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I hate to seem a little dense here but what exactly is it? I haven’t heard the term used very much and wondered about it. Is it based on living off the land or something like that?

I have to admit I had to look it up. You were on the right track in your thinking. It does have a lot to do with mirroring the natural ecological patterns. Here is a definition from wikipedia:

Today, permaculture can be described as a “moral and ethical design system applicable to food production and land use,” as well as community design. It seeks the creation of productive and sustainable ways of living by integrating ecology, landscape, organic gardening, architecture, agroforestry, green or ecological economics, and social systems.

It is a little indepth but I also wanted to give you the link to this. It is a very interesting subject.

Well I think redraven cleared it up, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I put together a nice Blog Post which has alot of different green definitions and explanations.

Hope it helps

http://www.neutralexistence.com/blog/2007/03/environmental-sustainablility-terms/

Thanks for the help! I am going to check out your blog post now. I was hoping that it didn’t come off as a silly question. Actually I think it is a good system that should be explored even more.

I am glad to see that I was not the only one that was at an absolute loss to what this was. I clicked just to find out and I am glad that I have. That blog of yours filled me in.

[quote author=“adambeazley”]Well I think redraven cleared it up, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I put together a nice Blog Post which has alot of different green definitions and explanations.

Hope it helps

http://www.neutralexistence.com/blog/2007/03/environmental-sustainablility-terms/

I didn’t know what half that stuff was :oops:
Thanks

Thanks for all of the information on your Blog.  This information can be used to help save more of the environment.

What is Permaculture?
        Permaculture (the word, coined by Bill Mollison, is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people — providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order.

        Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all it’s forms.

        The philosophy behind permaculture is one of working with, rather than against, nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless action; of looking at systems in all their functions, rather than asking only one yield of them; and allowing systems to demonstrate their own evolution’s.

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that are modeled on the relationships found in natural ecologies. Permaculture as a systematic method was developed by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren and their associates during the 1970s in a series of publications. The term permaculture initially meant “permanent agriculture” but was quickly expanded to also stand for “permanent culture” as it was seen that social aspects were integral to a truly sustainable system.

Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of traditional agriculture. Permaculture draws from several other disciplines including organic farming, agroforestry, sustainable development, and applied ecology.

I think the idea that organic matter helps retain a lot more water in the soil so plants don’t suffer from a week or two weeks shortage of rain much and don’t need watering, and that it breaks up clay soils so they are more airy and healthier for plants, might be a better way of convincing farmers who are not interested in more natural ways of doing things that they should put organic matter back in the soil than explaining complicated things to them about plant and soil health.
If you tell farmer who use a lot of chemicals about the superior absorption of nutrients in soils with organic matter they can say, “look we grow a lot in bad soils so we don’t believe that plants need a lot of organic matter and microorganisms” but they might be attracted to the idea that their soils will hold more water if they are full of organic matter so allowing the farmers to reduce their need to keep their eyes on the sky the whole time.
    If they used organic matter which apparently farmers usually have a lot of, to better their soils, they would not need so much chemical expensive nitrogen for instance, so that would annoy chemical companies, who would try to persuade them they did not need organic matter. what the chemical companies feel about things is likely to influence how easy it is to presuade farmers to have healty soils. Without organic matter in their soils they are likely to ruin their land for their sons.
beign worried about how to spread the health of soils without persuadign people to be totally permaculture is permaculture in as far as worrying about the health of soils is very premaculture though it does not include a lot of other parts of permaculture. agri rose macaskie.