All that matters is to be at one with the living God
To be a creature in the house of the God of Life
D.H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930), 'PAX'
I love gardens. When gardening, or just being in a garden, I feel truly alive, as if the garden connects me to a deep nourishing source of energy. Gardens remain a positive and vibrant joy in the centre of the lives of many people struggling to understand and cope with a pretty stressful and possibly crazy world.
This book is aimed at anyone with whom these thoughts resonate and is intended to encourage the many people who would like more out of their gardens, but find that they have limited time. It offers some approaches to gardening shared by those with a deep commitment to regeneration of both the Earth and the human spirit. 'Green' is one symbolic word used to describe this outlook. I'm not sure the label is too helpful, but it is an appropriate word to describe the levels of abundance you will achieve in your garden if you follow the advice contained within these pages.
When we spend time in the garden we are re-connecting ourselves to the living processes of the planet Earth, our home. Gardening is active leisure: not a 'pass-time' activity, but a creative enriching experience. Foolishly, we talk about 'being outside', as if the house were our 'real' place in the world, rather than the open air.
This sense of disconnection is a direct result of a series of revolutions; agricultural, industrial, and most recently, that of information technology. Before these changes tore society apart the majority of people passed the majority of their time with a direct connection to and a keen interest in their natural environment.
This book proposes another way of gardening, one which re-establishes our sense of belonging to the world, of being an intimate part of the living cosmos, rather than separate from it. It doesn't suppose that we're all 'going back to nature' (we never left it), or even that we have to give up our day jobs. Nor does it propose a lot of hard work. It does reveal a way in which ordinary people can do their bit to re-green the planet.
Large sentiments for so humble a pursuit as gardening, perhaps. Yet we stand at a crucial time of choice in human affairs. Either we continue to regard our powers of control over nature as infinite, and the Earth a bottomless well of resources for our consumption, or we face up to the degradation of environment and human soul which is globally evident, and decide to accept responsibility. In the face of impending global disaster most of us feel overwhelmed—but our back yards offer us an immediate avenue for practical planet care.
Good-quality land is increasingly scarce. World population is growing. Oil is running out. We could take these as a doom-and-gloom scenario, or, if you take my tip, you'll garden. Growing your own food, making tiny part-acres into vibrant mini-forests, is a direct and positive reaction to set things right.
In Kerala in India (a state jam full of gardens), a half-acre is seen as a farm which should feed a family. The average back garden may be smaller than this, but can still be highly productive, and in doing so take no more than an hour or two a week by using design methods which minimize effort.
When we garden we make contact through all our senses with the vagaries of weather, the changing moods and demands of the seasons, even the relative movements of the stars and the phases of the moon. In so doing we re-develop within ourselves an understanding of the quality of the fertile processes which make our gardens abundant, and feel ourselves again as part of the continuum of life, rather than separate observers.
This process of designing our lives from observations of nature based on seeing ourselves as part of nature has been called Permaculture, derived from the words Permanent Agriculture , but also implying permanent culture. My previous book, The Permaculture Way (Thorsons 1992) provides an introduction to that design methodology in general terms. In this book we examine specifically how Permaculture can be applied in gardening. Later in this introduction we shall look at the whole question of culture, and how strongly gardening features in our cultural inheritance.
A short answer would be that it is the art of the possible. Environmentalism was brought to public attention in the 1960s around 'conservation' issues. Permaculture seeks to go beyond that to regenerative policies which will restore global environments over time in a living changing way, rather than simply halting the further destruction of small parts of the planet, and preserving them as museum pieces. From small beginnings it has become a major body of knowledge about how to design the places where people live and work.
Only that which is sustainable can build permanent societies. Our present unstable politics, land use and lack of care for people can only lead to change. It is a change that will bring us back to enduring societies and is one that must be based on permanent agriculture.
Why do we need permanent agriculture, and what would it look like if we ever saw it? We are rapidly learning that the price of our present high level of consumption is damage to the global environment on a massive scale.
Anyone who watches television or reads newspapers will have seen plentiful evidence of this presented over the last few years. Be it holes in the ozone layer, pollution, wars over oil or global warming, all threaten our future food supplies.
Permaculture is a term coined by an Australian, Bill Mollison, in 1978, when he wrote a book called Permaculture One with David Holmgren. The concept is based on many years' observation of natural systems. The peak example in a temperate climate might be deciduous forest.
In true wilderness (of which there is virtually none left in Europe), a forest is a system of plant cover which is self-regenerating and indefinitely sustainable. It is a system that functions in five dimensions: the two horizontal dimensions, the vertical dimension, and the added dimension of time, its crowning glory being the fifth dimension of relationships. Each of these 'directions' maximizes spatial use, adding to the productivity of the whole.
