How to Grow Perennial Vegetables

Low-maintenance, low-impact vegetable gardening

by Martin Crawford

Forward by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall

Green Books 2012

ppbck 224pp

Martin Crawford is the director of the invaluable Agroforestry Research Trust in Dartington, Devon, and this is his second book, the previous one being the more general and comprehensive Creating a Forest Garden.

This more compact (and portable) manual provides a comprehensive guide to growing perennial vegetables in cool temperate climates.

The first chapter runs through the advantages of growing perennials rather than annual veg- they are less work, since once established they do not need to be started from seed again each year in prepared beds, but simply emerge in the spring when they are ready; they are better for the soil which is left undisturbed; and they are healthier- Crawford includes some useful and interesting tables on comparative nutritinal content of different vegetables, for example Good King Henry Chenapodium bonus-henricus has twice the potassium of carrots and twice the protein content of spinach- a benefit of the perennial’s larger and more established root-systems.

Chapter 2 gives instructions on growing perennials, including establishment, use as ground-covers and in the forest garden and under existing trees, and excellent examples with line drawings of suggested perennial polycultures. Also covered is aquatic perennials, such as Arrowheads Sagittaria spp. and even Water Lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) -for its edible rhizomes.

There next follows a chapter on maintenance, including feeding, soil conditions, pest and disease management, harvesting and propogation. Tables of nitrogen fixing plants, shade-tolerance and mineral accumulators and included, also a box section on Mycorrhizal fungi.

The bulk of the book consists of a catalogue of vegetables A-Z: you will find here the commonly grown perennials such as Rhubarb, Globe Artichokes and Jerusalem Artichokes; well-known herbs such as salad burnet and chives; wild plants like nettles and ramsons; as well as plenty of suprises in lesser known plants such as Giant butterbur or Fuki- (Petasites japonicus) and Quamash (Indian Lilly- Camassia quamash). There is even a perennial wheat.

Giant butterbur on Orcas Island WA

With over a hundred listed in total this book is a delight and packed with information. Maybe Crawford’s enthusiasm might be slightly over-stated- his comment in the first chapter that “in basing our whole civilisation on short-lived plants [annuals] we may have been down a productive but nevertheless destructive cul-de-sac” seems a little over the top and an unnecessary selling point, since we are unlikely to ever substantially replace the world’s major crops with perennials; nonetheless, no-one has done more than Martin to demonstrate the viability of edible forest gardens in this part of the world and there is plenty enough inspiration in this volume to convince the most conventional four-part rotation vegetable gardener that perennials have great potential and should be taken more seriously.

After two weeks of driving it was a relief to bring the car back and get onto the train to Seattle. Amtrak’s Coastal Starlight is considered one of the great scenic train journey’s in the world. Leaving in the evening, it was stunning to wake up and see the early morning light across the plains of southern Oregon.

Volcanoes seen from the train

No shortage of forests in these parts:

Portland had been on the list but in the end I couldn’t spare the time to stop over. This was all I got to see of the city as the train passed through:

A grey and blustery Seattle awaits:

A “P-Patch” community garden brightening up Seattle:

Oregon grape Mahonia Aquifolium in the sculpture park

Jimi:

and the Tango!

After a day looking round the very modern city of Seattle I took a trip into a more primitive lifestyle at Feral Farm, about an hour and a half east from Mount Vernon. Here Matt VanBoven and his friends combine perennial gardens with…roadkill deer. The roadkill- not only deer but that what the fare while I was there- is collected and processed by the residents of Feral farm, the skins tanned, the meat made into jerky or served up in delicious stews. There is a great commentary on Matt from a previous visitor here, with a great photo of Matt and the deer.

There was much discussion of the imminent collapse of the modern world and survival strategies that would be needed thereafter. Matt admitted one of the great drawbacks would be the likely decline of the availability of roadkill post-collapse, and mentioned something about getting a bow-and-arrow (though he didn’t mention how he would manage without the neighbors’ freezer).

Matt was a mine of information about local plants and ecology, and his garden full of fruit. This part of Washington seemed to be berry heaven and new discoveries for me included the Thimbleberry rubus parviflorus:

These are a exquisite- melt in your mouth!

