praise for
Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture
“A fascinating book written by a man who has devoted a lifetime to working with nature and creating extraordinarily diverse polycultures. His work is breathtaking.”
—Maddy Harland,
editor of Permaculture Magazine
“At an altitude that everyone else has abandoned to low-value forestry, [Sepp Holzer’s] is probably the best example of a permaculture farm in Europe [and] stands out like a beacon.”
—Patrick Whitefield,
permaculture author and teacher
“As the era of cheap energy, stable climates, and surplus fertilizer stocks comes to a close, the principles of permaculture will become increasingly attractive as one way to design our future food and agriculture systems. This book provides important insights for applying these principles, for both rural farming and emerging forms of urban agriculture.”
—Frederick Kirschenmann, president of
Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
“Sepp Holzer is a Superstar Farmer who turns out an absolutely remarkable volume and variety of food products without one smidgen of chemical fertilizer, and on land in Austria that an Illinois corn farmer would pronounce too marginal for agriculture.”
—Gene Logsdon, author of Holy Shit: Managing Manure
to Save Mankind and The Contrary Farmer
“Here’s great news for fruit-loving gardeners everywhere! Most of the work of establishing, pruning, and tending fruit trees by ‘modern’ methods is unnecessary and even counterproductive. This book is The One-Straw Revolution for tree crops.”
—Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener:
Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times
Sepp Holzer’s
Permaculture
A Practical Guide for
Farmers, Smallholders and Gardeners
Permanent Publications
Published by
Permanent Publications,
The Sustainability Centre, East Meon,
Hampshire GU32 1HR
United Kingdom
info@permaculture.co.uk
www.permaculture.co.uk
Distributed in the USA by
Chelsea Green Publishing Company
www.chelseagreen.com
© 2004 by Leopold Stocker Verlag
First published in German as Sepp Holzers Permakultur by
Leopold Stocker Verlag, Hofgasse 5, PO Box 438, A-8011 Graz, Austria
First English language edition @ 2010 Permanent Publications
The right of Sepp Holzer to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
Translated from the German by Anna Sapsford-Francis
Designer: Two Plus George Limited
www.TwoPlusGeorge.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
EPUB ISBN 9781856230858
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without prior permission in writing from the publisher, Hyden House Ltd.
In the film Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture there’s an image that really says it all. Taken from the air, it shows steep mountainsides covered in seemingly endless monocultures of spruce trees, broken only by the mountainside that is Sepp Holzer’s farm, the Krameterhof. In contrast to the dark trees on either side, it’s an intricate network of terraces, raised beds, ponds, waterways and tracks, well covered with fruit trees and other productive vegetation and with the farmhouse neatly nestling amongst them. There, at an altitude which everyone else has abandoned to low-value forestry, what is probably the best example of a permaculture farm in Europe stands out like a beacon. It stands as witness to both the contrariness and the skill of the Rebel Farmer.
He has always gone against the grain of modern farming: he cultivates rich mixtures of plants and animals in place of monocultures; he has no need for chemicals because the dynamic interactions between the plants and animals in his polycultures provide all the services which conventional farmers find in the fertiliser bag and the crop sprayer. But it takes more than a contrary nature to be a rebel farmer. It also takes skill and knowledge, and these don’t come easily. Right from his childhood, when his mother gave him a small plot for his first garden, he has observed, questioned, experimented, observed again and experimented again. He knows the natural world like few other people do today, and treats his farm as an integrated part of that natural world – which is exactly what it is.
In this book he shares the skill and knowledge which he has acquired over his lifetime. He covers every aspect of his farming, not just how he creates a holistic system on the farm itself but also how he makes a living from it. He writes about everything from the overall concepts which guide him down to the details, such as which fruit varieties he has found best for permaculture growing. Farming at such a high altitude is a challenge in itself, and as well as his knowledge of plant and animal interactions he has had to learn much about how heat and water pass through the ecosystem, and how they can be stored and made to work for the system.
An important part of permaculture is getting to know your own individual place. Every patch of the Earth has its unique personality and character, just as each person has. Nevertheless Sepp Holzer has taken his skill and applied it on sites all over the world and in urban gardens too. It takes a great deal of experience to be able to look at a site in a different part of the world and understand how it works well enough to be able to give advice on it.
The other side of that coin is that what works for him on his Austrian mountain will not necessarily work for you on your own land. Here in Britain, for example, we have a cloudy maritime climate, in strong contrast to Austria’s continental climate. Although our winters are milder, so too are our summers. Above all we lack the sunshine which is such a key element in the way he creates favourable microclimates. Humidity is also greater here. What you can do, say, at 250m on the edge of Bodmin Moor is not the same as what you can do at ten times that altitude on the Krameterhof. Similar allowances must be made for other parts of the world.
