I bought this book at a place called "Hungry Head Books" in Eugene Oregon in 1997. I was working as a projectionist at the time and pretty much had to kill 30 hours a week in the booth. This was before wifi or cell phones so I would buy a few books each week and just sit on the carpet and read while the projectors did their thing.
I was not a fan of the hippies. I lived on 15th and High (that is not a joke) when Jerry Garcia died. The hippies were lost for a bit so they flooded 13th in Eugene until they found Phish and moved on. It was horrible. I'm more of a punk rock guy.
But this book really got me going about permaculture. To the point where it was all I would talk about when I got drunk at parties. And people hated me for it. I guess I know how the bitcoin guys feel.
But I found out my aunt and uncle owned about a hundred acres near Klamath Falls. And they were cool with me doing whatever out there. Tons of lumber and there was already a well. So over a summer we built a cabin with working plumbing and a septic tank. And by cabin I mean the unibomber would have considered it a downgrade. We had no clue about what we were doing.
But it was fun to camp out and build something, even if it was shit. That was about as far as we got. There is now a rotting log cabin out there.
I think permaculture has more to do with culture than it has to do with agriculture. What I mean by this is that agriculture has become, nowadays, the increasingly scientific study of how how to produce the highest yields for crop types that have the highest return on investment for that area. The naming conventions of how practices are done do not influence the practices themselves.
The reason why I bother to make this point is because there are many terms in the agricultural scene that are marketing terms ("organic", "bio" and even "free range"). They are marketing terms because they are not well-defined; they are well-defined only up to sticker restrictions. For example, if you buy "orangutan sensitive palm oil", do you have any idea what that means? Can we know that they don't cut corners? The term "organic" is especially dangerous, because of its connotation to organic vs. inorganic chemistry and the loss of information when converting between the technical definitions and cultural perceptions.
In Southern Africa, almost all game meat biltong is free-range, hormone free, pesticide free and yet it is not marketed as such, because those properties are a given! In contrast you'll have eggs in the same grocery store that are labelled as "free-range", because the chickens are in housing that can be physically picked up and moved around.
>The term "organic" is especially dangerous, because of its connotation to organic vs. inorganic chemistry and the loss of information when converting between the technical definitions and cultural perceptions.
In the United States, "organic" in the context of food is not a cultural perception, it is an FDA-regulated certified word with a very strict definition and penalties for misuse.
Wow, that's terrible the path that he chose but aside from that, I am glad to see legal precedence laid out for this because I know damn well others are trying to be bad actors about this.
People I trust to know these things have always said the USDA-certified Organic label is pretty legit.
My issue with the USDA-certified organic label is not that their label is not well-defined, but rather that the definition is not necessarily in line with 1) what you expect healthy food to be or 2) what the most sustainable approach would be or the most recent research suggests.
To give you an example, weather driven modelling in conventional agriculture has the potential to make a massive difference in, for example, pesticide application. But if you use less pesticides as part of your daily routine, that does not mean that you have the right sticker or label to represent your produce and your incremental improvements. The reason why I say this is that pesticide should be applied at a very precise point of the target organism's life cycle, but it is not always possible for the farmer to do it without considerable new added effort.
This is a really insightful take. I’ve read a lot of books influenced by Mollison, and they’re all heavy on the agricultural side. Finally reading the original and it’s clear that as you say, it’s more about the whole cultural system — community, etc.
With everything that’s been happening, I’ve been thinking a lot about “resilience”, and how it really begins at the household level and goes upwards from there to community, state, country.
[Think of how individual houses being prepared enough to weather a months-long emergency leads to a stronger community, where emergency resources can be targeted on the most vulnerable, etc. Contrast with our current predicament of on-demand everything.]
It’s really interesting to go back to “first principles” in this context, and get a new appreciation for what Mollison was trying to do with Permaculture.
Fun fact: the phrase “permanent agriculture” goes back to a book from the 1930s called “Tree Crops”. It contains a great quote by FDR:
“The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”
Can recommend you read some of David Holmgren's works then -- he's very deeply considered the culture and principles side of the work he and Mollison pioneered.
Note that he went and actually applied permaculture at at Melliodora.
Heh. I lived there at the time, as well, and the Eugene punk scene had a particular charm! Given that I sometimes hung out with a couple of film projectionists we probably chatted at some time (:
Anyway, same experience with this book. I ended up on a remote farm in alpine Europe in the 00's and otherwise seem to have retained much of the lessons after all these years.
Hope you at least get as far as planting out some fruit and nut trees and other high value trees? With any luck some of them will have survived til now. If you go back, maybe your food forest is already full of mature trees.
Eugene and K Falls - good representation of the two extreme poles of Oregon. My daughter just got a room a couple blocks from your old haunt, assuming UO opens up again...
I enrolled my wife and I in a local Permaculture Design Course as part of a Christmas present (she got us into bees last year). Unlike most 2-week intensives, ours is taught every other weekend for about 3 months.
I think many people here on HN would be interested in permaculture. There’s a lot of the same design and systems thinking that appeal to computer programmers. As noted by others, permaculture is also really into the hacker ethic.
