victorian kitchen garden vs permaculture

[contadina]

Fair comment GA and I do think that permaculture principles are all about good gardening/farming, I just think that it's shame that so many people get too wrapped up in the ethos of permaculture that their projects fail. If they carried on practicing good gardening/faming without the permaculture baggage, I think the majority would be far more successful.

[Green Aura]

I have found some of the more "nitpicky" (couldn't think of a better word) elements of permaculture quite useful.

Until we moved up here I had no idea of the differing arc of the sun - In Greater Manchester there was no obvious difference. But up here the difference is enormous and has had huge implications about where we site veg beds. It's little things like that I find immensely useful. My other big one is the idea of having zones related to how often you need to be in an area.

None of it's rocket science but sometimes just having it pointed out confirms what you thought. And forest gardens are a truly wondrous thing - and no I don't want to get into semantics, I know it isn't a real forest or blah, blah blah........

[British Red]

Oh, and I'm not sure how you got to population control from the preceding discussion BR but it would appear you're much closer to the Permaculure nobs than you might think - it's one of their preciously held views.

Its not much of a leap really. When we consider if a system is extensible, then we have to consider whether it produces enough food for all. If we consider a "post peak oil" world, whatever we propose has to produce at least enough to feed the local population. Its a supply and demand equation. We must regulate one to the other - or accept the consequences - its like the wood burner argument (we should all burn wood or biomass because it carbon neutral). Sadly there isn't enough land to do it - unless we burn fossil fuels to import the wood.

Ahh well - I suspect the reality is we as a country will just continue as we are, for lack of a viable alternative. Any solution sufficiently radical to solve the problem would almost certainly render its proponent unelectable.

Red

[Bulworthyproject]

It seems obvious that we need to rethink the way that we produce food as a matter of priority. Looking back to how things were done before cheap oil and the combustion engine is invaluable. Looking at the experiments that have been carried out in low carbon food production more recently is also invaluable. Unfortunately at the moment, land is farmed to gain the maximum yield per person working rather than the maximum yield per acre. This is how "intensive" farming works. It would seem rational that eventually (hopefully not too late) everyone will realise that the supply of labour is not as limited as the supply of land and oil. At that point we will take advantage of the experience of both how farming was carried out before the combustion engine and how it is carried out by those trying to farm sustainably now. In the meantime we need to keep discussing what the value is in each method with an open mind.

[grahamhobbs]

I have an allotment that is just under a 1/4 acre which feeds us all year round except for grains. If I had 1/2 acre I could grow enough food, including grains, for a small family for 12 months of the year, utilising modern organic methods, no dig and polytunnels (and an input of manure or compost). It would take on average no more than 2 days / week work plus a few evenings during the main growing seasons. My allotment has a small area of fruit trees and permanent vegetables and herbs ( a bit of a forest garden).

Now is this permaculture or is it Victorian garden, except for the permanent vegetables and fruit trees, things are grown in straight lines or in blocks (makes life easier for weeding and netting to keep nature at bay eg. pigeons, squirrels, etc).

We have moved on from the Victorian garden, with it's massive labour input and chemicals but a wealth of very specific knowledge of plant growing, beyond even Lawerence D Hills (his book used to be my bible) and his stress on feeding the soil, we now have no-dig methods, companion planting, diversity, etc.

I think the problem with permaculture is that people over emphasise the forest garden, especially permaculturalists that are not gardeners (and dream that you can grow food without labour), to the exclusion of other methods. But actually the forest garden is just one one method suitable for a particular zone, a zone away from the house that is less suitable for more intense food production, it has low labour input but low output per area.

[gregorach]

It's a weird question really - victorian-style kitchen gardening and permaculture are about as different as could be, and aim to solve entirely different problems in entirely different ways. The only thing they have in common is that they both involve growing stuff. You might as well argue Formula 1 vs mountaineering, on the basis that they both involve moving.

We need to remember that nobody has yet devised the perfect, universally applicable agricultural system, and they probably never will. It's all about finding what works in your particular situation for your particular needs.

However, if your standard is going to be that a system has to be able to support the current population of Britain entirely from indigenous production, then you're completely stuffed. I don't believe it's possible, by any means. So criticising permaculture on that basis seems just a tad unfair...

[safronsue]

graham, exactly the kind of statistic i like. an actual personal ground roots, this is what i have achieved, statistic. others tend to be too much to get my head around tbh. what book did you move on to after LDH, if any?
BR, no umbridge taken in the slightest, have enjoyed reading all your posts. just i cannot equate what i'm trying to do in my garden with population figures and armeghedan. really i was just interested in comparing two gardening methods and seeing how they are similar too. I find graham's post above to be very enlightening and i guess what i would aspire to do in my own plot.

