more. "Cob is a structural composite of earth, water, straw, clay, and sand, hand-sculpted into buildings while still pliable", is one of the definitions of cob from the 'The Hand Sculpted House'. But I wouldn't take any definition of cob too seriously because you can pretty much make any changes you want and be able to change anything that didn't work out at any time. There is nothing new about cob or mud houses. But if I said mud house, you would probably be imagining a little hut in a village inhabited by a poor person that would fall apart at any given moment. But that is what the housing market and 'development' has taught us to believe. It has taught us to forget the simplest and most long-lasting solutions that our ancestors knew all along and so many groups of people over the world still know. But natural earth building is not yet seen as a commodity and I am so grateful for that. This blog post is about cob building and what I learnt over a 2 week intensive Cob and Beyond workshop run by Betty Seaman and Kelly Nafie at Spirit Pine Sanctuary in June, 2016. We were building an Aikido Dojo. Why cob ? (or any natural material) Frankly after this workshop my question has become, "why not cob!?" There are so many reasons to choose building with earth over any of the new industrial materials like cement, glass, and steel. Some of the reasons that made most sense to me were: Long-lasting (almost permanent), resilient and effective for climate and disasters, democratic building process, connection with the earth and community, and dirt cheap! Long Lasting/Permaculture Permaculture is all about building long-lasting permanent, multi-functional structures. Cob fits perfectly into this model. One of the oldest and largest mud/adobe buildings still standing is the The Grand Mosque in Djenne, Mali, built in the 13th century measuring 100 m (328 ft) long and 40 m (131 ft) wide. Earth structures easily last hundreds of years even without any real renovation. Most modern concrete or cardboard buildings (thin wood houses found in the USA) have a life span of 40 to 100 years. Why wouldn't we want to build something that will last for our grand children? Resilient and Effective When I say that cob houses are effective, I mean that they do exactly what we need - stay warm in the cold and cool during the heat. Concrete houses do the exact opposite where they become colder in winter and hot in summer. Cob houses have thermal mass which means that they absorb heat into the walls during the day when its hot (making it cooler inside) and then release this heat into the house in the evening when its cold. How cool is that? You can add straw bale to cob walls where you need insulation so that the cold or heat (whichever one you want) doesn't escape. Cob is resilient to so many natural disasters such as fire, typhoons, and earthquakes. Several studies have shown that round or curvilinear buildings made of earth without posts have great structural integrity and do not collapse in earthquakes. They are also excellent for disaster relief housing because they can be made very quickly. The only major impact on earth building is slow degradation from rain and wind. But these days with plasters you don't really even have to worry about that anymore. Plus it happens at an extremely slow rate. All you need to do is ensure that water never gets into your walls from the land or through the foundation. Any other issues such as cracks or weathering are easy to fix. Democratic Building Process I guess to me this was very important because being a small person, not exceptionally strong physically, I was still able to build this house. In fact, anyone can build a mud house, children, grandmothers, women, non-professionals, unskilled workers, friends etc. We could all build our own houses and we used to do that not so long ago. We have been made to feel that only construction workers, architects, and engineers can build houses and only with extremely expensive and specialized materials and tools. With cob you pretty much don't need any of those and therefore it is accessible to everyone. All you need is earth, stones, and roof material. Our instructors kept reminding us as we were building, never us the word 'worry' because with cob there are no mistakes that cannot be corrected. Connecting with Earth and Building Community Since ancient times, building homes was a community process involving the entire village. Everyone would come together and build for each other. Building with cob is always easier, faster, and much more fun when it is done in a big group. Play hard in the day and then eat, sing, and laugh together. Such a wonderful life... A group of 15 people can easily build an entire small cottage in 2 weeks. You get covered in mud from head to toe, there are no toxic materials, just beautiful mud under your feet. Financial Empowerment It is amazing how little money you need to build with mud and most of the times the most expensive components come to you for free if you just ask for them or look for them. Small (cozy) cottages can be built in less than $2000 and a bigger, comfortable two bedroom house in less than $10,000. But you can also build for almost completely free. It really is up to you how you design and source your materials. You can build entire seating areas, benches, bookshelves, closets, bathtubs, passive refrigerators, ovens, and more from cob. Its an amazingly versatile material that can look beautiful and last forever. It is economically cheap and should not be commercialized because its all about building yourself and with your community. It is an act of defiance to the prevalent development structures and a going back to the roots of where we have come from. There is so much more that I can talk about - the process of building, the team bonding, the inspiring instructors and their lives, the singing and laughing, but I will end here. If you want to know more, just ask.
