What is Permaculture Homestead about?

Permaculture Homestead – what exactly is it?

There can be many definitions of homestead, but in general it is a micro farm – a home surrounded by land. A homesteader’s goal is to have a self-sufficient life or at least to limit reliance on outside sources of food and energy to some degree. A homestead surroundings don’t have to be rural, as suburban homes with access to some land also offer great opportunities to grow food, keep animals such as poultry, rabbits, or dwarf species of goats and to live more sustainably in general.

Permaculture Homestead is exactly that and bit more. To create Permaculture Homestead means applying Permaculture principles (observe and interact with nature; catch and store energy; obtain a yield; apply self-regulation and accept feedback; use and value renewable sources; produce no waste; design from patterns to details; integrate rather than segregate; use small and slow solutions; use and value diversity; use edges and value the marginal, creatively use and respond to change).

In essence, no placement of any structure, garden, food forest, outbuilding or barn can be random. Observing the land and forces of nature should help you map locations of your desired buildings and features, so that your workload is reduced and your systems become resilient. Specific micro-climates can also be created by planting trees to help other species grow better or to shield structures from cold and heat.

Any form of energy, such as sun, wind or water can be captured and stored. For example, you can use solar panel or small wind turbine for the benefit of using renewable electric energy or design your home in such a way to be able to catch sun’s heat in winter, reducing or eliminating your reliance on fuels. Water could be also caught and stored. For example, your roof could collect rainwater and divert it to water tanks for drinking, irrigation, or both. Depending on the features of your land, you could also divert raining water to a dam/pond and further direct it to food forest or gardens. There are endless solutions, but most importantly they should be smart in their implementation and benefit the whole system in a way that little work is required to maintain it.

When something does go wrong, take a step back and rectify issues. Also be open to different solutions and ideas coming from various sources.

Permaculture homesteaders use as many resources as they can for the benefit of food systems, and wider ecosystem. You can simplify your garden chores and save time by applying mulch from fallen leaves, grass clippings, hay to your garden beds reducing the need to weed. Other benefit of mulch is that it decomposes, adds nutrients to soil and helps to retain moisture. Some trees (nitrogen fixing) can be pruned, and the trimmed green material can be added to your mulch enriching your soil with nitrogen. It’s the same with legume plants (most popular are peas and beans), which green material could be shredded and left on the garden bed after productive season is over. Another way of gathering resource is letting plants to over mature, then to collect seeds from them and use them in the next planting season.

Permaculture Homestead is also divided into zones, that serve specific purposes. The closest to home should be herb and vegetable gardens. Next poultry housing and food forest. Further from home could be firewood species and pastures for grazing animals. Specific zones could also play desired functions such as windbreak (reducing the amount of wind coming to specific areas of your property) or firebreak (species that are less prone to fires).

Regarding grazing animals, they should be on designated parcels that aren’t big and being rotated often. So instead of having large parcels and moving animals less frequently, we would have smaller pastures and more frequent changes of the grazing areas. This prevents the soil to be over compacted by animals and allows for quicker regrowth of pasture species in each area.

Another great technique is to grow fodder crops in between rows of trees and let animals graze as long as their area is fenced off. The edge of food forest can be beneficial to all kinds of animals by giving them shade.

Integrating different elements can create a symbiotic relationship beneficial to all. For example, fallen chestnuts or apples can feed your pigs or chickens left in the securely fenced food forest for appropriate amount of time and leave the soil fertilised. Chickens or ducks being close to your vegetable garden can “clean” your garden beds after planting season is finished and enrich soil with their manure. The end result is happy animals and decreased workload for people.

Diversity is another important factor and I wrote about it in Food Forest blog. It basically makes your system more resilient and provides security.

Some principles above have been discussed in more detail than others, but this post gives you an idea of how you can succeed in creating a homestead that withstands changes, severe weather events and provides you with first class yields being grown harmoniously with nature with the help of animals having access to beautiful areas of your homestead. Paradise on Earth, indeed.