succession plan Archives - Permaculture Visions

July 29, 2016

Permaculture For Children

Little Lives Matter

Children have the opportunity to make a cultural shift. When a young person discovers new foods, they set patterns of eating and behaviour that will shape the way their culture relates to the land and to native foods. Here is a moment for humanity to make a lasting difference. Any dependency on imported foods can be surpassed. The young family can build a rich understanding and respect for the natural world.

“Perhaps there is no greater thing we can do for our children than to ensure they receive their birthright, a love and understanding of nature and a knowledge of their place in it.” Janet Millington

Children – Nature and Nurture

By working with nature and not against her, the potential is greater. For example: one of Australia’s first huge mining towns, Broken Hill, has now become one of the biggest solar generation towns. All it took was an attitude shift.

Young people have heaps of attitude! We can work with their inventive nature as well as nurturing their love of nature. At the recent Illawarra Greenflicks event, we gave out our permaculture fortune tellers to get young people thinking positive about the things that they can do for a better future.

Enriching Programs For Children

There are some great programs for young people to nurture their sense of connection to nature.

Permaculture paper fortune teller — Our Permaculture ‘fortune teller’

The Crossing puts sustainability into action for young people to protect and enhance the natural environment. We do this by involving young people in permaculture, landcare and habitat survey on journeys with us. These journeys can include hiking, canoeing and mountain biking.
Pioneering Outdoor Classrooms: CAROLYN NUTTALL and JANET MILLINGTON wrote their book to promote connecting with nature in young school children. “Permaculture is about all aspects of human interaction with the environment. For many reasons, including the reduction of open space and the issues relating to the safety of children and the advances in computers, those afternoons of running free with nature have all but ceased for most children today.”
Roman Shapla, a graduate of ours has been developing a Children’s Permaculture Design Course. Anything that is taught to adults can be introduced to children. We just need to allow more time and flexibility in the delivery.
Another graduate of ours helped build a highly school permaculture garden in an industrial heartland, Cringilla Primary School has engaged, empowered, informed and active green children.

Start Small and Be Effective

Rose and the big leaf — Big leaf umbrella

One of the permaculture principles taught by Bill Mollison is to start small and be successful. This gives positive feedback, experience and energy to reach for more. Young people yearn for a better environment. The first steps are to:

build awareness of their foot-print,
give young people easy ways to reduce their impact
give them ways to build a better future

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April 24, 2016September 23, 2017

More Women Than Men Grow Food

Feminine Faces Farming

Bruce French likes to remind us all. “More women than men grow food“. His experience is vast. He and his family have worked internationally to research and document a huge library of rare food plants and their uses.

Most food today is produced by industrialised farms run by economists. State-of-the-art production uses robotic tractors and drones.

Women in worldwide permaculture — Aranya supports hundreds of Permaculture farming widows in India

Farmers have a broader knowledge of the land, water, native animals and the history of pests and disease. Farmers know soil biota, fungi, plants, animals and have a keen eye on the weather. The real farmer is grounded and deeply connected to the land.

Worldwide, most farmers work on small holdings close to home. They are closely connected to their extended family. When we visualise farmers – do we see their saris, beads, skirts and loose flowing pants?

Trending: Saris, Aprons and Straw Hats

In permaculture, most of the designers, diggers, inventors, illustrators, organisers and promoters, educators and activists are women. But most of the public faces are male. Curious?

Robyn Francis and Geoff Lawton are two permaculture leaders around the same age with same start time, similar training, both dedicated, full of know-how, work and self confidence.

Yet these two world leaders enjoy very different lifestyles. Geoff travels extensively. He has set up a global team with lots of people working for him and has spent well the hard earned permaculture money on educational videos. Robin is still very much in charge of her home-site, travels to teach in poor countries and blogs about her pet pig, Polly. They both look very comfortable with their permaculture choices. The difference is huge. Publicly, we encounter Geoff a lot more.

Systemic Differences

Professor Stuart Hill notes: Men will set up systems. Traditionally, women will maintain them. Permaculture teacher Chris Evans of Nepan witnessed the ability of the women in the patriarchal Himalayan society to rebuild, modify and improve on a wall that was originally built by the men.

Permaculture women in wealthy sub-cultures enjoy planting and nurturing trees, pick fruit, dig swales, fix leaky downpipes, repair steps, replace the oven light, screw a hinge back into place, retrofit stuff, sew, nurse sick animals, saw and bring in the wood. Although it is frustrating that women have not yet earned their right for equal pay, they have earned some flexibility.

Women value variety and flexibility. They are creative and innovative.
Women will nurture systems and develop incremental improvements.
When given an education they can enjoy a huge range of successes.

Women have the perfect nature to live ‘the ethical dream’. They dream of self-reliance, empowerment, being capable and feeling a little challenged. It is not a perfect dream. Life is not perfect. And they know it.

Give A Woman Your Support

Women get injured more when they ‘hit their shoulder with the shovel’. This is not just because they are new to it. It is often because they lack mentors and training. They will stubbornly learn the ‘traditionally’ male skills by looking over a shoulder or reading books or by just trying to follow a practical post on the internet.

Join the communal effort to give women equal financial and emotional support to do courses, ask questions, build their skill base and become empowered. We at Permaculture Visions offer a 40% discount so you and your partner can study happily together.

December 1, 2012November 17, 2014

How A Weed Succeeds

Weeds venture where other plants fail to go.

They quickly colonise places where something has changed the landscape. The landscape change is usually done by conventional farming methods such as digging but it could be from a catastrophe such as flood 0r landslip. The weeds are well adapted to a short life and are highly re-productive with little dependence on the quality of the soil or water supply. Before you remove the weeds have a succession plan. Permaculture deals in modelling systems and seeing what the surrounding landscape has as a plan. In a rainforest the succession plan involves plants that are happy to start in deep shade and will suddenly rise to the occasion when a mature tree falls.

What Weeds Are Good At

Weeds are excellent adapters. They can mine the on-site resources better than most other plants. Weeds will mine minerals, sop up excess nutrients on a site and cover bare ground which builds organic matter in the soil. If you remove a weed, you need to plant something almost just as strong or have a plan to nurture the next plant. There are easy ways to nurture plants, dig swales to bring water to them, cover the surrounding soil with mulch and build a tent of leafless branches to protect plants from too much sun, frost or animal damage and keep a regularly watch on young plantings.

Plan For A Time After The Weeds

When we remove a weed and send it away we are losing minerals and fertility from our site. If we slash a weed before it goes to seed we get the benefit of the mineral rich organic matter as mulch. When we do nothing and let weeds and non-edibles rule our site we miss out on the opportunity of having a balanced diet of fresh food and herbs. Enjoy outsmarting a weed and implement a natural succession plan for a fruitful forest. Living mulch is ideal to stop future weed invasion especially if it is edible.