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Spring is slowly moving into summer here in Southern California. I had been waiting to see what changes spring brings. So far there has been a cute new baby in the family, blossoming flowers, bunches of broccoli, seeding winter plants, harvested fall potatoes, ants trying to get into our house, groups of starlings that keep me busy while my scarecrow relaxes, a second vermicompost bin, different kinds of insects eating my plants, thriving perennials in a lot more sun, and brand new seedlings emerging. “Sitting quietly, doing nothing, Spring comes, and the grass grows, by itself.” - Basho perhaps Let me begin by telling you about how well the fall plants are doing. Almost all winter the perennials and annuals such as the woodland strawberry, oregano, rosemary, piemont salvia, yarrow, scarlet runner beans, nastursiums, and more showed barely any growth. But I knew that deep changes were happening even if I couldn't see them. As soon as spring has come upon us (more sun and rain) they have already tripled in size. What a pleasure for a gardener! I want to share about two plants that fascinated me and touched me as a parallel in my own life. The grape vine that a previous tenant had planted looked completely dead over the winter. It was dry and parts of its stem had broken from being brittle. I pronounced it dead about two weeks ago. This is how it looks now. I was so wrong. Even something that you have given up on can come back to life. In fact more rightly that is what happens to it every winter. Just a natural process of death and rebirth - a Taoist kind of death that we too go through when things turn out differently than we expected. Things fall apart and then gather up again, only to fall apart again. Not my words...inspired by Pema Chodron. Death is when things become difficult and that is how the winter has been. I often came close to pronouncing certain aspects of my life as dead. But just like with spring, there has been an unfurling within me, a reaching outwards, an inner understanding of who I am, and how I want to live. I can laugh like the blossoms, be angry like the wind, and cry like the nourishing rain, instead of being a fake, landscaping rock. What a discovery! The second incredible plant is the native, edible, scarlet runner bean which has already surprised me once last winter by surviving two weeks without watering. This time the natursium I had planted a bit too close to one of the beans, began overshadowing it. The bean plant's leaves started yellowing and I was wondering if I should do anything about this situation. As usual in my lazy, reluctant-to-make-any-changes style I procrastinated only to find to my amazement that nature doesn't depend on me. The bean had shot out a long tendril high up above the nastursium, latched on to the fence and was vigorously growing new green leaves. It found the sun despite the odds. It reminds me of Maya Angelou's words; "Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise." I too am learning to rise like the bean plant, out from under those who stole my sun and drained me of what I needed. I am doing my best, giving it my all, and I have the support I need to wrap myself around. Maybe someday I will be able to offer support to others who need help rising up. Like the bean plant I will add nitrogen to the soil that will enable the nastursium to flower. I may love to think of myself as a plant, but I am definitely a human. I killed an animal bigger than a spider. Can you guess what? You are right, it was a rodent... a gopher. They live in the ground and eat the roots of plants and can even kill trees! Of course I had to save my garden too. It died in my trap that snapped it because I don't use poison. Poisoning gophers can result in worse problems like a dead hawk that eats it or if it reaches a water source etc. It was a gruesome death and I had to call Alex to handle the dead body. I am a predator. I must embrace all of me no?