This is not to negate the value of this book for people who live outside Austria – far from it. Much of the detailed information is highly relevant in any temperate country. As long as you bear in mind that both your climate and your soil are possibly quite different to those on the Kameterhof, you will find it a storehouse of valuable information.
Nevertheless the book’s greatest value is not so much in the information it contains but in the attitudes it teaches. Its message is not so much ‘this is how you do it’ but ‘this is the way you go about thinking of how to do it.’ Sepp Holzer’s way is the way of the future. In the fossil fuel age we’ve been able to impose our will on the land by throwing cheap energy at every problem. In the future that option won’t be open to us any more. We’ll have to tread the more subtle path, the path which patiently observes nature and seeks to imitate it. That future may not be as far off as we think.
Patrick Whitefield
September 2010
Patrick Whitefield is a permaculture teacher and the author of Permaculture in a Nutshell (1993), How to make a Forest Garden (1996), The Earth Care Manual (2004) and The Living Landscape (2009). More details about his courses can be found at www.patrickwhitefield.co.uk
Dear readers,
This is the second book I have written so far, to pass on my over 40 years of experience as a farmer practising alternative agriculture. I was inspired to do this by the many people who have come to visit the Krameterhof: among them teachers, professors and doctors as well as farmers and gardeners. My darling wife, Vroni, and my children were particularly eager for me to put my experiences and discoveries into writing. My first book, an autobiography entitled The Rebel Farmer, sold over 120,000 copies in just under two years and was a great success. It was presented with a golden book award and I received well over a thousand letters from enthusiastic readers. This made me realise that there was a great deal of interest in my work. When my daughter Claudia and son Josef Andreas offered their help, I simply could not refuse.
I want this book to help people realise that trying to understand and live in harmony with nature instead of fighting against it is well worth the effort. On the countless trips I have made to oversee my projects abroad, I have seen many terrible sights which have stayed with me and even given me a few nightmares. Whether it is in Bosnia, Colombia, Brazil, Thailand or in the United States, it is plain to see how irresponsibly nature is treated everywhere. Many people seem to have lost their ability to think independently about or to feel responsibility for our planet and its future. The result is a loss of respect for nature and our fellow creatures. Tens of thousands of hectares of scrubland and rainforest are intentionally being burned to make way for monocultures and, of course, any wildlife is destroyed along with it. A small few profit at the expense of large swathes of society, who generally do not know how to provide themselves with food. The poverty and hardship people endure in ‘developing countries’ knows no bounds! Young and old alike are treated like refuse and live on the streets from hand to mouth. Only the powerful have rights, which I have seen and experienced for myself. In addition, this happens in areas where no one should have to go hungry, because the soil is fertile and the weather is favourable. There should be more than enough food for everyone. Many people have lost their land to powerful landowners and with that the ability to provide for their families. They have had their independence taken away, which then becomes very difficult to take back. So many of these people live rough on the outskirts of town in terrible conditions, whilst their land is relentlessly overworked and ruined.
Many people think that this cannot happen in Europe, but we are already well on our way! Most small farms only provide a subsidiary income, because the farmers do not know how to make enough money from them to live on any more. Today, very few people dare to forge their own way and consider alternative farming methods. Instead many people look to subsidy programmes to tell them how to run their businesses and alter their farms accordingly. Either that or quantity is prioritised over quality and farmers try to compensate for low prices with a larger volume of produce. The result is a monoculture maintained with large quantities of chemicals. Many people are deterred by the bureaucratic obstacles that are put in their way when they try to practice alternative farming methods. It is every person’s duty to defend their rights, land and even their concept of democracy and make them their guiding principles. If we do not, there is a real danger of finding ourselves in an administrative and bureaucratic dictatorship.
I have already described how difficult it is to forge your own way in my first book. Some years ago I had a visitor from New Zealand. This visitor was the late Joe Polaischer – our lives took similar paths. He chose to leave Austria and emigrate to New Zealand to set up a permaculture farm under difficult conditions. He had visitors all the way from Europe and they were delighted with what he had accomplished. Joe was a remarkable man. He was a teacher and had a great deal of practical experience, which is exactly what we need right now. His achievements should make it clear that there are people on the other side of the world who want to live in harmony with their environment and not at odds with it. Treating our planet and fellow creatures with respect – and not being motivated by rivalry, jealousy or hatred – is the only way!
