How and why to start a Permaculture Garden

Every great change and radical idea starts at the same place… observation. Let’s pause the modern treadmill for a second and take a look around while suspending our hope for the future and our remorse for the past. Now, like almost all times through history, is a bit of a mixed bag. There are plenty of negative forces acting uninhibited in our daily lives and one glance at a screen will confirm our suspicions that, on the whole, things aren’t going too well. This does not discount the amazing, yet often harder to find, positivity that seems inextinguishable in the world from pressing on and lighting up the darkest nooks and crannies of our blurry civilization. As the wise fictitious retired General Iroh once said, “If you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark that is all you will ever see.” My little world is no exception to that and where I find the most peace and light is in a garden. The modern human race has become more of a confusing obstacle course inside a rolling hamster ball that no one is the winner of and the garden is the only place to me where everything makes sense still. But why? Why has tending and stewarding the land always been so important to us and why is it still as relevant as ever despite the grocery stores and website warehouses offering us everything we could ever ask for instantly? Also, if we are to contribute to the timeless and ancient practice of playing in the dirt, then the question becomes how?

In an attempt to unravel these questions we can use an analogy of a tree, beginning at the most obvious and working our way deeper into the roots, we start with food. Whether it’s raising animals, hunting, fishing, growing fruits and vegetables, foraging, or whatever hunter gatherer technique you look at, food is one of the primary concerns for any organism on the web of life. We’ve done some incredible things and also some incredibly questionable things to the planet in the name of this necessity. Our obsession with dominating nature and demanding it serve us without yield or return has led to a war that we are clearly losing. This is why there are more and more products and services around controlling that pesky nature thing from interfering in our perfectly planned lives every year. In this conflict we have justified using increasingly powerful and destructive measures to claim our seat of victory on a barren Earth that has turned our once sacred food and medicines into global vectors of poisons, toxins, and pollutants that is wreaking havoc both in and around us. One could even say the health and condition of the modern man is a direct analogy to the health and condition of the world in which he lives (cough cough). If the old adage is true, that we are what we eat, then what is the outcome of these insane practices that leave swaths of land poisoned and barren, animals raised in what can only be described as hellish conditions with no respect for their livelihood, and food with declining nutrition levels drenched in biocides my microbiologist partner can’t pronounce, all to hold up a subsidized global food system that is driven by insatiable avaricious and rapacious profit-mongering mercenaries? We don’t have to imagine it anymore. Most can agree now that the pendulum has swung too far and it’s time for a counter force. That force is taking our food and well being into our own hands on our own land and spaces.

Forgive the conspicuous metaphor but if food represents the fruit on the tree then let’s look deeper at the roots of the plant. Tending the land and growing food is not only in our ancestry but it’s what we have evolved to do. There are many reasons why we feel at home in nature and at peace in a garden, so many reasons in fact that the experience can be understood from a myriad of approaches, from science to philosophy, stories to ecology, and mysticism to mathematics. A variety of scientific studies have measured and discovered forces at play in nature that benefit us. There’s a bacteria (Mycobacterium vaccae) that’s present in almost all soils and once we come in contact with it, it makes us feel better, reduces stress, and fights depression and anxiety as if the soil microbiota evolved symbiotically with us putting our hands in it. Inside forest there are chemicals produced by trees called Phytoncides, they are a natural defense system for the trees but when we inhale them they reduce cortisol levels, improve immune functions and even increase our natural killer (NK) cells, thanks trees! Ever notice how many sound machines use nature’s soundtracks like running water, wind blowing, rain falling, or waves crashing? That’s because our nervous system is wired to detect danger and when it’s signaled there are stable ecological conditions it reduces activity in the amygdala, the threat-detection center of the brain, helping us relax and feel safe. How about what psychologists have noticed, that natural environments can hold our attention without demanding it such as watching birds, a crackling fire, flowing water, and clouds moving, your mind stays engaged but without effort or cost, like active meditation. Fractal geometry found that the complex patterns of nature counterintuitively sooth us while our urban environments of flat surfaces, straight lines, and constant noise do quite the opposite. Science is just scratching the surface of the relationship we have to nature, but science is only one approach, the other side of the coin would undoubtedly be philosophy.