With summer approaching there is a lot of anticipation building to see whether seedlings will emerge, if they will grow to bear fruit and feed my tummy, and if my experiments on the land have been effective. Will I get that horticulture internship that I have applied to? Will I be able to make sense of all the hard lessons and transform my life through them? All I can say is I have enriched the soil, mulched it, sowed the seeds, and cared tenderly. I watch them emerge. I leave the rest to time. Since moving to California, I have begun growing my first very own garden! Its my own well until we leave this apartment and someone else rents it. I have never known before this the pleasure of watching your own garden blossom, waking up to the view of the young plants you planted, and eventually finding such delight in swallowing the tasty salad that you grew with nature's help. A simple and profound contentment. With the passing seasons, my garden is changing, going from creation to taking root to blossoming and more. I feel as though it is not just the plants that are transforming, but I too am deeply changing. A metamorphosis of which the end is not yet in sight. Perhaps in Spring... Look at this huge backyard I am privileged to have! When I first saw these orange trees and 650 sq ft of dirt (not a fan of the 880 sq ft of lawn) just waiting to be gardened I was filled with energy to create. A chance for me to create my very own BEST permaculture garden. An ambitious thought...quite unlike nature. It was the end of summer and I thought to myself, 'Ah! fall is the perfect time to start a garden!'. In the mild winter of Southern California, I knew that whatever I plant in fall will either bear fruit in the winter or spring. I made a map of my backyard and began my research... Looking for the right seeds and plants. I was looking for native, edible or useful, drought tolerant, and perennial plants. That's the true permaculture way of not introducing anything into the system unless it has multiple functions and is in tune with the biogeoregion. I ended up with four special plants; 1. Piemont salvia (medicinal, native, drought tolerant, perennial) 2. Woodland strawberry (edible, native, drought tolerant, shade tolerant, creeper, perennial) 3. Yarrow (birds, butterflies, and bees love them, drought tolerant, native, perennial, flowering) 4. Scarlet runner bean (Native American favourite, edible, climber, perennial, drought tolerant) Through the fall and winter these plants have stayed small, but I know that what I can see is not the only truth. The plants use these seasons to let their roots go in deep and spread around. They can grow in the worst soil and with least amount of care once they have set. And they sure are hardy... They survived 2 weeks without any watering while I swam around with whale sharks in Baja! I think my life has been just like them these past 5 months. Autumn I was trying to settle into this new place I am living in. Transitions are never easy, but these months have been of tremendous growth for me, just like the roots of these plants. And I always knew that when spring comes, they will burst into life, shooting upwards. Spring is almost here and I can already see it happening. I wonder what spring will bring for me? I am a lazy farmer. Despite my ambitious thoughts I don't toil hard in my garden. I barely spend an hour a week pottering around there. And lately I have been going in simply to harvest and water my worms. An absolute luxury. Maybe one week I was filled with energy and creativity, and up popped my first bed of vegetable and salad seeds and tiny plants. I realized soon that I could not buy compost any longer, its too expensive! I have to make my own. I set up an extremely simple vermicompost system; a plastic crate with a lid bought for less than $5 at a thrift store. I put soil and raw food in there from my kitchen to encourage the native worms in the soil to come eat. And they really did show up! But I realized these worms are not efficient eaters of the amount of waste I was generating. So I called up a lady who sells worms and bought half a pound of wriggly red worms. She looked skeptically at my set up. "You know, its too dense. You have too much food!" "Oh!" I said "The native worms are here!" "Well I don't know how well this will work, but I'll just put the red worms in there and we'll see" I thanked her for her advice and support and later called her to inform her the worms very doing very well! They had grown fat and multiplied within a couple of weeks. I did take her advice and make my vermicompost less dense by adding horse manure which I found for free on Craigslist. 6 whole bags of horse manure! Yay! On another slightly less lazy day I bought Toby Hemenway's Gaia's Garden. I sat on my favourite seat in the house (the edge of the sofa from where I can see the garden) and became completely absorbed. I became immediately motivated to create a sheet mulch area. By this time I had realized that the hard clay soil in my backyard was extremely infertile and not much could grow there except what probably should grow there... that is cacti and succulents. So instead of buying compost I was interested in building great soil. So I followed his method of ultimate bomb-proof sheet mulching and added my own touch to it. Potatoes! I planted the potatoes in the ground and sheet mulched over it. The materials that I used for the sheet mulch were; Cardboard - $ free - saved from all the stuff we had bought for the apartment Horse manure - $ free - Craigslist Leaves/dry stuff - $ free - collected them from someone else's backyard and dried grass clipping Bed edgers - $ free - I found the cinder blocks down the street where they were tearing down a house. They did look at me weirdly when I asked if I could take some of them but they didn't really care. I have been very moved by the trees in my backyard. They have been an example of abundance. When my husband and I moved into this apartment we ate the sweetest valencia oranges. Once they were done, we were given a huge amount of juicy persimmons, and finally all winter we've had an endless amount of navel oranges. I've made marmalade, marmalade cake, OJ, OJ Margaritas and enjoyed just eating them. I have had nothing to do with the fruits that the trees have provided me. I feel very grateful and humbled by them. I am also simultaneously aware of how they don't belong in this desert landscape. But its not their fault. When a friend visited, we were motivated and made a scarecrow for all the birds that had now begun visiting my garden trying to eat down the tender leaves of the tiny plants trying to grow. Of course the scarecrow was more an artistic element and the birds enjoyed perching on it. I mostly wake up in the mornings now and rush out towards the garden like a mad person shooing the birds and threatening them. Its just a routine now. Who said gardening was all peace and quiet? In fact its easy to become possessive and start believing that you are solely responsible for the growth of these plants and that the fruits belong only to you! A common human mistake.. Lately I have been even more lazy than usual. I haven't even had to water that often thanks to the on and off rains even if meager. Water has been a major issue for me from a permaculture point of view. Since this is a desert area with an ongoing drought, I wanted to be careful with water consumption. I have managed to water my plants 75-80% with my own kitchen waste water. I also use a soaker hose which consumes very little water in the drier seasons. Its a dedication over which I do have small tiffs with the husband who has to lug the kitchen water out to the garden every now and then. But I believe it is the number one thing to be concerned about during this severe drought while choosing to grow anything.
