Invitation to Permaculture Welcome to Manitou this place where my heart resides and around which my daily life revolves. A personal chunk of bird heaven nestled on the floor of crystal valley, under bottom land trees of cottonwood, maple, boxelder and elm, is mine to keep as long as I pay the mortgage. The front range foothills are scenic backdrop for the birthing of my permaculture experimental gardens. There is so much to accomplish:  plans to be drawn, experiments to perform and goals to be achieved. Permaculture has become a most serious study of mine. I was first introduced to the concept in the early Œ80s by either an Organic Gardening issue or a yellowed Earth First! Journal, I can¹t remember which. Indeed, I did understand the green routine of reduce, reuse, recycle, restore, regenerate, reconnoiter, regrow, re-everything. Smitten with the concept, the idea began to percolate and grow.   The word, permaculture, is a contraction of ³permanent and culture² or ³permanent and agriculture,² coined by Bill Mollison, the man who developed a set of techniques for holistic landscape design modeled after nature, and included we humans in the whole picture. Permaculture is a set of techniques and principles for designing sustainable human settlements. Guided by ethical principles, the design works for people. It seeks working relationships between plants, animals, land and structures so that the needs of one component are met by the yields of another component. Interconnections are created,  linking and looping resources back into the system. Some are simple, tried and trued basics, like waste not- want not, while others are new and exciting technology like bio-diesel modifications to standard diesel engines, innovative gray water systems or community building concepts such as Community Supported Agriculture (CSA.) The goal of permaculture is to build ecologically sound, economically prosperous human communities. The vision of permaculture is of people participating in and reaping from an abundant world. Every individual element in a permaculture should perform as many functions as possible. For example... Chickens can provide eggs aplenty and organic meat. A rooster will defend the hens and greet the sun in the morning. Chickens eat bugs and garden clippings and kitchen leavings. They will consume most anything. They produce rich manures and turn it into the soil as they scratch. Chickens are a complete soil building system. They support the soil, contribute to organic pest controls, and, in some designs, can help heat a greenhouse. Chickens can be moved about the land, tilling and fertilizing as they go. They can prepare backyard planting beds or even participate in larger agricultural operations. Chickens feed themselves off the land. They contribute more to the system than they use. Another example of a multi-function system would be harvesting water from a building¹s roof into a retaining pond, filtering it through plant roots and, of course, stocking fish for harvest. Nutrient thick fish-water would be used on the garden, fertilizing the soil and releasing the water back into the natural system that leads to the oceans. This makes sense. The water isn¹t held captive, it is put to good use and released undamaged. The water pays many returns. I keep rabbits and, like chickens, they eat the weeds and cut back from my gardens. In return they produce soil building manures, adding to the soil¹s richness and tilth. This is energy cycling. Rabbits, as a  biological resource, capture the sun¹s energy in the plants they eat, use it to live then recycle that energy back into the soil. My bunnies Œwork¹ hard. They are a low maintenance system I use to create life-enhancing gardens that can feed and nurture me, the gardener, as well as loop back into the system. My gardens Œwork.¹ Practicing permaculture is almost a movement and permaculture people are pioneers of new ideas and old ideas, both, in application for creating a better life for humans while at the same time improving conditions for the planet. Gardeners can practice permaculture principles by building ecologically sound, nature-friendly yards. Traditionally gardeners have created fragmented gardens - orderly vegetable rows over here, flower beds there, herbs over there, hidden corner for a wild patch, and lawn everywhere else. Fragmented and unconnected, these all need much tending, Permaculture teaches forest gardening where the growth is wild, yet groomed and nurtured for best health. The forest garden grows into an integrated whole. Vines twine up fruit trees grafted with several varieties of fruit, flowers dance through the perennial food crops where herbs buzz with beneficial pollinators and predators.   Annuals launch their leafy, nutritious foliage.  Forest gardens produce from the treetop canopy to the humus rich floor. Nature does many things at once... soaks up the sun¹s energy, grows plants, provides and purifies water, spins off sustenance for bugs and animals, provides for predator and prey, diversifies species, decomposes the system and creates new fodder for the next seedling... all at the same time. And that is just a tiny chip of the iceberg. Nature multi tasks continually, day and night.  Nature happens again and again, over and over. Permaculture happens, too. At the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute I discovered sanity in an insane world. Finding permaculture knowledge and philosophies being put into action on a sunny hillside of Basalt mountain, was like coming home. Here all kinds of edible forest garden grow. Fruit trees stretch up tall, vines sprawl about lolling in the sun like basking snakes. Herbs florished, and annual crops produced. Food was grown both indoors and out. The sun was collected and put to work. The gardens harvested, the insects understood and valued. Small animals recycled the land through their very systems. People there live off the land; food, medicine, fuel, resources, spiritual sustenance, and the surplus abundance was shared with others or put back into the soil. They still work, sleep, eat well and keep the house warm, but not at the expense of the land. The people live in harmony, benefiting the system that sustains them. So my task, as permaculturist, is to observe and replicate natural patterns. This planet is a whirling dance of patterns and events all interconnected and nested within each other. Time honored and honed, these natural systems run better than any artificial system man can set up. Permaculture works with nature, not against it. Permaculture can integrate our fragmented gardens into living ecosystems that hum and pulse with life, food, beauty and function. Ecosystems are always giving way to change and so are people. Species that cooperate survive better. So cooperate. Care for the earth, care for the people. Rebuild the systems, share in the surplus. We people can enter into the dance of life that urges us into sustainable, conscious living. We simply have to accept the invitation.    c Becky Elder   10-2002