What is Permaculture ?
Welcome to the Deep Green Permaculture web site!
One of the most common questions you get when you mention Permaculture is “What is Permaculture?”
Permaculture is a holistic design system that emulates systems that exist in Nature to create sustainable human settlements and food production systems which integrate harmoniously with the natural environment.
It was co-founded by Australian ecologists Bill Mollison and David Holmgren, in the 1970′s.
The word “Permaculture” is a contraction of “permanent agriculture” or “permanent culture.”
Permaculture is a movement concerned with sustainable, environmentally sound land use and the building of stable communities, through the harmonious interrelationship of humans, plants, animals and the Earth.
The focus of Permaculture design is on the relationship between all the individual elements and their placement in the landscape, to form stable, productive communities that replicate the synergy and efficiency of natural ecosystems, rather than the individual elements themselves.
Permaculture design is applicable to both urban and rural environments, and encompasses all ranges of scale, from an apartment balcony to a large scale farm or village.
Being a design framework, Permaculture is concerned with much more than just the design of ecologically harmonious landscapes that produce food. As a system of design, it can encompass many different disciplines, which provide the techniques and methods to achieve the design goals.
….Permaculture can incorporate the techniques of organic gardening, biodynamic gardening, no-dig gardening, composting and a myriad of other sustainable gardening practices.
Therefore, Permaculture can incorporate the techniques of organic gardening, biodynamic gardening, no-dig gardening, composting and a myriad of other sustainable gardening practices. It can also use techniques of energy-efficient building design, water harvesting, waste water treatment and recycling for example.
Permaculture is a growing and evolving design system and has expanded to include economic and social systems that support stable communities, such as credit co-ops, Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) and eco-villages.
Two terms which come close to defining Permaculture, as suggested by ATTRA (The US National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service) are “ecological engineering” or “cultivated ecology“.
So, in a nutshell, that’s what Permaculture is!
Also, please feel free to check out the trailer for Geoff Lawton’s video series:
Links to Geoff’s free videos:
How to Survive the Coming Crises
Surviving the Collapse – The Property Purchase Checklist
Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space (featuring me and my garden!)
October 1, 2009 at 1:05 pm |
I don’t know If I said it already but …Excellent site, keep up the good work. I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis and for the most part, people lack substance but, I just wanted to make a quick comment to say I’m glad I found your blog. Thanks,
A definite great read..Jim Bean
October 2, 2009 at 2:01 am |
Fantastic site.
You’ve done a great job on the garden, and your knowledge is obvious,
Thanks for sharing this information.
Very inspiring.
October 3, 2009 at 1:19 am |
Thanks guys, appreciate to positive feedback!
January 15, 2010 at 7:43 am |
I hope to visit you folks in 9 or so days with the NERPG mob. david hicks……..
January 15, 2010 at 10:46 pm |
Looking forward to the visit, glad to take you all through the garden and explain how it all works!
February 13, 2011 at 9:58 pm |
Thanks so much for your open garden yesterday, I learnt so much in such a short time…very inspirational and thank you too for all the plants…very unexpected and welcome gifts……am now enjoying your website, which is going to be such a help in getting our garden established……
March 6, 2011 at 4:07 am |
Thanks so much for showing us through your garden this afternoon. What a fantastic inspiration – am off to explore the rest of your site now!
March 6, 2011 at 12:22 pm |
You’re welcome!
April 15, 2011 at 5:55 am |
Just discovered your site.. it is wonderful!
April 15, 2011 at 6:05 am |
very interested in what your doing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter ,
thankyou Dave
April 15, 2011 at 6:38 am |
Hi Dave,
Thanks! To subscribe, you can either put a tick in the ‘Subscribe by email to this site’ box at the bottom of the page when you type in your comment, or receive update notifications via RSS by clicking on the ‘Entries (RSS)’ link at the very bottom of the page
Regards
April 15, 2011 at 12:06 pm |
Thanks for the great site and info!
April 26, 2011 at 12:45 am |
Great site… Thanks for sharing…
April 26, 2011 at 6:32 am |
First time here, very exciting.
I have a peach tree. It chose its own spot, so I decided to leave it. I guess
is is about 3 years old now. Healthy enough, until a few months ago when I noticed leaves dropping and small yellow spots on the leaf surface and brown dusty ones on the underside. Peach rust. After a bit of on-line research I discovered that the prognosis is not good over time for my tree, unless I do something i.e stripping and burn the leaves and spray with Lime sulphur in winter.