As spring approaches, I am beginning to get out of my lethargy and gear up for the exciting planting ahead of me. Tomatoes, eggplant, basil, raddish, okra and so much more... But only with 80% waste water. Do come back to read more as I reflect on my lessons from nature and continue to change and hopefully blossom in the spring like all the plants. But before I leave, some photos of the changing landscape and harvests... When I said I am going to Goa for one month, people always gave me a shocked and envious reaction. "One month is a long time for a vacation in Goa! So lucky!" Now that I recently got married, I am not going on my usual lonely exploratory travels where I spend a month or two with different NGOs in India. This time it is a India 'darshan' year with my sweet companion. However I do try to continue to at least visit if not volunteer at many different amazing initiatives that are happening everywhere I go. This time I would like to tell you about GAIAMITRA located on the Goa-Maharashtra border. Recently I completed my Permaculture Design Certification from New York, NY. After completing this course and understanding the principles and practices of permaculture, I am convinced that this is one of the best alternatives we have for our future and the health of the environment. I have written other blog posts about what the principles of permaculture are and I have been excited to learn about different people and projects that are trying to adopt and implement these principles. In Goa I had the opportunity to connect with GaiaMitra, a movement of people who are committed towards providing a working alternate model to our current capitalist and economic models of development. The foundation, root or the heart of this movement is care for nature. The core principles of permaculture that have been adopted by the GaiaMitra movement are living ethically with care for the earth and people through efficient designs that minimize consumption and increase ecological health. While I had the opportunity to be with the members of GaiaMitra only for 6 days, they gave me their whole hearted attention, explaining with great patience and detail the project's current work and their vision. Being someone who loves working in teams, I found the GaiaMitra team to be wonderfully diverse, self-motivated, and close-knit, all the qualities a great team needs. What was very striking and encouraging for me was to see extremely committed young Indians working in a self-governed manner for this work. Some of them have committed to giving 10 years to this project. Each member was specialized in their own field such as education, biodiversity mapping, website content management, natural building, visualizing functioning alternate economic models, organizing local farmers, permaculture farming, wholesome cooking etc. The work of GaiaMitra can be divided into two physical sections. For the last 4 years or so they have been working on an 11 acre demonstration plot in Gulduve village in Maharashtra which is very close to the Goa border. The second section is an area called Tilari in Maharashtra consisting of pristine forest land that is owned by several different farmers and covers approximately 3500 acres. The demonstration plot is where they have been experimenting with natural house building, crop and vegetable growing, food processing, and other such techniques. The goal is to create a livelihood system for local farmers to encourage them to retain their lands and to stay back in their villages rather than migrate in search for urban jobs. The situation with farmers in the Tilari region is similar and GaiaMitra is making efforts to convince the several hundred farmers of that area to hold on to their lands instead of selling them to land developers and become a part of the GaiaMitra permaculture project. Approximately half the farmers in the Tilari region have agreed and let us hope the rest of the farmers in the 3500 acres will also accept. The vision for these several thousand acres of land and people in Tilari is several fold which is best understood through this beautiful visual presentation that can be seen here (may be unavailable at the moment). To me this is an extremely exciting project as it combines so many essential aspects of the functioning of society and recreating them to influence true and deep system change. Permaculture is exactly about that...learning , changing, and redesigning the foundation of our entire lifestyle as an individual and species. The aspect of the project that appealed to me the most was the visualization of an alternative economic system that places its value in the health and prosperity of ecological systems. Our current economic systems value profit and endless linear growth through exploitation of natural resources and expansion of the market. But at GaiaMitra they will try to create a system that places the economic standard on the value of a tree which is kept at Rs.10,000. Detailed understanding of this concept can be found on their website or by emailing them, but what is important to understand here is the shift from seeing nature as a resource to be exploited to preserving the health of ecological systems due to their complete benefit to humans. The principles of ethics and nature-rootedness in all human activities provides the environment with intrinsic and instrumental value. GaiaMitra combines the aspects of ecologically sound local livelihoods creation, environmental education and conservation, regenerative economic and ecological synthesis, renewable energy, and social empowerment to name a few. A true synthesis of all these with extremely well designed implementations can lead to radical and sustainable social and ecological change for the better. I hope with all my heart that in the next 10 years the seeds of this project will be sown and the fruits will be enjoyed by many future generations of plants, animals, birds, and humans to come. Gulduve and Tilari are very beautiful places but even more beautiful and amazing are the GaiaMitra members. Join them and share your talents! To know more please visit: http://GaiaMitra.in/wp/contact-us/
Water Water Water! The creator of constant change on earth. Water is almost always the most important aspect of any land or region. People live in all kinds of conditions on earth, but often the toughest places for survival are deserts. Water is vital for everything on earth living and non-living. So what do we know about water?
