Author: teethomas

When’s the last time you raked leaves and put them in the garbage? Well, stop it, just stop it.

Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren would tell you leaves are a valuable resource. They make great mulch, protecting plants in the winter and maintaining soil moisture in the summer.

Leaves, manure, bugs, birds, and yes, weeds are welcome in a permie garden. That’s because everything is part of a living system where the inputs (needs) of one are met by the outputs of another. “Produce No Waste” is one of 12 guiding principles articulated by Holmgren, who has been practicing permaculture for more than 30 years.

The June Permaculture Design Certification class saw Holmgren’s principle put to practice by guest instructors Marco Lam, Avery Ellis, Nikko Woolf and lead instructor Becky Elder.

Lam talked about animal systems; Ellis, aquaponics; and Woolf and Elder, natural building.

Lam pointed out that animals such as chickens, ducks, pigs and geese have important outputs that are generally ignored in commercial and traditional animal systems. Sure they produce eggs, meat and other products – but what about work they perform that benefit the whole system?

“Efficiency in permaculture means the multiple outputs rather than simply the production level of the animals,” Lam said. “Chickens scratch and forage, produce manure, etcetera.”

Related: June PDC photo gallery

In aquaponics, where food plants are grown in a fish tank, inputs and outputs are met in very specific ways. Fish waste provides nutrients to the plants which, in turn, purify the water. Ellis described the process as a “nitrogen cycle.” Fish waste produces nitrogen ammonia which bacteria turn into nitrogen nitrite. Bacteria then turn the nitrite into nitrogen nitrate which helps plants grow.

No waste.

Natural building utilizes materials produced by nature to fulfill the human need for shelter. Woolf described several types of natural building including cob, which uses clay soil, sand, water and straw. Globs of the material or “cobs” are piled on top of each other and worked together to form walls.

Reused materials are incorporated into the rest of the structure. Windows, doors and other discarded building material can be repurposed, making it cost effective and gentler on the planet. Sunlight and wind are harnessed for passive heating and cooling, reducing dependence on petroleum-based energy.

Reduce, reuse, recycle, no waste.

“In permaculture, we’re trying to get away from fossil fuels,” Elder added. “Having an energy efficient house in the future is going to be critical.”

Permaculture strives to imitate natural systems so that human activity provides for our needs and our ecosystem rather than simply consuming it. Here lies hope for a better, more sustainable future.

So the next time leaves start falling, put the rake away and take a nap instead.

Holmgren’s twelve principles

Visit Holmgren Design for more on the principles.

Observe and interact

By taking time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.

Catch and store energy

By developing systems that collect resources at peak abundance, we can use them in times of need.

Obtain a yield

Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing.

Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.

Use and value renewable resources

Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.

Produce no waste

By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.

Design from patterns to details

By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.

Integrate rather than segregate

By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other.

Use small and slow solutions

Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.

Use and value diversity

Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.

Use edge and value the marginal

The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.

Creatively use and respond to change

We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.

by Trudy Thomas

There’s a saying in Colorado: “Whiskey’s for drinkin’, water’s for fightin’ over.” Permaculturist Jason Gerhardt knows only too well the truth of that sentiment, as he works to change state water management policy.

Gerhardt, who holds a degree in sustainable design, spoke at the May class of Pikes Peak Permaculture’s 2015 Permaculture Design Course (PDC.)

The struggle for change got a little bump in 2009 when a law was passed allowing residents without access to public water to capture it. But Colorado officials have their sights set on stopping city dwellers from doing the same. Not only can we not collect it, we are forbidden from directing its flow to trees or plants. It is permissible to use rain gutter extensions to direct water away from a home or building, but if the intent is to water landscape, then folks are technically breaking the law.

Rainwater harvesting’s illegality did not stop Gerhardt from talking about its benefits. As a consultant, he calculated the harvesting potential of seven homes in a Boulder cul-de-sac. Taking into consideration an average precipitation rate of 18 inches a year, he calculated roof catchment and earth works capabilities, confirming that enough moisture fell from the sky to exceed what the cul-de-sac residents consumed. If Colorado residents were allowed to capture and store rainwater, be it from the roofs of their homes or landshaping techniques, Gerhardt suggested it could go a long way toward mitigating drought in cities of the American West.

Unfortunately, laws and people are slow to change even when faced with the facts. Water rights holders south of us are afraid if we interrupt the flow of water it won’t get to them. But a 2007 Colorado Water Conservation Board study showed that only 3 percent of precipitation makes it to rivers anyway. A whopping 97 percent is absorbed by plants and/or evaporated back into the big blue.

Gerhardt and other advocates are pulling out the whiskey as they wrangle with officials over state greywater regulations. Although greywater – water from showers, bathroom sinks and washing machines – was legalized by the Colorado legislature in 2013, it awarded cities and counties the power to issue permits and called for public health regulations. The details of those regulations are still being negotiated.

Related content: See photos of tree expert Don Chilo showing the class how to graft a tree

Water drama began early in the last century when lawmakers divvied up the Colorado River between 7 western states: Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico in the north; Arizona, Nevada and California in the south. Since then, passage of other compacts, federal laws, court decisions and regulations governing river management have created the complexity known as The Law of the River.

The Law remains largely unchanged, but circumstances have not. A warming climate, lack of precipitation and burgeoning development on the Colorado Front Range have helped reduce the river to a trickle at the Gulf of California. Further, low water levels have endangered fish and degraded river ecology.

Worldwide, overuse of fertilizers in runoff has contributed to algae plumes where rivers reach the ocean, developing dead zones. The Mississippi River at the Gulf of Mexico is one such example where excess nitrogen in the water has facilitated the growth of algae. In excess, algae deprive ocean plants and animals of oxygen. The result is that everything dies except for a few resilient species.

But not everyone values expediency over quality of life.

“Permaculture asks how do we meet our needs and improve the ecosystem while meeting those needs rather than degrading the ecosystem,” Gerhardt says.

Reshaping property so that water is directed from the highest point on the land and, using gravity, moving it across the landscape is one way to accomplish this. The use of bowls, berms, swales and terraces slows the water down, allowing the earth to absorb it. Further, plants fed by rainwater thrive without the chlorine contained in public water.

Directing water across the landscape says Gerhardt filters out toxins and water is absorbed and stored in the humus layer. This process is especially helpful when weather events become extreme and erratic, be it flood or drought.

Gerhardt described other harvesting methods including redirecting street runoff by curb-cutting, a practice used successfully in arid Tucson. The water is redirected to the soil, where organisms, particularly fungi, help mitigate street pollutants.

Green roofing filters rainfall, check dams (terraces across the banks of rivers) slow water flow and, in rural areas, keylines (where the slope goes from steep to flat) serve to create efficient water management plans.

Gerhardt’s hope for Colorado to embrace green infrastructure may take a while. But that doesn’t seem to get him down. When he’s not joking about getting lawmakers together to drink and fight over water, he’s waxing poetic.

“Water is one of the main mediums by which all life is connected,” Gerhardt says. “By concentrating on this one stream, we can solve many of the world’s problems.”

For more about Jason, visit Real Earth Design.