What I learnt from the Permaculture Festival ~ Mariella

Our MC Stuart Palmer from Lunchbox Theatre
https://www.facebook.com/LBTheatre

The permaculture festival was such an inspirational event, a coming together of like minds in the name of sustainability and knowledge sharing,all the while accommodating, in true permaculture spirit, the constantly evolving natural environment and torrential rains for days prior to the event! 

Try planning and setting up in that! 

But the sun came out for us and it was a raging success. Here are some points I jotted down which have stayed with me throughout this week and will hopefully inform the way I plan and design aspects of my life, from my garden to my business:

~Complex problems often require the simplest of solutions. Don’t over think things. Identify where small action will have the largest effect.

Phillipa Mallac's lovely Heirloom seeds

~There are three basic principles in Permaculture which I’ve covered before.

Care for the planet.

Care for people.

Give away surplus, which takes care of the first two!

When people first hear this they think ‘am I just supposed to give things away?’ Not really, no! We were encouraged, in the first talk of the festival by Alex Kruger to shatter the concept of lack by being fearless in giving away surplus! But this can also be done by swopping out with farmers who have excess of a crop you haven’t grown, or selling excess off at local farmers markets, it also means feeding the excess back into the ground in the form of mulch and compost. See everything as a resource. Just remember one thing, if everybody gives then no body needs!

Peter Mcintosh showing us exactly how to tell if the consistency of your mud brick is good enough to build with!

~ Alex also moved us to re-look at our concept of nature as a static thing which requires one assessment to come to conclusions and actions. It is ever changing and so are we, its acceptable to re-look at things, to adjust The Plan of Action if, somewhere down the road, we or what we are working on, has grown out of the design we’ve created.

The Crags Eco Preschool's food stall was a raging success and great fundraiser.
And their crunchy thingies were yum!

~ Use and value renewable and regenerative resources – these are resources which do not diminish as they are used, such as sunlight and wind.

~Develop a strong sturdy ethical base for your decision making.

Local honey and teas

~Observe and interact. Your success rate increases the more you understand the environment you’re designing for and that takes time. Sit in the site where you’d like your garden to be, watch how the sun moves over the land, see what happens when it rains, where do the strongest winds come from, where's the best view?

~ Look at the yield you seek to obtain – delicious fresh vegetables and fruit, successful business, ecosystem restoration, happy inspired people etc. See these results as a form of positive feedback, put in some well thought out positivity and get a whole lot out.

What would a Permaculture Festival be without Tipis?

~ You know you’re on the right track when you’ve created a system which is self-regulating and self perpetuating, it wont fall apart if you’re not there!

~ Produce no waste. A system which produces waste of ANY kind is not a complete system. Instead of throwing garden refuse away, create a compost pit and turn the ‘waste’ into valuable compost which can enrich the ground. Instead of letting your grey water down the drain, create a grey water system which will help irrigate your garden and manage pollution.

 

 

~ Look at the patterns in Nature and learn from them. Remember to zoom in and out when you design, its so easy to fixate on one fine detail and lose track of the whole.

~ Integrate don’t segregate. Adopt an inclusive attitude when designing your business model/ garden/ home/life. Consider the benefits of including neighbours, colleagues, friends, charities, institutions of learning. Be cooperative not competitive!

 ~ Strength and resilience lie in diversity. Look at nature, at the complexity of one square meter of indigenous forest, how everything works in an interlocking seamless way. Create systems where problems can be solved from more than one source and every element has more than one function. Design safety nets within your system. If you have a sloping garden with water runoff issues, focus on trapping and slowing down water by turning pathways into swales along the contour lines of the land. Fill them with mulch so they may slowly feed the soil and keep it hydrated while combating erosion. 

http://permaculturenews.org/2012/05/16/swales-the-permaculture-element-that-really-holds-water/

We, ourselves, are not mono-cultures either. We are multi-functional and we require the same of our environment.

~ Use edges and value the marginal. This is where ‘things’ accumulate, like a fence line accumulates debris or the waterline on the beach accumulates stones, driftwood, shells. The same can be said of thoughts! Marginalized thought can, before you know it, enrich main stream thought.

~ Creatively use and respond to change. It’s the only thing which is constant!

~ Vision is not seeing things as they are but as they will be!

What stood out for me the most after this course was the feeling that I am not alone, these were my people! I didn’t need to contract or expand to fit. If you do not surround yourself with people who are on the same road as you, your path may be a lonely one ( and slightly mono-culture). Surround yourself with people you can learn from, and keep yourself growing so that you have something to give. Keep the perpetual motor machine going. 

And keep it going in the right direction!   

Check out Berg-En-Dal, a Permaculture Farm Near Ladismith, one of the places in South Africa where the magic happens!

http://www.berg-en-dal.co.za/