To continue the metaphor of the wise tree, philosophy would have to be the soil in which it grows; dark, mysterious, and teaming with life both new and old. The image of the garden is as old as written history, often used to symbolize both origin and end, inner and outer, cooperation and competition, life and death. It is a fractal of truth and nature is the great teacher to all who listen. Don’t just take it from me, do an internet search for quotes about the garden and try to find an end to it. One of my favorites is from my teacher Geoff Lawton who said, “you can solve all the world’s problems in a garden.” That may seem like hyperbole but think about it. The garden is both a practical producer and symbolic representation of our world that addresses environmental, social, economic, mental, and ethical challenges simultaneously. Moreover it teaches us what myth, literature, and story telling has been trying to demonstrate with each iteration of the hero’s journey, the life-death-rebirth cycle that all life follows. The garden doesn’t just offer wisdom but peace and meaning, as many traditional cultures believe that landscapes teach people how to live within them and it’s not only relational but one of our true purposes on this planet. The depth of this metaphorical soil is endless and if the point was a proverbial dead horse it has been beaten into compost so let’s keep moving. Given where we’re standing at this current juncture of the cosmos, how do we start building our own gardens and blazing a new trail ahead of us while using what’s behind us?

Staying consistent with our growing model of the tree analogy our way forward would be best represented by the root crown, this is the translation point between soil and air, where the roots become the main stem of the plant. This transitional zone and the lens of perspective is a narrowing of the available energy like putting guardrails on a highway so we don’t drive off a cliff. Those protective limitations are ethical guidelines that warn about the dangers of going too far and a framework that keeps the flow of everything directed and efficient. This conscientious perspective and framework created the idea of a new way to approach land and animal stewardship which was named “permaculture”. In it’s original conception the word was simply a conjunction of “permanent agriculture”, though like the systems it observes it too has evolved over time to become something else. Everyone who peers through this particular looking glass describes its vantage point a bit differently but retains it’s essence, and that is basically aligning with natural energies and resources to create a sustainable and productive system that benefits every part including it’s source, both people and planet. That sounds like a pretty good destination but now that we have the target and our sights set, when, where, and more importantly, how do we pull the trigger?

  As for when and where we can take a lesson from eastern philosophy and western proverb to establish the only time we have is now. There’s no time like the present and the best place to start is where your feet are. Your feet may be at a part in the journey that doesn’t have access to land or related resources, maybe like so many others, there are limitations and restrictions around you, or perhaps you have every resource in the world but not the foggiest idea of how to use them. Many permaculture practitioners would likely agree with two things: one, observe before action. Take a good close look at the energies and forces around you and recognize the patterns in them, be it natural energies like sun, water, wind, animals, etc. or even social forces such as traffic, gathering places, pressure points, cultural habits, and more. Everything has a flow and pattern that can be harmonized with. And two, start small, like a nucleus, and build or dare I say grow outward. Use whatever space or resources you can find, a backyard, a balcony, a community garden, a parking lot island, anywhere can be an entry point to get off the bench and in to the game, to cross the threshold between the subsisting consumer to the participating creator. Once the location of imagination and experimentation is established, how to begin? Start with the source: the soil, where almost all environmental issues trace back to. Heal it and bring life back to it by using living inputs like compost or microbes, protect it from harmful chemicals and synthetic inputs from store bought jugs and sprayers, add diversity to as many layers or niches you can find to create a resilient and self sustaining interconnected system. Analyze the flows present starting with water, access, structure, then energies like sun, wind, views, shade, and living things already there. Next take notice of the resources in the area available for recommissioning such as rainwater, kitchen scraps, cardboard, mulch, paper, or even people like a curious kid or a bored coworker, tools such as discarded containers, old junk waiting to be repurposed and up-cycled. The list is limited only to the eye of the creator and waste can become the most valuable resource. In this process something else is being built and a seed is being sewn. What starts off as a small innocuous garden bed not only starts to change the architect from observer to creator but adds something very powerful to the world, beauty.

Now the once disembodied teaching tree of the metaphor is fully realized and a beauty to behold. Roots dug deep into the soil of culture and philosophy growing through the crown of ethical stewardship and baring sustenance that feeds far more than our bodies. Through this process we not only reconnect with nature and our purpose within it but we ignite a beacon that can inspire and brighten our surroundings to give permission and guidance for others to follow their own path back to the light. This world has plenty of room for all of us to thrive alongside nature, to join in the dance with it, one garden, one shift of perspective, one change at a time. That is something that anyone can participate in to make today brighter than yesterday. Carl Jung once wrote, “The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” If you seek purpose beyond mere being, observe the wisdom that has always been right in front of you and join it with harmonious rhythm and beautiful reverence.