I think this is not news but it still amazes me that we can take water for granted and not think enough of recharging and taking care of this limited fresh water available to us. So approaching water from a permaculture point of view, we need to understand concepts that help in designing. The first and most important is watershed. Watershed Knowing the watershed for your land, area, region is relevant to both designing as well as conservation and maintenance of precious fresh water sources. So what is a watershed? According to the EPA " a watershed is the area of land where all the water that is under it or drains off of it goes into the same place" It is easier to understand it through a diagram. . In What this diagram brings out is the concept of watershed as well as the pattern of a watershed is referred to as dendritic; a branching pattern. It happens to be a very useful pattern for designing several systems such as transportation and even communities. Most water harvesting, recharging, and maintenance is feasible at the origin of the water sources such as springs, small streams, where rain falls etc. Keeping pollution out of these areas is possible and creates an healthy water eco-system. Big damns often ruin entire river eco-systems by disrupting the natural patterns of water flow. Another point that watersheds also bring out is that that water that you see on the surface may only be 15-20% of how much water there is underground. Building concrete canals and boundaries to rivers reduces infiltration tremendously and hampers groundwater recharge. All the concrete in the cities are the main reasons for falling ground water tables in those areas as very little infiltration takes place and most of the water runs off the land and into the sewage system. What poor use of something so vital. Rainfall In many regions rainfall may be the only or the major source of water. Being able to harvest this water, recharge ground water as much as possible during rains is the key to survival for many communities. Rainfall distribution through the year also determines what kind of an eco-system you have. Tropical landscapes that receive rainfall only for 3 -4 months in a year all in one season are brittle ecologies whereas temperate climates are blessed with evenly distributed rainfall throughout the year and have resilient ecologies. Resilient ecologies are able to bounce back very quickly from any kind of disturbance even due to the regular rainfall and therefore the ability for plants to survive. In tropical ecologies even though they receive a lot more rainfall in the 3 months than a temperate region does in an entire year, it is still a brittle ecology as the recovery from disturbance is very slow. Often the loss of top soil in a deforested area in the tropics occurs when it rains heavily. Rebuilding top soil is an extremely slow process taking hundreds of years if not more. While designing for a bio-region or a site, knowledge of the rainfall helps in deciding sustainable land use patterns as well as best water use, harvesting and conservation strategies. Principles of Water Harvesting The following are some steps to follow while planning water management for your site; 1. Begin with long and thoughtful observation and knowledge As mentioned earlier understanding the watershed, rainfall, geology, soil etc. of your area is key to creating a good design. It is good to be present to observe the land during rains as well as dry seasons to understand how it changes and how water flows on the land. 2. Start at the top of your watershed and work your way down It is easier and wise to make small changes at the top of your water system before investing in big steps. 3. Keep it small and simple Low cost, low maintenance, and long-term solutions are the best way forward for a permaculture design. It also increases accessibility for people with few resources. Here is an example of a low-cost system of a spring box used in India. 4. Slow it, sink it, spread it When water falls or flows, slowing it down, creating ways for it to collect and spread over more surface area leads to higher ground water recharge. A favourite example that permaculture often talks about is swales. Swales are trenches that can be human-made or natural that collect water temporarily and sink it into the ground. Creating series of connected swales can create a gently flowing and sinking water recharge system. Planting around swales is extremely effective and productive as can be seen from the diagram below. 5. Maximize vegetation and ground cover
As seen with planting around swales above, just having vegetation on the land with or without swales is more effective way of water harvesting than just barren soil. Vegetation naturally increases the water table by creating paths for water to infiltrate by making the soil porous. Plants always perform better than human effort can. 6. Continually reassess your system. Hopefully if you did a good job you just have to give it minimal attention. But the learning that comes with any project is immense and so assessing and observing beyond installation helps one grow as a designer and a student of nature. There are endless connections of soil, vegetation, and geology to water. But this is all that can be explored in this blog post. Feel free to continue exploring! It would not be permaculture if we tried to design something without understanding some basic ecological processes. For me ecology includes several if not all sciences such as biology, hydrology, geology, geography, physics, and a lot more. Ecology helps us become aware of patterns existing in nature and borrows research done by all fields. Permaculture uses ecology and also adds economics and other social sciences and tries to design useful things with all this knowledge combined with experience and meditation. The following are the most important concepts to keep in mind while creating permaculture designs. Sun and Energy The sun is the nearest star to us and is at the center of our solar system. 