If you do permaculture properly, you can benefit from your homegrown fruit and veg all year round.
Permaculture is a way to get creative in your own garden while doing something for sustainability and our environment. In concrete terms, this type of garden design is about preserving our natural resources and creating a living space with a promising future. Living permaculture means being at eye level with nature, but not leaving it to its own devices. Therefore, a permaculture garden may appear unspoilt and unkempt to the viewer. But appearances are deceptive. Permaculture gardens require meticulous planning to ensure diversity and the necessary yields.
What are the fundamentals of permaculture?
The idea behind permaculture is based on three ethical principles:
- Care for our earth.
- Care for the people who live on earth.
- Minimize growth and consumption and share the surplus.
Anyone who practices permaculture should sensitize themselves to the relationships between individual living beings. To understand the idea of permaculture, it is important to understand the ecological connections and the underlying patterns of living and inanimate nature.
The original concept was created by David Holmgren and Bill Mollison in Australia in the 1970s. In 1981, Bill Mollison received the Alternative Nobel Prize for his idea. The two scientists analyzed the consequences of industrial agriculture and its negative effects on biodiversity and the water balance.
They saw the beginnings of a future-oriented agriculture in an agriculture that follows the principles of natural ecosystems, increases biodiversity and hardly produces any waste. Mollison and Holmgren found inspiration for the natural farming concept in ancient cultural techniques and primitive peoples who still practice them today.
Implement permaculture in the allotment garden - this is how it works
Permaculture is easy to implement in your own garden. It is important in a small area for oneto ensure maximum yield and thus to use all available spaces and resources.
Permaculture cannot be realized overnight. It is preceded by an observation and planning phase, which can extend over several years. Only when all existing elements are recognized and used can the concept be fully understood and put into practice accordingly.
Observations in my own garden
You may now think this point can be omitted, after all you know your garden and have been tending it for years.
In terms of successful permaculture, however, you should ask yourself a few questions that may have been of less interest until now:
- What plants are growing wild in my garden?
- Which animals are regularly found in my garden?
- Which areas of the garden are particularly sunny?
- Which areas of the garden are completely shaded?
- What are the natural height differences?
- Where is the water connection?
Planning permaculture in the garden
Before you start planting, the actual goals should be clearly defined. Which fruits and vegetables should be grown? What quantities of fruit and vegetables should be harvested and when? Do you not only want to grow plants, but also to take care of animals in the garden?
Tip: Permaculture should ensure a continuous harvest of fruits and vegetables.
Once you have become clear about your personal goals, they should be put down on paper. A sketch of the garden helps to lay out the beds in your mind and to determine the locations of the individual plantings. Fixed fixed points such as a garden house, trees or elevations and depressions should be drawn in.
It is also important to avoid monocultures and to ensure that the plant neighbors in the bed really get along with each other.
» Reading tip: Creating a mixed culture bed: Tips for the right types of vegetables
Designing the permaculture garden
Several guidelines should be followed when designing the permaculture garden:
- everything is used
- Nothing is disposed of
- Chemicals are taboo
- Fringe zones are exploited
- Use existing plants
- growing native plants
- Preserving and increasing biodiversity
- Mixed instead of monoculture
- Cultivate areas to different extents
Which plants are suitable for permaculture?
Uncomplicated plants that are less demanding in terms of location and soil requirements are best suited for natural growth in the garden. This enables flexible planting within the scope of the existing possibilities on site.
Plants that can bind nitrogen from the air are advantageous. Lupines and other butterfly flowering plants, for example, are able to do this. If the roots expand or the leaves fall, the surrounding plants can also benefit and receive a welcome fertilizer. These plants are particularly helpful in rather inhospitable locations.
Beauty should not be neglected in the permaculture garden. Flowers, herbs, shrubs and trees can produce a lush sea of blossoms and at the same time provide a variety of culinary delights.
Pea Bush
Pea bushes are native to Siberia and can survive on poor soil. The plants survive frost unscathed and can bind nitrogen and thus also donate nutrients to the surrounding plants. Planting between fruit trees is recommended. The pea bush forms pods with small peas. These are used as food in Siberia. However, the harmlessness to he alth has not yet been sufficiently clarified.
Mint
Mint grows almost by itself. About 30 different species provide a variety of flavors. Menthol provides the typical aroma of the plants. Mint can not only be used in many ways, it is also suitable for the perma garden, as it can quickly fill up larger and previously unused areas. Mint attracts bees to the perma garden. Against the lush spread, the plants can be pruned more frequently. Mint leaves, which are not currently used in the kitchen, can be used as a mulching material.
Sea Kale
The beach cabbage is a hardy cruciferous plant. In spring, the plants adorn themselves with small white flowers. These secrete a beguiling honey scent. Sea kale can be harvested as early as spring. The preparation is similar to asparagus.
Daylilies
Daylilies add a dash of color to the perma garden. The perennials flower for several weeks. Ideal for permaculture: daylily flowers, leaves and bulbs are edible.
Set onions
Set onions are perennial plants that develop small bulbs on their stems instead of flowers. The stalks with the bulbs snap off due to their weight and the plants multiply as a resultvery uncomplicated by itself. Edible are the onions in the bottom and on the stems.
Sorrel
This undemanding native weed should find its place in every permaculture garden. Sorrel also grows in shady and previously unused spots. With its long taproots, sorrel can loosen the soil and supply itself with nutrients even during prolonged drought. The herb tastes pleasantly fresh and can be used in salads or made into pesto.
Pasnip
Pasnips are biennial and grow up to 1.5 meters high. The root vegetables grow throughout the year and can be harvested in winter. There is always something to do with this in the permaculture garden. Parsnips can be stored in a box filled with sand in the basement over the winter.