This year I have decided to dedicate a playlist to all things permaculture. It is my hope that it will act as a valuable free resource and guide for anyone wanting to look at how permaculture can help their gardens flourish – and beyond! Today’s video kicks off that playlist by explaining the 12 permaculture principles in the context of a kitchen garden, how they can overlap, and why they should not be seen as rules, rather as a guide.
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Permaculture Introduction 0:00
Principle 1 1:56
Principle 2 3:02
Principle 3 4:22
Principle 4 5:28
Principle 5 6:36
Principle 6 8:00
Principle 7 9:06
Principle 8 10:49
Principle 9 12:24
Principle 10 13:36
Principle 11 14:55
Principle 12 16:30
An important note: 18:14
#permaculture #permacultureprinciples #selfsufficiency
29 Comments
Not sure why YouTube chapters no longer seem to be working…so here are the timestamps for each principle:
Permaculture Introduction 0:00
Principle 1 1:56
Principle 2 3:02
Principle 3 4:22
Principle 4 5:28
Principle 5 6:36
Principle 6 8:00
Principle 7 9:06
Principle 8 10:49
Principle 9 12:24
Principle 10 13:36
Principle 11 14:55
Principle 12 16:30
An important note: 18:14
Huw, you look cold as I can see your breath. Mind you, it's -40C here on the Canadian Prairies. Viewing this video is as close to gardening as I can get for a few months. Thanks.
Thank you for detailing things here. I have ever-increasing physical impairments which affect my gardening these days (was quite the organic gardener in earlier years). Listening to your thoughtful accountings gives me hope and encouragement to take a few things on again – and work to see them through. All the best!
How did I just watch 19 min of a young man, sitting in a chair, talking about gardening principles? Delightful! You are eloquent 👍🏻. The video production value is outstanding! Thank you for this ❤. I’ve taken my garden from “pretty” into being more effective. This means my landscape includes fruit & berry trees, raised beds & grow bags, as well as forage for my hens and rabbits (food & fertilizer production team 🐓🐓🐇🥚🥚🐇). The “ditch” by the roadway has evolved into holding enough water to support 4 species of frogs & toads (ephemeral breeding pond). It’s wonderful to live in this lil ecosystem. Btw, I have enough shade trees to keep my yard cooler in the summer. You’ve done a BETTER explanation of these principles than I have heard from others. Well done, young lad!
Permaculture is just adding layers of redundant bs to disguise a bunch of unscientific, impractical claims and/or old fashion peasantry. It was coined by a couple of australian crooks to monetize dissatisfaction with the ways of the world. This word does it magic on the idealistic, overeducated & underemployed misfits who fuel permaculture design courses pyramid industry. If you spot a person spewing permaculture this, permaculture that run fast. He is a dupe, a crook or a person trying to fool&lull himself and others by misrepresenting menial stuff of dubious value he does as rocket science. But most permaculture types are just talk no work. Feeling better about themselves by just thinking those magnificent alternatives to the corporate world msm does not us to know about. Avoid these naive wishful types too. Rule of thumb – you see or hear "permaculture" RUN.
Thanks for explaining the principles of permaculture in such a straightforward way Huw! These are things that every gardener can implement in some way 👍
Thanks for clarifying Permaculture. I am going to add in more flowers for sure. 👋👋👋
I had to cut down an apricot tree, which broke my heart as it was truly beautiful. But it had developed a split down the middle and although it was still alive, a large portion of it hung over an alley way where children played and also over utilities ( electrical meter/ gas meter). It had become a hazard. In my area the law requires you to remove anything that could potentially damage utility equipment or people. So the tree had to come down. I took the branches and made snow fences in my yard and wild habitat for the birds and they love it!!! In my wind-swept area, we rarely keep moisture from snow because it blows away. Now, I have a foot & 1/2 (0.45 meters) & neighbors only have a few inches. Had I been in the country I would have let nature fell the tree in it's own time. Being in town, it's better to find ways to make lemonade out of lemons :).
Great channel🤗🇨🇦
Are your polytunnels on a north/south axis or east/west? And are your raised beds following the same axis?
So excited to dream of spring as we just got a dump of 1' of snow. I'm going to look into the rain water collection system. Great idea!
Good examples! This being said, Holmgren´s"principles" are NOT principles.They are strategies. That is why they feel so fragmented.
I explain:
"Principles" are the underlying reason for doing something, the underlying belief system which determines our decisions. It is the "why". Principles are generic and do not change with geography. They CAN however be different according to culture, and personal belief systems in general.
"Strategies" are the general planning: where and when.
"Techniques": How.
Example. You want to build a wall: The Technique would be the material, the bricks and mortar.
