September Permie Corner

Previous Permie Corner articles and resources can be found here

By Lorraine Sharaf

This month, I am introducing the fourth Permaculture Principle: Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback. The icon for this principle is the Earth, our home and the largest self-regulating system that we know. Earth has had a strong capacity to withstand the mistakes that humans have made over thousands of years and has been providing us feedback about how these stressors have been causing imbalances in many natural systems, which people have largely ignored or downplayed, such as algae blooms (source), acid rain (source) increased temperatures and more intense storms, all which also wreaks havoc on our ability to grow and harvest food. 

A 2022 MIT study confirms that “the planet harbors a “stabilizing feedback” mechanism that acts over hundreds of thousands of years to pull the climate back from the brink, keeping global temperatures within a steady, habitable range.” (source) Humans have been affecting earth’s systems since the beginning of agricultural societies, about 8,000 years ago, but we have significantly intensified our effect on the earth since the industrial revolution. Many scientists are referring to this time in geological history as the Anthropocene Epoch or Era, translated as “age of man” because human activities have so drastically affected the planet as to have pushed it into a new geological phase. 

What other organisms self-regulate? The human body! We are made up of numerous systems that our body continuously monitors and regulates, with and without our conscious help, such as our circulatory, respiratory and body temperature (thermoregulation). Plants and trees also regulate themselves. While trees can withstand a greater temperature range than humans, like us, trees release water to cool down, called transpiration, and they can adjust the angle of their leaves to minimize direct sun exposure. During freezing weather, plants use different strategies, such as producing an anti-freeze-like substance to protect their cells and reducing their metabolic rate into a dormant state.

Our permaculture practice is a potent tool to assist the earth back to a healthy system as we apply Permaculture Principle 4, which is the step where we monitor, Accept Feedback, the health and progress of our designs, and the elements within them, and make the necessary changes, Regulate, to keep them healthy while fulfilling our needs and goals. We apply this principle in our yard, and in our home, all the time without thinking about it. We water plants when we see that the soil is dry and the leaves are drooping, and we check the perimeter of the fence and other structures of a chicken coop when chickens are being killed or disappearing. 

The biggest difference between permaculture practice and other forms of landscaping and farming is its emphasis on working with the land and its characteristics, such as soil, wind, sun, shade and zone, rather than trying to force it into something that is not inherent to its character and by using a whole systems’ design that considers and links all the systems on your property. 

It is important to remember yourself in the equation (human capital) by keeping yourself healthy and balanced. Sometimes the work required to obtain a yield outweighs the results. You may find that the extensive time and energy needed to grow robust and beautiful organic apples simply isn’t worth it. You could decide to be satisfied with less attractive apples or purchase pretty apples at your local orchard or farm market. Other times, you may find your yield overwhelming (tomatoes, zucchini?) and decide to grow less next year or work out an agreement with your neighbors to share garden bounties. 

As an example, I put tremendous energy into tending to three okra plants that I grew specifically for my husband because he loves fried okra. My leaves and baby fruits became covered with aphids, which I didn’t realize until the leaves had become noticeably damaged. This is where I fell short on observing feedback. The aphids were collecting beneath the huge purple leaves, successfully camouflaged until the leaves began dying. I took action to remove them and continued to have an abundant healthy yield but with far more effort than I would have had if I had been more attentive to periodic “wellness checks.” There is a term called PATO, which stands for Protracted and Thoughtful Observation. It is a permaculture tool that can be applied to every aspect of your life and is especially helpful, and rewarding, when you simply observe, without preconceptions, the landscape around you and how it functions. This does not mean you need to regularly spend hours examining each plant, or design element, but is a practice that can be integrated into your normal activities and wellness check around the yard, especially over a weekend cup of coffee. 

It turns out that my husband did not like the okra, even when we fried them. He found the skin tough. The fruits were pink, not the green color that is common. Is that why? I could have decided to try again next year with a different variety and with research on growing okra with tender skin, but since he is the only one of us who likes okra, I decided that he can buy it if he wants it or find a restaurant that prepares perfect Southern fried okra. As with my Okra experiment, it’s best not to beat yourself up if things go differently than you wanted. You knew what you knew and now you know more. And, you have increased the questions you know to ask going forward. 

As you tweak your designs, keep the changes small, trying out one thing at a time. If a plant you love isn’t thriving, or an irrigation system isn’t providing enough coverage, try not to overwhelm it with solutions. Remember the scientific method? Test one thing at a time, keeping everything else the same. Simple, slow changes are the easiest to observe and least time-consuming. 

I have recently learned the term “Safe to Fail” (source) which is used in various industries. It is a technique that we have all used in different areas of our life. If you are considering making a financial investment, you begin with a small amount of money that you are willing to lose if the investment does not pan out. When choosing a new paint color, you buy a small sample of paint to test it out on a section of a wall. The same goes with farming and gardening. You experiment with new processes, changes or products at a small scale that you can afford to have fail while you learn about them, and can eliminate or tweak, without ruining your bank account and dedicating too much time and resources. If your experiment provides the results that you want, then you can scale up, but try to tamp down your enthusiasm for scaling up too quickly. Soil, shade, sun, moisture and microclimates vary around your land and may not all be conducive to large-scale implementation. We want to mimic natural ecosystems, which is also why we emphasize diversity. This principle to Accept Feedback and Apply Self-Regulation, along with the first principle, Observe and Interact, are key tools to successfully introducing new elements, living or structural to your homestead. All the principles are meant to be considered repeatedly throughout the life cycle of your gardens, farm or homestead. 

As with the earth, the effects of human activity on your yard does not stop at your neighbor’s border. Every decision that we make on our property affects those around us, even though it may not be immediately obvious: Earth Care. Investigate how your changes will affect your next-door neighbors and maybe beyond them. If you build a barn near the border of your property, will you shade out your neighbor’s garden? If you dam or divert a portion of a creek that runs through your yard, will that negatively impact the people that live below your section of the creek? Will building an elevated patio divert water into your neighbor’s yard? Vice Versa, you want to see if any factors on neighboring lands will affect your success with a new installation, maybe not now in the fall, but will that be different in the winter or summer? I’m not suggesting that you get into a state of analysis-paralysis, but time thinking about your property as a part of a bigger ecosystem will help you, your neighbors and the land. I had a permaculture instructor who told us that she always has two clients when she works on a design, the people who hired her and the land, and she puts the needs of the land first. 

I regularly remind myself that I am a part of this big, beautiful, messy system called earth and not the owner of it to do whatever I would like, but a custodian and fellow earth inhabitant. 

September Permie Tip

It is September! Even though it still feels warm and summery, it is time to clean up dead plants, discard diseased material and compost the remainder. It is also time to plant new berries and native perennials and shrubs. If you followed the sheet mulching tip from the August Permie Corner article, you will have a nicely prepared area for that. 

Other tasks include testing your garden soil and amending it accordingly with organic material and planting cover crops. Cover Plants are one of the most important amendments and protection that you have for your garden beds. Bare soil loses nutrition and is a happy habitat for undesirable volunteer plants (aka weeds) to grow. Cover plants aerate the soil with their roots, provide nutrition for the soil, food for animals and insects both above and below the soil and prevent erosion. Cover crops that are native to our area, southeastern Pennsylvania, zones 6b through 8, are crimson clover, hairy vetch, winter rye and buckwheat. For more information on planting cover crops, you can read a previous article from our website. https://bucksfoodshed.org/cover-crops/