What is your opinion on the use of Lime Sulphur? And if too toxic, do you have any other suggestions?
I look forward to hearing from you.
Best to all and happy growing.
Dianne M
April 26, 2011 at 12:42 pm |
Hi Diane,
Unfortunately, due to climate here in Melbourne, peach and nectarine trees do need seasonal spraying of fungicide, and organic gardeneres use eithe Lime Sulphur or the copper based Bordeaux mixture.
Both are OK, I’ve used Lime Sulphur before, it smells terrible but it does work well. It’s not one of those nasty toxic systemic fungicides, it’s mineral based, a recognised organic fungicide, and is simply made by boiling lime (calcium hydroxide) and sulfur together. I’ve seen organic gardening workshops that show people how to make this up at home. I definitely recommend using this or one of the copper based fungicides, otherwise the tree will be progressively weakened by the fungal attacks. Use the Lime Sulphur when the tree is dormant, before the buds swell. I do whatever I can to save a good tree!
Regards
April 29, 2011 at 9:03 pm |
Hi, what a lovely, informative site. We are hoping to visit your garden tomorrow for permaculture day. One thing I really like about what you have done is provide actual usable information about how to do stuff. Applying a bit of feng shui for information, let it flow out so more flows in – you should be expecting a lovely bubbling stream! cheers jodie
April 30, 2011 at 4:44 am |
Thanks! ( :
October 3, 2011 at 10:23 pm |
Was there at your talk at the permaculture conference on the weekend. Wanted to say it has put back some inspiration I was missing. Thanks.
October 4, 2011 at 9:03 am
You’re welcome! There’s nothing more satisfying than insiring people to make a difference. Thanks! ( :
May 13, 2011 at 1:10 am |
I was at the Sustainable Food Workshop in Preston last night. Your presentation was excellent. You also mentioned a tour of your garden later this month. I’d really like to join the tour if it indeed goes ahead. thanks again Kerrie
May 17, 2011 at 2:38 pm |
Hi Kerrie,
I’ve posted the details of our next garden tour under Upcoming Events on the website, I’ve listed it here: http://deepgreenpermaculture.com/2011/05/17/backyard-urban-food-forest-tour/
See you there!
July 1, 2011 at 6:45 pm |
You are such an inspiration! It is uncommon to uncover such thoughtful and informative blogs. Please keep writing!
August 30, 2011 at 2:26 am |
Thanks for the wonderful information here, an inspiration
October 2, 2011 at 12:02 am |
Great teaching at the permaculture convergence this weekend
October 4, 2011 at 9:01 am |
Thanks, glad you enjoyed my presentation!
December 31, 2011 at 5:34 am |
I rarely comment on websites, but this has been amazing. I’m setting up my first garden, a courtyard 8m x 5m, following permaculture principles and the extra proviso that every plant will be “scented, edible, or both”. Thank you so much for putting the work into not only creating your garden, but into the blog design and clear explanations that make it possible for the rest of us to follow suit. You’ve been a great help!
January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm |
Thank you very much for information on your site. It is helping me very very much. We started with a project for people living with disability in South Africa & companion planting and organic is still in its baby phase this side, so I know that I will spend a lot of time on your site. Thanks again for the effort.
February 5, 2012 at 3:08 pm |
I logged on this morning with the intent to find something I needed vs. wanted and here it is! So glad to have found you. I read about Permaculture in SageWoman and Crone magazines. I have a decent yard and a congenital green thumb. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I suppose I need to get outdoors, dust off these “closed-in” blues and get busy. Yee haw!
February 13, 2012 at 5:39 pm |
you are surely the best site about permaculture i´ve ever seen.
thank you.
April 5, 2012 at 11:52 am |
very interesting this site about permaculture.I want to learning every think about this kind of life. Thank you.
I m having a new deep green conscience .thanks
November 10, 2012 at 6:33 pm |
Hi,
I admire you for sharing your discoveries. Permaculture is the way to go indeed. As one famous inventor said “comprehend and copy nature”. After reading through your pages I went into my forest and studied it. A word of caution, “beware of over designing”. The forest is made by nature via a poo and forget scheme by birds and other small animals.Man is far better. I had actually came up with a plant and forget scheme after a few days of learning. This is because the knowledge you imparted has served as spring board for me. So to you and of course to Bill, Tons of thanks.
Julian
March 25, 2013 at 12:54 pm |
I have only just got interested in Permaculture and find that your site has a lot of useful and interesting information. I think I will be visiting quite often to borrow from your experience. I hope I will be able to contribute in a small way, too.