mostaza wrote:rainbowgardener,
to start off, terminology can be enemy to all, causing mass misunderstanding
glad we are clear on this. because much of what follows in your missive is simply playing around with terminology. Not to mention, you are still stuck believing something like keeping a compost pile precludes living your lifestyle, or sheet composting. It's an a priori statement I don't accept.
The growth of a truly successful garden/farm/megaguild is not [apparently] affected by any amount of compostables it's stewart(s) can throw(literally) at it.
I believe this makes no sense. Unless you are assuming we cannot bring organic matter from the outside? Truly "healthy" (read: useful to humans) land can handle
more nutrients than the same land in an "unhealthy" state. But there is no magic. Add too many cow carcasses, or manure green or brown, get the right weather, and you are poisoning wells all around you.
Stuff is never kept anywhere, it is put where it's going and stays there.
More absolutism, as if a human being is not able to divide her resources.
Wherever I am going to plant, I place whatever is available to me in layers and let old man time do the rest.
Awesome. I do this with lots of stuff. It's organisms, btw, not old man time doing the rest.
Sometimes I think of the entire garden as one huge compost pile.
well ok. Here is an etymology for the word compost from https://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=compost :
compost
late 14c., from M.Fr. composte "mixture of leaves, etc., for fertilizing land," also "condiment," from V.L. *composita, from L. compositus (see composite).
despite what the composting council likes to say in their bid to narrow the definition of this word, "composting" and "composite" have the same root. The mixing together of diverse elements into a whole, in other words, defines compost. So I don't like your idea that your garden one big compost, in any sense other than the broadest and least descriptive.
NOW... for a big twist... Is gardening itself a paradox to permaculture?
It sound like a lot of work on our part; compost piles, tilling, weeding, digging, moving dirt...
give me a definition of gardening not based on "stuff you don't do" and we can discuss this. I don't weed, till, or move dirt. I barely dig. I am a gardener though.
Gardening is a verb that I am compelled to, in my life, replace with 'foraging'.... In a food forest. Of course, to build a lush food forest(especially in a timely manner) requires an immense amount of exertion only feasible if the youth are willing(just ask me, I'm building one right now.)
to me, this is just trying to feel special through semantics. all the great stuff you are doing should be enough. and sorry to say, enough mainstream gardeners have taken enough aspects of permaculture to create their practice that you are no longer all that well segregated in terms of technology, practice, or attitude.
The Designer did not intend for humans to exist in a setting where this is not possible.
truism.
Permaculture is a lifestyle, not a garden bed!
permaculture is a technology for raising food. I'm sure not every permaculture person lives the same lifestyle. If there were enough of you, it would break into different schools and have all the problems any massive movement develops. nothing new under the sun.
Sorry, I have ADD so I hope this made sense
Not a very small club, that one.
If you disagree with any of this please let me know...I'm just another naive and prideful human being trying to humble myself and fit in with mother nature's perfect and beautiful pattern
Done and done. Actually, from what you say, you are just another human trying to alter her environment so it produces something of value to humans. it's great that you seek to do it in non-harmful-to-later-generations-of-humans-or-your-neighbors kinda way. But I don't see a major philosophical distinction between you and the ones you feel are so different.
All one has to do is watch ants to learn that storing, cultivating, clearing, digging, herding, and collecting are perfectly natural behaviors for an animal. Ants always stick to the techniques best adapted to their kind and their setting. They don't worry about whether other ants will see this as "right" for other ants. It's the ability to imagine the world as different, and by extension permaculture, that sets us apart from other animals.
I agree, permaculture appears to be the ideal way to grow food for humans in harmony with the natural order. But I have also notice that humans need to constantly modify their ideas or even start over, or there powers of reasoning and observation become debauched. We like to see things that confirm our beliefs, and avoid seeing things that don't. Unless we try really hard, in which case we can briefly see with open eyes, until the gauze forms once again.