My dear friend Joe, for your commitment to using land sustainably, your contribution to the development and teaching of permaculture in Austria, you have my most heartfelt thanks.
I would also like to thank my colleagues of many years Erich Auernig and Elisabeth Mohr, who have always supported me in my work. Without their tireless efforts it would never have been possible to raise such a large amount of public interest in my farming methods. With their help, I have been able to show thousands of interested visitors around the Krameterhof and oversee countless projects abroad. I have also had the opportunity to pass on my experience through presentations and seminars. I would also like to express my gratitude to Mrs Maria Kendlbacher and her daughter Heidi who look after our guests on the Krameterhof. I also thank my brother and gamekeeper Martin Holzer.
Most of all I would like to thank my family and my darling Vroni! Throughout our more than 36 years of marriage she has always stood by me and supported me completely. Without her it would never have been possible to run the Krameterhof so successfully and still have time to write a book. It is a joy to have such a wonderful family.
In this book I have tried to answer the most frequent questions raised at my presentations and seminars. I hope that this book helps you to find your way towards living a life in harmony with nature: whether it begins with a windowbox, a garden, or a field is not important. If this book helps one person to start thinking ecologically and independently, it will have done its job. I wish you success putting your ideas and, perhaps, permaculture projects of your own into practice.
General Conversion Formulae
| From |
To |
Multiply by |
| inches |
millimetres |
25.4 |
| millimetres |
inches |
0.0394 |
| inches |
centimetres |
2.54 |
| centimetres |
inches |
0.3937 |
| feet |
metres |
0.3048 |
| metres |
feet |
3.281 |
| yards |
metres |
0.9144 |
| sq inches |
sq centimetres |
6.452 |
| sq centimetres |
sq inches |
0.155 |
| sq metres |
sq feet |
10.76 |
| sq feet |
sq metres |
0.0929 |
| sq yards |
sq metres |
0.8361 |
| sq metres |
sq yards |
1.196 |
| acres |
hectares |
0.4047 |
| hectares |
acres |
2.471 |
| pints |
litres |
0.5682 |
| litres |
pints |
1.76 |
| gallons |
litres |
4.546 |
| litres |
gallons |
0.22; |
| ounces |
grams |
28.35 |
| grams |
ounces |
0.03527 |
| pounds |
grams |
453.6 |
| grams |
pounds |
0.002205 |
| pounds |
kilograms |
0.4536 |
| kilograms |
pounds |
2.205 |
In 1962, at the age of 19, I took over my parents’ farm in Lungau, Salzburg. Since then I have managed the Krameterhof in my own way. I have built ponds, terraces and gardens, kept fish and wild cattle, I have grown mushrooms, set up an alternative tree nursery and so much more. Despite the fact that there are many different areas a farm can specialise in, it was important to me that I did not focus on any one source of income. I wanted to remain as flexible as possible, so that I would always be able to react to changing market conditions. In addition, my interests at the time were so broad that there was no way I would have been able to decide on just one area. Over the years, this decision has been proved right again and again. It is true that many people called me ‘crazy’ during my time as a young farmer. They said that my methods would not amount to much and that I would soon have to sell the farm, but success proved me right in the end. Since then I have managed to double the original size of the Krameterhof, whilst many of my critics have had to give up their farms or look for additional income. Now the Krameterhof measures 45 hectares, reaching from 1,000 to 1,500m above sea level across the southern slope of the Schwarzenberg mountain. People still call me ‘crazy’ today, but it does not really bother me any more. I have realised that many people find it difficult to accept when you do things in a way that is not so widely recognised. This makes you difficult to predict and harder to control, which many people find threatening.
My alternative farming methods have brought me into conflict with the authorities many times and some of these disputes have been extremely drawn-out and tiring. It has taken a great deal of strength and effort to come through them and to not let myself be discouraged. One conflict with our self-important administrative system, which was making my life as an independent farmer difficult, caused me many sleepless nights. Times were often difficult and I did not know how I was going to get through it all. Fortunately, my wife Veronika always supported me completely and has stood by me all of these years, which has given me the strength to carry on despite the conditions set by the authorities, the special taxes and other chicanery. I also gathered strength from nature: whenever I had finished with yet another tedious lawsuit or had read one of the many impracticable expert reports, I would wander through my cultures and, for hours, collect seeds and sow them again in different places. Observing my plants and livestock also gave me fresh energy. Nature and my family have helped me to persevere despite the nightmarish bureaucracy. It is incomprehensible to me that a person with so many innovative ideas should have so many hurdles and stumbling blocks put in their way. The fact that I have not let myself be intimidated and do not stay quiet just to please people has given me a reputation for being a ‘rebel farmer’. The fact that it is actually necessary to become a ‘rebel’ to run a farm in harmony with nature is really very sad! The administrative system has become overgrown and nips any creative thought in the bud. It is the responsibility of those in power to fix these problems.