99.8% of the mass of our entire solar system is the sun alone. All forms of energy on earth have been created through solar energy. It is the primary form and the mother of all kinds of energy. It is important to understand how solar energy has transformed our earth and continues to do so. Since solar energy is a renewable source of energy, it makes most sense to design systems that utilize this energy first. Unlike plants, humans transform energy into states where it can no longer be useful to us and also ends up causing negative impact on ecosystems and other species. Maybe instead of using fossil fuels to run our cars, industries, and agriculture, we could use it to create landscapes that do not require their use beyond creation. Designing energy efficient and self-sufficient landscapes is one of the key elements of permaculture. Solar energy has shaped the earth and we cannot change where the sun will be in the sky. But we can design to utilize its power to the fullest through passive system that have very little ecological impact and eventually high economical benefits. Water and Vegetation as Thermal Mass The sun continues to radiate its heat at us and were it not for water and vegetation, we would never be able to survive the extreme heating and cooling that used to take place as the earth rotated into day and night. Water as we all know has a lot of thermal mass that prevents it from extreme cooling and heating. Millions of years ago once there was water on earth, creatures could now survive in water which would mitigate the night and day temperature vacillations. Slowly as life spread to the land, vegetation functioned just like water on land. Thinking of vegetation as water on land helps us grasp the importance of having vegetation to prevent excessive cooling and heating. This easily explains the why dense urban areas get so hot in the summer. There is hardly any vegetation in cities and most of the structures are concrete and surrounded by polluted water, air, and soil. This is called the urban heat island effect. It takes much more energy to cool a building than to heat it up. Thus designing cities with ponds and lots of vegetation can be extremely helpful in creating cool microclimates. Biogeochemical Cycles We are now living in a society that is has focussed too much on linear thinking whether it is in economics or waste systems. This is completely opposite of what nature does. All matter in nature cycles. Biogeochemical cycles is the movement or cycling of matter through a system. Matter is elements and molecules such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, h2o etc. Examples are water cycles, carbon cycles, nitrogen cycles, phosphorus cycles etc. Here below is a diagram of a hyrological cycle. Here is a great link to diagrams of biogeochemical cycles. Ecosystems arise and persist because of cycles. Following the patterns of these cycles in our designs is possibly the best thing you can do to create a sustainable landscape. So many of our current systems do not base themselves on these cycles and therefore have created massive impact on earth and the climate. In India you often see that many rivers that have huge dams on them do not even reach the ocean. That is an incomplete system and the effects are going to be disastrous. The goal for any designer should be to create zero-waste systems where everything cycles and is utilized in one way or another. Succession and Disturbance Succession is an ecological concept that explains the structure and pattern of evolution or growth of a biological community over time. Every landscape goes through different stages of growth towards a something called as a 'climax' community. It is an extremely diverse, stable, and highly productive stage for any ecosystem to be in. You can call it where nature would like to have things ideally go towards. These patterns or stages of development can often be seen after 'disturbance' events. Disturbance is any event natural or human created that destroys almost everything that is living in that particular area or ecosystem. Fires, floods, clear-cutting forests, controlled forest fires etc. are examples of disturbances. These events lead to the resetting of the land and that is when you can see the different stages of succession as the land such as starting with grasses, followed by shrubs and fast growing small trees, followed by medium sized trees and finally large and slow growing trees that form the climax community. Succession can also be understood in terms of entire ecosystems such as moving from desert to grasslands to shrubland followed by deciduous forest to an evergreen forest. Here is a diagram of disturbance and succession. It is fascinating to understand these ecological processes because nothing we produce can ever compete with the production of a climax community. Integrated design will try to move or expedite the biology of a place towards a climax community with a healthy mix of beneficial elements for humans. Creating zones of use along with planting useful trees and food forests, and creating ponds amongst many things may be the best win-win situation we can achieve.