It scales up and down really nicely, and can fit into your urban, small apartment lifestyle, or your suburban backyard, small acreage, or even big farms.
What it has me thinking about most, is what set of ethics and principles can/should I take to my practice as a software engineer. Permaculture is a design method based in a set of simple ethics, that lead to a set of basic principles, that help you select, adapt, and use various practices.
Is there a “earth share, people share, fair share” set of ethics that could become the basis for how you solve tech problems? Is anyone familiar with an existing author or community that seeks to address this in tech? Would love references.
I think permaculture encourages us to think in terms of large scale systems like ecosystems and societies and in terms of small systems, like individuals and families, and consider the consequences of our actions in terms of whether they weaken those systems or whether they strengthen them. As a simple example: we all have to eat. But if I grow food (or eat food that was grown) using methods that deplete the soil of nutrients that action weakens the overall system. Permaculture principles would teach me that I should grow my food using methods that improve the soil it is grown in.
Attempting to translate this into software engineering, suggests to me we should design systems and code with an eye towards the future. Our programs should be readable, maintainable and robust to unexpected input. They should make careful use of resources. They should be secure. We should realize the things we build are not going to exist in a vacuum but within an overall system (of the internet and society at large) and it is our goal to strengthen rather than to exploit that system.
I'm just brainstorming here. Would love to hear more considered opinions and thoughts if anyone has them to share.
Not quite what you're asking, but on a tangential note, I've found the 12 principles can be adapted to almost any complex system. I had a decent amount of success applying them to my jiujitsu class, so there may be a way to employ them in tech as well.
Note that this isn't just a preview, you can borrow this book (and another million or so) if you have an account with archive, it's free. You can have ten books at a time, two weeks per book.
What I like about permaculture is that it doesn't suggest that everyone should be a smallholder. The author comments that it's more sensible to support a local farm that grows sustainably than to try and grow everything yourself (though you can of course!) And in principle, permaculture is a very hacker friendly idea. Everything in your property is placed optimally, which makes for a fun game trying to figure out how to maximise the use of your land whilst minimising negative effects.
You can also return the book instantly if you're not actively reading it, sometimes i check them out, flick through them, and return them, then check em out again later when I want to read more, instead of hanging on to them for 2 weeks
Just something I was thinking about earlier now that archive.org is getting popular.
Off topic, but I feel that analog library terminology really doesn't carry over well to digital libraries. Most likely because artificial scarcity is so unnatural concept. I wonder how digital libraries will look like and operate in 10 years.
One upside to the covid-19 outbreak is it's introducing a lot of people to the precarious nature of life in countries with a weak social safety net. Copyright is already a compromise between the needs for survival under a capitalist system and the need for the products of culture to return to ownership by the people after a time.
Someone out there is spending their extra home time working on a new compromise. I don't think it'll involve the death of capitalism in our lifetime, but I do think it'll involve a wider awareness of the difference between a market problem and a collective action problem.
Best I can make out you can only have a limited number of ebooks at a time, there is some sort of DRM I think. So if you want to borrow more than N, you need to "return" one. It's similar to Amazon's lending system.
Okay, maybe it is to lessen the load on the server from any one user during any given period. Makes sense if so. I'm assuming here that one reads online, rather than, say, downloading a PDF or other file of each book.
I think it's more likely to satisfy copyright law otherwise you'd just be downloading books for free. You can use Adobe Digital Editions which handles the DRM, so you can read offline as well. Online works too. I've not used it much, I think some books have limited copies available to borrow as well so you may need to join a waitlist.
No, it’s a DRM restriction - you can download a DRM-locked copy that disables itself after a set time, and while you have it checked out nobody else can read that “copy.” Nothing to do with server load.
Shoutout to plantabundance.com - 8yr YouTube journey turning a Bay Area, California backyard into a fully abundant landscape, starting from scratch. I recommend starting with his yearly backyard tours like this one https://youtu.be/L5RfruUjL1w
I'm a "Permie". The "Permaculture Designer's Guide" is IMO one of the best books on design-- any kind, not just farm --ever. (Did you read "Mote in God's Eye"? This is a book on Motie engineering.)
Anyhow, I was reading Smil's "Energy and Civilization: A History" (yes, because Gates) and it dawned on me that the high-touch high-tech (ecology is a science) "horticultural" civilization, as described so ably by Toby Hemenway (RIP) in his talks "How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Planet – But Not Civilization" and the sequel "Redesigning Civilization with Permaculture", would be a new, radically new, thing under the Sun. A new form of civilization.
I have a YouTube channel that I post about my 5 year old permaculture garden on .75 acre in Zone 6b Eastern Connecticut. I also have a mastodon were I post images, updates, and things what work or don't work for my context.
Bill Mollison's writing has changed my approach to design. The limit truly is creativity. Anything goes.
Importantly, permaculture design applies to any situation: a verdant mediterranean garden, a driveway, a digital product, how you wash dishes, how you connect with a loved one. The design principles in permaculture are timeless – they're applicable in every context.
