How to Measure Success with Gardening
Part of the beauty of permaculture is our work in gardening. It informs our thinking in food production, and it guides our approach to the land. It is a way of thinking that is central to permaculture. It’s a way of thinking that is nurturing and sustainable and inclusive of humans. That requires human input in a way that is considered. A garden is human interaction with the land’s food production systems.
That understood, there are different styles of gardening. Many different styles of gardening, and this begs the question “What are we actually doing with gardening?” What is the point? The core principles that we need to appreciate, the central values that we are expressing through our gardening? The philosophy that underpins it all?
In this video, Geoff talks about how Bill Mollison would explain that there are almost a hundred different ways that you can garden organically, and in a way that’s sustainable. One hundred different systems that can help guide decision making on how to garden. And they all work. If you have a passion for gardening, they all result in a healthy, organic and sustainable garden. So it’s not particularly important which of these approaches to gardening you take. What is important is what you pay attention to. What you keep an eye on.
What is important in gardening is keeping an eye on the soil, and keeping an eye on production. You want both your soil and your production to continually improve. And that’s not about maximising the yield of a particular crop per square metre. That’s a one-dimensional approach to production. It is instead the overall production across the garden, throughout the year, over the years of crop rotations. It’s achieving an overall crop that continues to become higher in quality, become more diverse whilst at the same time improving the soil.
The object of gardening, of truly honouring the soil, is to improve the soil whilst increasing productivity. To have the soil better off for your interaction. And if you’re really good, the amount of work that you need to do diminishes over time whilst production increases in quality an diversity. You spend less time, less effort, and productivity improves. Soil quality improves.
Gardening is about the amount of work that you DON’T need to do in order to get good production and improved soil.
And this is why gardening is a wonderful metaphor for everything that we do in permaculture. There are many many different ways to approach permaculture, and the systems in permaculture. Many of them work if we are passionate, if we work hard. If we commit. The challenge is to design and interact with our permaculture systems in a way that improves production, improves the environment on which it depends, and does so with less and less effort from us.
Gardening is so important in teaching permaculture because it contains everything you need to know. All of what you need to know is in the garden.
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