My first go at permaculture was a block of land I bought as a nineteen year old with my then boyfriend. It was 100 acres out near Chinchilla in what is now gasfields. Luckily for me we broke up soon after and I never got further than planting a lemon tree there. The boyfriend was an epically bad idea. So was the land.
It was a bush block on a ridgeline covered in gum trees – the smell of eucalyptus, the quiet of the bush, the zillion stars at night, the ability to look out over a landscape with scarcely any sign of humans – none of which are conducive to permaculture at all. I had made the mistake of believing that you need to buy land, lots of it, to build a permaculture system. The only large acreage I could even think about affording was well west of reliable water, shops and markets, and, most important of all, supportive communities I could learn from and experiment alongside in those heady early days when permaculture was an exciting philosophy but the actual practicalities were a long way in the future.
My second attempt a few years later was much more successful – a land sharing community in an area where young urban idealists were classified as hippies or new settlers but at least not regarded as a totally feral species. By then I had learned that you don’t actually need a lot of acreage to build a fully flying permaculture system. Zones 1 and 2 take very little area, zones 3 and 4 not too much more. It is much more fun working with a local Landcare group than smashing lantana or blackberries on your own, and Zone 5 should be public land anyhow. Managing fences and driveways and firebreaks and weeds over a large area is hard and expensive work and small areas can be hugely productive if they are well designed and managed.
I still love wild natural landscapes but I have learned that they are best visited, occasionally and quietly, rather than lived in. The best way to protect eucalypt forests and all the creatures that depend on them is to avoid having them anywhere near anything that will have to be vigorously protected against bushfire. Eucalypts, melaleucas, callistemons – indeed many Australian native trees – are an explosive fire hazard. Dot rural residential lots in amongst them and you create a situation where the emergency of needing to sacrifice the bush to save homes and lives becomes routine.
So my first tip for permaculture beginners is that climate science is telling us very clearly that we had better be prepared for extremes. Catastrophic bushfire days will become more frequent and all the permaculture disaster designing in the world won’t protect a secluded home on a ridge surrounded by bushland.
Rural life can be isolating to the point of despair, and a100 km round trip to visit friends, or even worse, a twice daily 10 km trip to the school bus undoes an awful lot of good effort in achieving energy efficiency. “Zone 0” is a hot and interesting topic in permaculture discussions, but at the bottom of it is the undeniable truth that humans are social animals and any design that fails to provide for this is doomed. Retrofitting a suburban lot, putting down roots at the edge of a country town, taking advantage of community gardens, or joining a land sharing community are all options that don’t involve that insurmountable barrier of enough money for land that is not an isolated bush block.
So my second piece of advice would be to consider neighbours, markets, community, schools, collaborative disaster preparedness, as important factors in choosing where to put down roots, and don’t underestimate what you can achieve in a small area.
Once you have decided on a place, the next step is moving in. My first house building was a hexagonal building that faced south towards the view. I still have a book on my shelves called “Homemade Houses” full of pictures of beautiful houses lovingly crafted, and it was that kind of organic tiny house I wanted. It took two years to build and the plumbing was a step too far for my nascent skills, tiny budget and severely stretched time. We sat on the sunny north facing steps to eat breakfast and the view from the south side verandah was left unviewed.
That was 1984. We now have a much loved and used north side verandah and this year I am determined to have a fully built bathroom. I learned that building in mud brick and earthbags and recycled materials and odd shapes is slow especially if you have no real, actual building skills. The result is beautiful and right but the dream starts to lose some of its glow by the second year.
Home building is art, and like all art needs uncontested time. And designing a house to take best advantage of a site using the permaculture principle of “protracted and thoughtful observation” takes more time. But to plant food forests and build swales and make mud bricks you need a place to come home to dinner and a warm bed with clean sheets, so there is a Catch 22 in there.
The answer is to design for building in stages. Start with a tiny, basic core you can extend from. With plumbing. That food forest is going to take research and local knowledge and design and land preparation and pioneers and secure water systems before you even get to planting trees. It’s a lifetime project we’re talking about here.
So my third piece of advice is that good passive solar design is critical and becoming more so, tiny houses well designed are awesome, and never underestimate the importance of water.
My last piece of advice is that the goal of self-sufficiency is a folly, even if it were attainable. The permaculture idea is that most products and functions are most efficiently produced very close to where they will be used. Good design can even make the loop from production to consumption to recycling automatic and free. There is a lunacy, for example, in catching fresh water from a huge catchment, storing it, treating it because it is no longer fresh, piping it a long distance, pooing in it, piping it a long distance again, treating it, then letting it go into a river for the next community downstream to start the process all over again. Water catching, storing, and cycling is much better done close to home.
But there are other products and functions where economies of scale and skills, working with climate and environment, and making highest use of a particular niche, make trade a really good idea, even in a perfect permaculture world. And in this world, there are bills.
We spent many years in an odd mixture of stunning affluence and abject poverty. Our permaculture lifestyle was superb – magnificent rural location, fresh organic food, swimming in the creek, toddlers helping in the garden rather than being dropped at long day care, waking up to king parrots in the banana tree outside the bedroom window and sitting by the wood fire of a winter evening. At the same time though too many infrastructure projects were held up for lack of capital and too many bills were paid by taking low-paid unfulfilling work, or by working at burnout levels on organic wholesale and retail small businesses with too small margins.
The lesson is that an Arts Degree, undeniably useful and important though it is, isn’t much of a preparation for right livelihood. Even adding a Permaculture Design Certificate doesn’t cut the mustard. It is very easy to make 80% of a household’s living expenses, directly or indirectly, from permaculture. That last 20% though is a killer.
You need a tradable skill, and skills in trading it. Even the fairly direct permaculture businesses – teaching, design consultancy and organic primary production are all small businesses and need small business skills in marketing, pricing, cash flow and business management. But right livelihoods with enough autonomy to keep it from leading straight back into a 9 to 5 can be found in so many vocations from installing solar systems to making children’s toys. The internet has truly revolutionised the possibilities.
So that’s my final tip: Make designing and skilling up and (very importantly) reality testing a right livelihood a serious part of your preparation. Oh, and if it involves dealing with the public, you will need that bathroom, and faster than 30 years.
My Top Tips for Permaculture Beginners
- The Australian bush is extremely flammable and climate change is .only making it worse. Some sites are indefensible.
- Consider neighbours, markets, community, schools, mutual aid in emergency, as important factors in choosing where to put down roots, and don’t underestimate what you can achieve in a small area.
- If you are building a house, like everything permaculture, start with a strong design focussing on passive solar, and smart and efficient water systems, then build in stages.
- Developing you skills in self-sufficiency in gardening, animal husbandry, food production, energy and water management will take you 80% of the way. Develop a tradeable right livelihood too.