By Lorraine Sharaf
Welcome back to the Permie Corner!!! Last month, I gave a high-level description of permaculture and introduced the first, of twelve, permaculture principles: Observe and Interact, where I suggested that you spend time observing and interacting with the outdoor places around your home: yard, trees, gardens, animals, big spaces and little spaces all the way to the corners of your property. Maybe your outdoor space is limited to a balcony, where you have some containers of herbs and flowers. You can see what types of birds and insects visit them and what is happening beyond your balcony. Perhaps you’ll find a bird’s nest.
I also took time to closely observe my 1/3rd acre and became particularly fascinated with a nest of baby robins and their mother, who spends all day, every day, collecting and delivering worms to push down the throats of their ever-open mouths. I paid attention to the habits I have developed when I work and recreate in my yard, and realized that I have developed specific patterns about how I see and move around the yard, what I look at and what I don’t, where I spend time and where I rarely visit. I intentionally turned my senses to the sky, the tree tops, and the ground. I looked up and down the trees and beneath the bushes. My major findings were that we have too much English Ivy choking trees, that a lot of our rain water is being diverted to our driveway and street and that I am pulling up too many “weeds” that could be my friend. Using a plant identifier on my cell phone, I learned that among the non-native invasive plants that need to be removed are also lovely native pollinators and ground cover “weeds” that don’t fit into the lexicon of traditional landscapers but now have a home in our yard.
This brings me to the Second Permaculture Design Principle: Catch and Store Energy.
Catch and Store Energy
The icon for this design principle represents energy being stored in a container to use later. The proverb “Make hay while the sun shines” is often referenced for this principle.
In Permaculture practice, Energy refers to any resource that supports life, growth or sustainability that we can Catch and Store for the future.
When I was first introduced to the principle, I thought of energy only in terms of the work that it could do on a farm or home environment, such as wood burning in a wood stove for heat and sun providing warmth through big windows or being converted into electricity from solar panels. But energy can encompass much, much more. One of the most common resources that fits the description of stored energy is money, which converts our work, or energy, into a paper symbol that we can use to buy what we need now and store the remainder into savings and investments to use when we need it later.
When it comes to agriculture and home life, we can also think of energy in a number of ways. Here are some examples of energy:
- Sunlight: Provides energy for plant photosynthesis and can be collected on solar panels for electricity as well as used to warm houses, and other spaces, by incorporating large south-facing windows into the house and heating other medium, such as adobe walls and barrels of water, during the day that will then release heat into houses, greenhouses, barns and other spaces, much like many boulders and rocks stay warm and release heat after the sun has gone down. Use how the sun falls on your yard for maximum plant potential. I have made the mistake of planting sun-lovers where I wanted to see them rather than where the sun is at its fullest. Design with the needs of your plants in mind!
- Rain: Capture, store and use rain in a variety of ways through rain barrels to water your garden and fill bird baths, mini frog ponds, swales, or soil contouring, and rain gardens.
- Wind: Provides natural cooling and can be harnessed for electricity via turbines. Work with plants to direct summer breezes to areas that benefit you, your plants and animals as well as plant trees, particularly evergreens, to block and redirect those cold winter winds.
- Food: Can be grown with less energy and a more consistent yield by planting and nurturing perennial food plants, such as berries, fruit and nut trees, rhubarb, asparagus, and herbs. Store your harvest by canning, pickling, fermenting, freezing and drying.
- Seeds: Gather from this year’s harvest to use for next year.
- Compost: Convert the nutrients from kitchen scraps, yard clippings and leaves into food for soil and plants. Don’t throw away those fall leaves – the trees need them and so do our insects which our songbirds need for food.
- Skills: Learn and improve personal knowledge and hands-on skills that help you live sustainably. Examples include learning and practicing basic carpentry to build a chicken coop and garden beds and learning how to plant trees, build swales and preserve your harvest.
- Money: Save for future needs.
- Time: Think of time as potential energy that you can spend learning and honing skills, planning garden beds and orchards, creating and nurturing relationships with people that you can work with on future home and community projects, planting vegetables and building structures to support and house everything.