If you're just dipping into Permaculture, get a few books by Ruth Stout. Her method of "no-work" gardening is a pillar in the homesteading, self-sufficiency, and permaculture communities.
Warning, her writing style is closer to rambling than academic/professional.
It's interesting that Permaculture is already more than 26 years old. It's got quite a number ideas that probably seem very controversial to the average gardener or small farmer.
But the genius of Permaculture is that it's also way less effort. Work with nature, rather than fight it.
Chop and drop. Pull out weeds then drop them on the ground, let it turn into mulch.
> It's interesting that Permaculture is already more than 26 years old.
The date actually had me wondering. At what point do we start to refer to 1994 as the "1900s". We are already 2 decades into the 2000s, but it feels strange to refer to 1994 as the 1900s? Wonder which decade in the 1900s people started feeling comfortable referring to 1894 as "the 1800s".
That's true, and I feel the same about the oddity of referring to the 1990s as the 1900s
In contrast, I think 20th century versus 21st century doesn't feel as wrong, and I regularly use 20th century to refer to time periods that include the 1990s.
It's just a matter of experience and perspective. Many of the permaculture principles have been practiced since long before industrialization. In the scale of human existence, the current "normal" agriculture practices are abnormal, while permaculture is normal.
Also, don't cut the weeds unless you have a very good reason. Even the definition of "weed" is questionable. Most of the time, the "weed" grows where it is actually beneficial.
Totally agree. "Permaculture" was really just Mollison - a genius and veteran biologist - collating all the best practices and strategies he had observed from land-based cultures, then codifying this knowledge of what works. (Hence, "permanent agriculture".) It couldn't be less controversial.
I'd also recommend book that's developed the ideas of the Permaculture further to suit better for farming: https://www.regenerativeagriculture.co/ Just bought the book and it's a very thorough and practical guide on how to run small farm profitabily while building new soil and implementing Permaculture patterns. Richard Perkings who has written the book is a pioneer in regenerative agriculture and runs his own farm at Sweden (https://youtu.be/J_htLIUKX1Y) He explains the principles and theories behind his farm in this great lecture he kept at food-related hackaton: https://youtu.be/3Knn7ZH4Tiw
Keep in mind that building an ecosystem up is sort of a lifetime-scale project, so we're mostly talking about rather un-controlled experiments running for decades. A more recent book I'm going through that I like is Martin Crawford's
"Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops"
In the section on soil fertility, you can find tables quantified in terms of pees per area, depending on the breakdown of what you already have planted.
He avoids the term "Permaculture" because like "organic" or "bio" it's turned into this whole badly defined spiritual thing, instead of just being about growing as much food as possible, with as few inputs as possible, with perennial plants.
+1 re "lifetime-scale project" nature of the work.
> it's turned into this whole badly defined spiritual thing, instead of just being about growing as much food as possible, with as few inputs as possible, with perennial plants.
I recently purchased Bill Mollison's designers manual. From this book, it's clear that the spiritual/ethical component has been integral to permaculture since the beginning.
"growing as much food as possible...with perennial plants" is great, but it's a subset of what permaculture is or was about.
Gaia's Garden is great for beginners and is what I tend to gift people as an on-ramp. Edible Forest Gardens, Volume 2 is a comprehensive and complimentary to Permaculture - A Designers Manual, which is also comprehensive and rather timeless.
“Restoration Agriculture” by Mark Shepard is a great book. It’s about his project, “New Forest Farm”, and is heavily influenced by Permaculture. He pulls from a lot of references like “One Straw Revolution”, etc, with a heavy focus on agroforestry (where tree crops and more traditional crops are grown in a mixed system).
“The Resilient Farm and Homestead”, by Ben Falk is another great one — full of illustrations and practical ideas (like using a compost pile to power a radiant heat system.)
The Regrarians [0] is another avenue to explore - I find Darren a bit more grounded in science than your average "permie" and appreciate the work he's doing, integrating holistic systems design (see Savory Institute), permaculture, and Yeoman's keyline design work. It seems more of a toolbox approach vs what can feel like "doctrine" at times from permaculture. Perhaps more suitable to larger farming operations than backyard gardens but still worth reading, I think.
A lot of permaculture seems like bullshit science. It’s hard to tell if what they recommend actually does anything and certain technique that have been recommended are actually proven harmful and ineffective. Because of that I really have a hard time getting behind the movement.
I was not a fan of the hippies. I lived on 15th and High (that is not a joke) when Jerry Garcia died. The hippies were lost for a bit so they flooded 13th in Eugene until they found Phish and moved on. It was horrible. I'm more of a punk rock guy.
But this book really got me going about permaculture. To the point where it was all I would talk about when I got drunk at parties. And people hated me for it. I guess I know how the bitcoin guys feel.
But I found out my aunt and uncle owned about a hundred acres near Klamath Falls. And they were cool with me doing whatever out there. Tons of lumber and there was already a well. So over a summer we built a cabin with working plumbing and a septic tank. And by cabin I mean the unibomber would have considered it a downgrade. We had no clue about what we were doing.
But it was fun to camp out and build something, even if it was shit. That was about as far as we got. There is now a rotting log cabin out there.