The following are 4 videos by Bill Mollison who is considered to be the 'father of permaculture'. He goes through 4 different ecologies of the tropics, dry lands, cool climates, and urban landscape and demonstrates the relevance of permaculture to each one. The tropics is most informative for those interested in knowing about India. These are great introductory 30 min videos. Earth seems to have reached its current state in random bursts of evolution rather than in a linear, unified manner as we might think. Evolution is how the earth designs itself and before trying to design any human landscape it is extremely important to understand the patterns within earth's design in the largest scales possible. From the creation of earth, the in-flux of oxygen followed by aerobic life, living in the sea for millions of years, adaptation to terrestrial life, the ecology of a mature forest, to the micro-ecology of a pond in your backyard, all need to understood through the broadest and complex lens of nature as a self-regulating design comprising of biogeochemical processes. Understanding patterns and replicating nature's patterns with highest functional use for humans is key to permaculture design.
Permaculture designing principles are most often capable of being scaled up from a specific site or plot of land up to an entire geographic region. Here are some of these principles to keep in mind while designing your site, village, town, city, district, or region; 1. Only introduce those things into your space or system that have multiple functions. Recommended is at least 3. For example on a piece of land it could be a live fence which plays the role of being a fence demarcating and safeguarding property, made up of edible fruits or vegetables for humans, a habitat for birds or burrowing animals, a wind barrier for smaller plants growing along its edge, and a natural filter of pollution coming in from the road. On a larger scale one might question if there does exist a multiple functionality to certain human structures such as dams. Do dams provide any other function other than capturing and channelling water? The truth might be rarely if at all do large dams play any other 'beneficial' function. They damage the surrounding eco-system and livelihoods of people living on those eco-systems, they change the river system ecology, and do not add any vitality to the water amongst many other issues. 2. Maximize mutually beneficial relationships This has multiple levels of designing attached to it. It refers to creating a system where things are interconnected and benefit each other. It can be about planting beans, corn, and squash together which all help each other out while using less energy and space. Or it can be about linking a huge garbage collection system to a biogas industry which is connected to a composting and gardening organization. All help each other and at the same time create circular patterns where material and energy is recycled and brought back into the system in a useful way rather than being discarded and abandoned. Ecosystems are made up of multiple levels of mutually beneficial relationships, we can only hope to imitate some of them in our designs. As long as we get our basics right, ecology will take care of the rest. 3. Designs need to be bioregional or in tune with natural patterns and ecology of the region as much as possible. In this case dams are a good example of giving no consideration to this point. The creation of sustainable and self-regulating designs depends on this principle. This principle is capable of being scaled up to how cities, countries, and civilizations are built. Our cities made with cement and glass are replicated the world over and are completely alienated from the regional eco-system. If one has the time, perhaps this is to also do with us culturally and as individuals. I find Taoism most relevant here. Understanding the way and following that path. Civilizations after civilizations have been far from this teaching. 4. Create a thoughtful diversity of elements Diversity in ecology is key to a sustainable ecosystem due to its ability to have multiple functions and adaptability in situations of disturbance. While designing creating multiple elements or methods to perform the same function can be very helpful. For example there are multiple types of energy for multiple types of use. While solar energy may be excellent for heating water and your house, biogas is better for cooking. Why should a city receive all its energy only from fossil fuel electric plants when it could be using the city waste to create biogas for cooking, solar energy for heating houses, and gravity for creating water supply? The key words here are 'thoughtful diversity'. Diversity that is random, not in tune with the natural ecology, or decontextualized can be stupid if not damaging. 5. Always ask the question, 'what happens to this once its life is over?' Using hybrids and mixes of different materials even if they are 'eco-friendly' may be disastrous when it comes to disposing these off. Its unbelievable how much trash we have created and they way we dispose it off after we have created it. The poisonous chemicals from our own 'shit' is killing us right now from nuclear plants reaching their radiation capacities to chemicals leaching into our water systems from our own backyard. It is so important to think of not just the functionality of a material be it wood, fossil fuel, or plastic, but also how does it return to earth and what does it do along the way. Asking about how far you got the material from is also very important. Staying regional is most important for great functionality as well as impact. 