Why is this principle important? We know that in Pennsylvania, we have growing seasons and dormant seasons, so it is important to catch and store the bounty around us when it is available. We also know that weather can be unpredictable and that we cannot take anything for granted.
By using, not wasting, the various forms of energy around us, we can design systems that are more resilient, efficient and regenerative.
*If you aren’t already collecting rainwater, consider setting up a simple rain barrel system. Here is a link to instructions from the Tree Hugger website: https://www.treehugger.com/make-rain-barrel-system-at-home-5194982
You can also purchase rain barrel kits at local home supply stores or from numerous websites, including attractive barrels that double as a planter. Bucks County Master Watershed Stewards have a kit available as well!
Rather than directing excess water from your yard into the road or sewer, keep it and use it for irrigation, swales, or rain gardens.
Here are instructions for building swales from Tenth Acre Farm website: https://www.tenthacrefarm.com/permaculture-swale/
Here are instructions for how to build a rain garden from the Better Homes and Gardens website: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/landscaping-projects/landscape-basics/make-a-rain-garden/
July Permie Tip:
Chop and Drop Green Mulch
High July temperatures can quickly dry out garden soils, so this is a good time to add an extra 2 to 3 inches of organic mulch to your garden beds, both your raised beds and other landscaped beds and trees that are vulnerable to high temperatures. Mulching is also an effective way to reduce weeds in your gardens, but you need to remove the existing weeds first.
With some exceptions, you can cut (chop) the weeds at the soil level and then drop them right back on the soil as green mulch. The remaining roots will feed the soil microbes and fungi as they decompose, which fulfills a key permaculture goal of building soil health and supports this month’s permaculture principle of capturing and storing energy by capturing the energy and nutrients of the “volunteer” plant and storing, or returning its energy and nutrients back into the soil. This creates a closed loop cycle by which resources are reused, recycled or regenerated within the system itself so that waste becomes a resource and you can rely on fewer external inputs. Permaculture systems strive to use everything that is generated, with no waste, like a healthy forest system.
Have a separate compost pile for any weeds that have developed seeds and let that decompose for a long time; otherwise, you will be providing a cozy environment for them to grow back. Also, fully pull up weeds that are highly invasive or spread through their roots (rhizomes)* and discard them. Dampen the soil to make it easier to pull out the invasive weeds.
This would be a good time to add compost. Cover your beds with 2 to 3 inches of organic mulch, such as leaves, straw and grass clippings. If you use straw, I suggest using shredded straw, which is easier to pack around the plants, and look for credible confirmation that it is free of seeds; otherwise, you will be growing wheat along with your vegetables. This is a good way to use those fall leaves you’ve been saving,
For those of us who grew up with mainstream American gardening and agriculture (and big grassy lawns), it will take time to shift to a self-sufficient, organic, food-producing environment. Be patient. Make small changes and see how they work in your garden before implementing big changes. Slow and Small Solutions is the ninth permaculture principle, which I will describe in February.
Note: The best time to water outdoor plants is early in the morning, ideally between 5 and 9 AM while it is still cool, so the plants have a chance to absorb the water before the temperature gets blistering.
*Common weeds in southeastern Pennsylvania that spread by rhizomes are Canada Thistle (Cirsium arvense), Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica), Bindweed (Field & Hedge Bindweed) (Convolvulus spp.), Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris), Yellow Nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus), Johnsongrass (Sorghum halepense), Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) and Creeping Buttercup (Ranunculus repens).
Thistle is very difficult to eradicate but try this. Thistle is blooming right now and some have seeds that are starting to blow around. Cut to the ground when it is full bloom. Because the plant is putting energy into blooming, it will work hard to recover. Once it is cut, spray the cut ends with at least 20% vinegar. Repeat if necessary. Cut the ones in seed to prevent the seeds from blowing and spreading.
See you next month! I welcome comments about your observations, as well as your permaculture questions and other thoughts and ideas.
Please add a comment below with examples of how you use the Catch and Store Energy principle! ☺ Lorraine
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