We have to make democracy our guiding principle instead of acting like lemmings and following the masses blindly, otherwise one day we will lose our democracy and our rights. On my farm I have no problems with large populations of ‘pests’, because nature is perfect and keeps everything in balance. I only wish that our administrative system could be regulated in a similar way, so that the bureaucracy does not push us to breaking point and we are not punished for thinking creatively. I think we all need to work to combat this unbearable situation and bring this ‘bureaucratic overpopulation’ back under normal levels.
In the summer of 1995, I received a letter from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna asking if they could hold a seminar at the Krameterhof. Through this seminar I learned for the first time that there was a term for my farming methods: ‘permaculture’. This word was coined by the Australian ecologist Bill Mollison and his student David Holmgren and is derived from ‘permanent agriculture’. A permaculture system is a system that resembles nature and is based on natural cycles and ecosystems. Some of the students from the seminar sent me a few books on permaculture. As I read the books I could only agree with the arguments within them. The fundamental thoughts and ideas in these books were incredibly similar to my own methods. I discovered that whilst there are many new farms, which claim to use ‘permaculture’ methods, there was not a single one that worked in the same way as ours on the Krameterhof. This is because the concept of permaculture was first developed in 1978, whereas I began to create gardens and ponds and experiment with sustainable systems in my youth. My methods have had over 40 years to develop. I have had time to continually improve upon and develop them so that now I have as little work to do as possible and I still achieve good yields. It was obvious to me that I was doing this by imitating natural cycles. What aspect of nature could I improve upon when nature already functions perfectly? Every time I tried to improve upon nature I quickly realised that I had only created more work for myself and the loss in yield was greater. So I always returned to the natural way, which, as far as I am concerned, has proved to be the only right one.
- The basic principles of permaculture are:
- All of the elements within a system interact with each other.
- Multifunctionality: every element fulfils multiple functions and every function is performed by multiple elements.
- Use energy practically and efficiently, work with renewable energy.
- Use natural resources.
- Intensive systems in a small area.
- Utilise and shape natural processes and cycles.
- Support and use edge effects (creating highly productive small-scale structures).
- Diversity instead of monoculture.
My farming methods meet all of these criteria. When it was finally suggested that I should label my farm as being based on permaculture principles and open it to the public, I agreed.
Unfortunately, I soon found out that there are many self-styled permaculturists and permaculture designers who only concern themselves with permaculture theory and have no idea how to put it into practice. In permaculture design practical experience is indispensable. It is difficult to gain an understanding of nature just from theories. Only those with personal experience can give a professional consultation. So I think it is only appropriate for someone to offer their services as a permaculture designer if they have gathered plenty of practical experience over a number of years. A little work experience and a few short courses are certainly not enough. This is why I advise anyone interested in permaculture principles to find out how much practical experience these consultants have and not just rely on testimonials or other references. It is a good idea to take a look at the consultant or designer’s offices in person before the consultation. This will tell you a great deal about their knowledge and abilities.
Holzer permaculture incorporates landscape design (creating terraces, raised beds, water gardens, ponds, humus storage ditches and microclimates), agroforestry (integrating trees and shrubs into farming), fishery, growing aquatic plants, keeping livestock, fruit-growing, alpine pastures and growing alpine and medicinal plants. Even tourism is not ruled out. Economy and ecology are not a contradiction. Holzer permaculture dates back to 1962 and is based on decades of experience running a full-time farm. You must see and understand this technique as a whole, so that it can be used profitably. Only those who practice permaculture can also understand it and pass it on to others. This is why it makes no sense to simply create a permaculture system just like mine. You must learn it for yourself like learning the alphabet at school. This is the only way you can achieve success and gain happiness from it. Permaculture principles work all over the world, as I have seen whilst working on my projects in Colombia, Thailand, Brazil, the United States and Scotland.
You can find up to date information on my projects as well as lectures, seminars and guided walks around the Krameterhof on our website www.krameterhof.at/en. Unfortunately, as a result of the large amount of public interest we can no longer answer all of the letters and inquiries that reach us. We ask for your understanding and hope that this book can answer at least some of these questions.