The Strategy would be where and when to build the wall.
The Principle would be why build a wall…
A clear Permaculture principle is "Take care of the Earth, take care of people and share."
Strategy: Be sure that all interventions lead to soil evolution.not degradation .Create spaces for all living beings. Teach others. Share what you can: knowledge, plants, seeds, experiences.
Technique: Composting, regneration techniques (polycultures, animal management,recycling of all waste to lead to more fertility, etc.Courses.field trips.)
We can invent techniques and borrow them from everywhere! That is the easiest part.
Another Principle: Nature is intelligent and over the milllenia has evolved ecosystems appropriate for each biome.
Strategy: use the local ecosystem as your agricultural model.
Technique: agroforests, agrao-savannahs etc. Diversity in general, guilds.
Another Principle: it is better to forsee disasters than to remediate them.
Strategy: observation of water flows and floodplains.Observation of exteme climate possibilitites: snow, rain, heat, wind etc.
Technique: terraces,zoning, appropriate building techniques for earthquakes, hurricanes etc.
Although I deeply admire David Holmgren- he spent five days with us at our farm and is in many ways the more methodical and ethical member of the team( I did my second PDC with Mollison), -I think Bill Mollison´s paradigm organization is clearer and easier to apply.
I have been teaching Permaculture for 30 years, but still have some difficulty in repeating Holmgren´s 12 "principles"although I do use them daily…
Once the principles are clear-and they are only a few – the rest comes as a logical consequence.
It would be interesting to take every one of Holmgren´s strategies, and ask "why"- that will lead you to the underlyiing principle!
Huw I like this Video because you Speak on different Aspects of Gardening it’s a Wealth of Information
I enjoy your videos as much for the information as for beautiful scenery and photography. You do such a wonderful job! Thank you!
"Value the marginal."
That step brought tear to my eyes.
What a world we would have, and the problems we could solve, if only we could value the marginal PEOPLE.
😥
Thanks Huw! 🌻💚
Thanks great video. The final advice re taking one or two principles could be added to the intro also.
It's always good to spread the word about permaculture 🙂 I've been an enthusiast for 13 years now, but decided to give more traditional gardening a try the past couple seasons. I had isolated my crops from each other for aesthetic and practicality reasons, and paid the price with pest pressure and diseases. This year I'm intending to just mix everything together when I plant. I'm still following a planting calendar though, so I always have seedlings ready to plant out in empty spaces and don't forget anything. If there's no space for what I want to plant, I can just harvest some plants early or remove them as if they were a temporary cover crop. Fingers crossed, I'll have a productive little jungle of veggies and flowers!
I've been trying to work out why the fire pot is so visually pleasing – but it is. I always really enjoy your videos. They are very calming as well as being a valuable source of ideas and inspiration..
i love this, i like to use as much as i can, as it does make it so much eaiser. I hate barrowing so anything that reduces that makes me happy lol
TIP…I use fallen leaves for bedding in the hen coup, I then add cold ash from the wood burning cooker, which the hens dust in to keep mites down.
The hens add manure to the mix to create fertile leaf mulch which I then add to the growing plot as I muck out the hens weekly
I've found its a great way to let the chickens do the turning of the compost. Great teamwork😆
A great video Huw! Awesome to have a reminder of these important principles and such a variety of examples for each ❤️
interesting
Love these principles as a starting point. I've found myself doing many of these principles instinctively before I had even heard of permaculture. Another very infor mative and inspiring video Huw, thank you. Lovely to see you're garden looking so abundant and full of flowers growing wth the vegetables, looks just beautiful
Thank you so much Huw! I love your way of teaching and sharing as you make everything so clear. It was very inspiring!
I compost all year long (9 bins), but winter has always been a bit difficult due to temps, frozen materials, etc. So, last fall we added a solar digester in one of the large raised beds. The central collection tube is 3 1/2’ tall so it took time to dig that hole, but it has been working for 3 months now and I am pleased at how quickly raw materials “cook down” in a short time. It was 40 degrees here this morning, but it was 85 degrees in the solar digester! And, being able to toss any & all type of leftovers into it – even cooked bones and chicken skins is a win…very little food goes into our municipal trash can anymore.
Watching through for the third time, it strikes me, if you exchange 'garden' for 'mental health' as the concept, everything you say and all these principles also illustrate a beautiful system to reflect on and integrate ❤️ Nature therapy for all! 🌳 🍂 🌻 💚 🙏
Excellent work and great video!
Hola! Muchas gracias por los consejos. Seguramente me pierdo mucha información de valor ya que no entiendo al 100 % el idioma, pero siempre aprendo algo! Saludos desde Argentina.