6. Use and enhance all passive systems before initiating an active system. Use biology before technology. Its amazing how much biology does for us passively. While vegetation is passively ensuring that the earth doesn't heat up or cool down too much, we are too busy heating up our cities through our air-conditioners that keep us cool inside a heat absorbing cement building. Growing a creeper along the wall of that building could reduce the cooling requirement inside by 30%. That is a passive and effective system. Just like using gravity to feed harvested rainwater to a building rather than an active electric pump. Or understanding the groundwater network of a city, recharging it, and enhancing easy access to this water so that there is no need for transportation of water from miles away. At this point it is important to understand just how much work micro-organisms do for us for free. They evolve much faster than any other animal or plant, they can clean up entire oil spills in a few months, entire ponds and streams in a few days, and are even used in buildings as zero-waste passive sewage treatment plants. 7. Use fossil fuels to create landscapes that do not require their continued use. We can no longer keep up the lifestyle that we live currently based on fossil fuel use. So why not use this last fossil fuel to create something that wont require them any more such as rooftop rain water harvesting systems, solar panels, trains rather than roads, and so much more. 8. Start small It is overwhelming to think of designing an entire city or country or even a civilization. It may not even be the right thing to do. Starting small is fine. And I would even add stay small. Let someone else try these things out for themselves at a small scale. It will always be different than what you did which is great! There are many more specific principles to designing while looking at energy or boundaries of a piece of land. But more of that will come later with practical examples. Check out some cool videos by Bill Mollison in the next post. Andrew Faust from Homebiome is my teacher and provides his own unique personal history to the lessons. I will try my best to bring out the most interesting and relevant parts of his lecture that struck me and will stay with me as I go along this path. So what is 'permaculture? It started off as being a combination of permanent + agriculture, and is also now often understood as permanent + culture. In the most basic way I understand the word as meaning, 'the most sustainable culture in all aspects whether it is ecological, economical, or social.' An easier way of understanding permaculture is through the different concepts and words associated with it. This diagram brings out some of them. A few catch phrases on what permaculture aims for or does;
Why permaculture design? Permaculture is a body of knowledge about how things are and mostly devotes itself to designing. Often when we look at nature and the way it functions we find ourselves making connections between its elements and seeing a pattern. In our eyes nature has numerous systems and patterns just like a design. Humans as biological beings have also based our lives on patterns and designed our world accordingly. The thing I am convinced about however is that our arrogance has led us to believe that we can design better than ecology and have ended up creating many highly destructive designs that have become alienated from nature. We have forgotten that we are essentially biological. Permaculture wishes to design spaces in a way that generate care rather than competition, simplicity rather than accumulation, meaningful lives rather than disenchanted existence. We have rearranged nature and it is rearranging itself at a pace that has extinguished the possibility of restoration. Permaculture is saying that let us deal with what is now in our hands and retrofit and redesign our culture in a way that is least harmful to ecology and most beneficial to humans. Permaculture design is about
As a permaculture designer, there are many principles to follow. But integral to being a good designer is contemplation, introspection, and meditation. To understand the way of the land being silent, observant, and present is essential.
Over the next few blog posts I will talk more about the principles of permaculture design. For now I will leave you with some facts we all should know.
Working at Grampari in Panchgani as a organic farm and grounds manager was a wonderfully fulfilling experience. I could learn so much in such a short time from my fellow farmers and the land. It fuelled within me the urge to learn more about living on the land and helping others find economical and ecological ways of doing the same. I also began to feel that farming or organic farming is not an adequate answer for long term solutions for farmers' issues, ecosystem degradation, and finally for everyone who is indirectly connected to the land. It is important to have holistic knowledge about nature and all its local elements than to be over specialized in only farming. This is what drew me towards permaculture - permanent agriculture and also permanent culture... a quest for sustainable culture.
I decided to pursue this dream and found a great permaculture design certification course in New York City. I managed to raise the money for this certification with the help of many friends and family members who bought my oil paintings. So this is to say thank you so much for your support! I started the first day of course on November 2, 2013. I am hoping to put up a blog article every week to share my learnings with you. I will write about my reflections and any new ideas that I come across during this time. Please feel free to share this blog with people who might be interested in learning permaculture. I am hoping for it to be a blog for people keen on gaining an introduction to permaculture. Lessons from the first week coming up! |
Lessons from my Permaculture Design Certification and experiments thereafter Archives
June 2016
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