[grahamhobbs]

Safronsue, I guess there have many books since LDH, many just repeat the same basic stuff, but Joy Larkom's books on the creative vegetable garden and on salads were influential as was Elliot Coleman's winter growing, although nowadays I think Charles Dowdings books are the best and most comprehensive, because they are written by a serious veg grower and are stuffed with a wealth of experience and details (although his method relies on large quantities of imported municipal compost).
In terms of practical permaculture at a gardening scale, Martin Crawford's books are the best I've found and I am using his books to expand the perennial veg I grow in what was our flower border and under our fruit trees.

[gregorach]

Charles Dowding is the man. I've only got one real gardening book, and it's his. I love the no-dig approach in my allotment - while others are breaking their backs digging over their plots, I'm sipping tea and planting out.

I recently noticed that a lot of other people's plots show clear soil errosion / compaction, where their growing areas are as much as 6 inches lower than the original surface, whereas my beds are getting higher. I have fewer weeds than they do too...

[grahamhobbs]

Couldn't agree more Gregorach. I guess there was another influential book, back in the late seventies / early eighties, about the no-dig method because I converted to it back then. It took me a long time to work out the best method (at least for me) for treating the paths between the beds. I think I've tried every combination of raised beds with timber surrounds, no surrounds, wood chip paths, dirt paths, grass paths, etc, etc. Charles Dowding can buy in loads of municipal compost to cover his beds and paths, with restricted amounts of compost and labour, to import enough compost to cover beds and paths. I settled on narrow grass paths (13" just less than the width of my mower) which are quick and easy to mow so I keep them nice and short to avoid slugs. This suits me very well, although our local Borough has just started delivering compost for free to our allotments so I have had second thoughts. But it takes around 150 barrow loads of compost to cover my beds and I guess almost double that if I had to cover the paths as well. Barrowing all that about 100yds uphill would be a daunting task.

[Odsox]

I missed this post, was away most of last week, and I have to admit that I haven't much of a clue what permaculture is all about, other than the small piece I just read on Wiki.
I am probably unique on this forum by being taught by a real Victorian gardener. My grandfather was a gardener all his life and ended up head gardener of a Victorian style estate complete with walled garden and he taught me the basics of (mainly) vegetable gardening that I still rely on today.
I am pretty much the same as Graham in that the two of us are totally self sufficient in vegetables, almost self sufficient in meat, self sufficient in eggs and almost self sufficient in fruit from about 1/2 acre of garden, orchard, 2 polytunnels and 2 greenhouses. I use organic methods most of the time and rely heavily on seaweed, home made bone meal and compost for nutrients, and I still dig the soil between crops and apply rotation just as my grandfather did.
Most of the techniques are blindingly obvious or learnt through observation, with regard to your own particular micro-climate and aspect, so as far as I'm concerned it's a case of deciding what YOU want (not what somebody else thought was a good idea) and get stuck in and learn from your successes as well as you failures, and above all be inquisitive and wonder why some things work the way they do.

With liberal use of arsenic, copper and other noxious chemicals, coal to heat the hothouses etc. The lives of gardeners on the big estates was apparently shorter because of the chemicals used.

Not sure I totally agree GA, my grandfather was an apprentice gardener when Victoria was still on the throne, he almost certainly used all the above (and probably a lot more) and it eventually killed him at 92.

[gregorach]

With liberal use of arsenic, copper and other noxious chemicals, coal to heat the hothouses etc. The lives of gardeners on the big estates was apparently shorter because of the chemicals used.

Not sure I totally agree GA, my grandfather was an apprentice gardener when Victoria was still on the throne, he almost certainly used all the above (and probably a lot more) and it eventually killed him at 92.

Yeah, and some heavy smokers live to a ripe old age too, therefore smoking is totally harmless!

Sorry, it's probably my least favourite logical fallacy, I can't let it pass... You can't calculate probabilities from a sample of one.

[boboff]

Yes you can, if all the other gardeners died at 40, and there were 1,000,000, then the probability of being a gardener in victorian times and living past 40 is 1 in a million & one.

[Odsox]

With liberal use of arsenic, copper and other noxious chemicals, coal to heat the hothouses etc. The lives of gardeners on the big estates was apparently shorter because of the chemicals used.

Not sure I totally agree GA, my grandfather was an apprentice gardener when Victoria was still on the throne, he almost certainly used all the above (and probably a lot more) and it eventually killed him at 92.

Yeah, and some heavy smokers live to a ripe old age too, therefore smoking is totally harmless!

Sorry, it's probably my least favourite logical fallacy, I can't let it pass... You can't calculate probabilities from a sample of one.

No I agree.
I do think however my grandfather's life style with relative lack of stress and eating only fresh meat and veg could have been a contributory factor.
The poisons that he (probably) sprayed on the fruit and vegetables were probably nowhere near as life shortening than the legal food additives that most people eat to excess today.

Besides smoking must be totally harmless as he smoked all his life as well.

[sarahkeast]

The poisons that he (probably) sprayed on the fruit and vegetables were probably nowhere near as life shortening that the legal food additives that most people eat to excess today.

Totally agree, at least they knew what they were applying and when, not the slow drip drip accumulation