Mechanized monocultural agriculture is very two dimensional. In contrast, our example of the forest offers a large range of possibilities for life from the deepest root to the tallest treetop. The tree itself changes through the seasons, so that in early spring bulbous plants flourish before dense leaf cover cuts out the sunlight. Even daily changes offer successions of opportunity for different mammals, birds and insects to browse and carry out their other life functions. The tree and other life forms flourish, not in isolation, but by virtue of their many beneficial relationships. The tree's roots draw up nutrients, not just by physics and chemistry, but in intimate associations with all manner of soil life, from earthworms to bacteria. In turn, it may not be able to continue its chain of life without insects to pollinate its flowers, and mammals and birds to spread its seeds. This is just a tiny part of the complex web of relationships of a single tree.
By observing natural cycles, people practising Permaculture have developed these principles into strategies that enable anyone to build systems anywhere on Earth, which:
• are high yielding, regenerative and sustaining
• require minimum effort for maximum output
• are ethical, caring for the land and caring for people
• generate surplus for sharing.
New houses, new furniture, new
streets, new clothes, new sheets,
everything new and machine made
sucks life out of us
and makes us cold, makes us lifeless
the more we have
D.H. LAWRENCE (1885-1930), 'NEW HOUSES, NEW CLOTHES'
Adopting Permaculture in your garden could be the first step towards limiting your personal consumption and planning your life to become more creative as time goes by.
Controlling our consumption means looking very hard at our inputs and outputs. In the forest no-one brings in manure by the truck load, or takes away polythene bags of unwanted woody cuttings. All the needs of the forest have to be supplied from within itself, and its outputs must be used up by other elements of the system. If earthworms and other soil flora and fauna did not break down and digest fallen leaves the forest would become polluted by them.
Pollution is just unwanted resources. So in Permaculture we are learning to make appropriate placement of all inputs and outputs, aiming to reduce work and minimize pollution.
Your sustainable garden will be a very visible testimony to the art of the possible. It will also be a living example of a design approach which can be applied to all aspects of your community. Gardening is rooted deeply in human culture as a practical symbol of all that is life-enhancing. The garden is nature understood, and disciplined through care.
I remember people coming to my mother's yard to be given cuttings from her flowers; I hear again the praise showered on her because whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned into a garden...She is involved in work her soul must have. Ordering the universe in the image of her personal conception of Beauty.
ALICE WALKER, IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS
For many black women in the Southern United States gardening was the sole allowable expression of their inner creativity. I would suggest that this outlet for the human psyche is common to many more people. It is not an accident that Christianity has our creation take place in the Garden of Eden, and that when Adam and Eve are banished from the sight of God it means they must leave the garden. Or that, according to the Koran, after death the just will rest with God in a beautiful garden.
The word 'Paradise' itself is derived from the old Persian Pairidaeza, meaning a walled garden. The image is used often in literature, especially allegory, as representing the human soul. In The Allegory of Love C.S. Lewis comments:
Do not let us be deceived by
the allegorical form. That...does not mean
that the author is talking about nonentities,
but that he is talking about the inner
world—talking, in fact, about
the realities he knows best.
Another common strand is that many people have a 'garden dream', a single or repetitive dream in which they are in a secret garden (usually with their siblings), which is in some way a safe, calm and happy place. There is a door to the garden, and the dream is usually without any action. This is thought to be a memory of life in the womb, translated into terms intelligible to the post-birth subconscious.
The way in which our consciousness across many cultures has made such a deep commitment to The Garden as an image is only surpassed by the actual practice of gardening as a human bond. It is one of the few activities that people share throughout the world and, as such, if we see ourselves as gardeners first and foremost, reveals our common humanity. From such bonds are peaceful and creative futures made.
Some final reasons for the garden as a starting point for environmental regeneration are:
• local: gardens are usually next to where we live
• personal: their cultivation can be done individually
• inviting: gardens invite sharing and participation
• achievable: the skills needed are easily acquired.
And so gardening is an activity available to the great majority of people. It can even be practised in window boxes and on balconies, and without soil at all.
In my vision of a peaceful and abundant future for the planet, I see the virtual dismantling of large-scale agriculture and monoculture forestry, and in its place autonomous regions of forest gardeners, making fewer demands of the planet and of themselves than we do now, living a simpler life, with adequate food, clothing and housing, and probably a great deal more leisure than we have now.
Time to play with our children, be with our lovers, time to walk in the countryside or simply to sit and admire the ever-changing prospect of our gardens.
Every person needs to have a piece of garden, however small, to keep them in touch with the earth and therefore with something deeper in themselves...
CARL JUNG (1875-1961)
I hope this book adds dimensions of pleasure and productivity to your life in the garden. We need not live out our lives in fear of war, pestilence or environmental destruction. Mother Nature is showing we need to make changes. We might see these will actually make our lives more pleasant and fruitful. In short, our gardens might be places to mend our souls, and experience profound joy in living. It is in that spirit that I invite you to enter the Permaculture Garden...
Graham Bell
Coldstream, May Day 1993