Salmonberries rubus spectabilis are also good- another new one for me:

Matt counting the rings of a giant Douglas Fir

Beneath a giant Western Red Cedar:

In the Forest Garden at Feral Farm

Common Milkweed Asclepias syriaca-something I haven’t yet managed to propagate myself

Pokeweed phytolacca americana- something I am growing successfully, often considered just a weed in the US.

Mat had built some really col mini-cabins, this one with cordwood masonry:

In the Northern Cascades:

As in Yosemite unprecedented late snow- we met folks who were skiing here:

Primeval forest:

Oyster mushrooms:

From Feral Farm I traveled to Anacortes with my guide and local permaculture networker Kelda who had arranged for me to visit the famous Bullock Brothers on Orcas Island. We arrived just at the start of the three week Permaculture Design course. Here Sam Bullock gives the students a tour of the farm:

The Bullock’s extensive permaculture nursery:

The Bullocks became famous some 30 years ago after an appearance on the Cool Temperate episode of Mollison’s Global Gardener series, where they demonstrate the results of grafting apple cultivars onto the wild apples growing in their area. Here is Sam Bullock showing something similar:

Although there was no end of fascinating things to see at the Bullocks’ the most impressive to me was their veggie gardens- one beautiful well-kept and productive garden after another serving the three Bullock families and interns.

Elecampane planted as companion mineral accumulator with apple trees:

Amazing chinampas: a “chinampa” is a mini peninsular or “tongue” extending into a lake or pond providing more edge for growing plants which may thereby need little or no irrigation. A Mexican word, chinampas are used there for growing crops. The Bullocks have constructed lakes and wetlands and dredged up mud to make islands and chinampas on which they have planted willows and fruit trees:

Lots of bamboos:

Giant perennial vegetable called “Fhuki” from Japan:

I was asked to give a presentation on forest gardens in Ireland, which I was pleased to do to the new permaculture students, but was rather embarrassed as one slide after another showed plants that, while fairly unknown outside permaculture circles at home, are commonly found in the forests in the Pacific North West, including Salal Gaultheria Shallon

japanese wineberries, siberian purslane, pokeweed phytolacca americana…

Doug Bullock giving a talk on permaculture history:

View from Orcas twards Vancouver Island:

After a short stay on Orcas I travel back to Seattle and catch another Washington State Ferry to Vashon Island. Puget Sound is eery and atmospheric in the fog:

On Vashon I stayed with friends and past Permaculture students Bob and Jen who live on a wonderful farm run by the local Montessori school.

Bob inspects the tomatillos:

Bob and Jen pick Basil:

Jen, Jamie and Whitney harvest garlic:

Scorzonera and salsify:

Bob takes me around the forests on the island

Our English Ivy is considered a real invasive exotic here- quite a pest in the woods!

There are quite a few smallholdings and farms within a few miles on this idyllic rural island- which has all the peace of west Cork but is just a short ferry ride away from the huge market of Seattle. This is a farm we visited nearby where they were growing wheat on a small scale:

A previous owner had planted hundreds of fruit and nut trees on Bob and Jen’s farm some thirty years ago, including Turkish Hazel:

I spent most of my time picking cherries

which were sold to Molly Moos’ Ice-cream Parlor in Seattle:

Taking the water taxi back to town:

Mount Rainier dominates the landscape from the train heading back to San Francisco:

Panoramic views of San Francisco from Bernal Heights:

The Madrone Tree Arbutus menziesii, native to the Pacific NW and related to our own Strawberry Tree Arbutus Unedo but with much larger fruits:

Leaving the west coast behind the final stop on the American Odyssey was Upstate New York where I visited Christina and Michael near Warwick. Seems there could always be a job for me there pulling pints of Guiness!

A short hike along part of the Appalachian Trail. This is actually in New Jersey:

Very different forest ecology compared to the west coast, mainly deciduous with maples and oaks. Another permaculture plant eleagnis umbellata is common here.

American Balddernut Staphylea trifolia growing in the hedgerow. Inside the bladder-like sacs are small but tasty nuts:

A visit to Sister’s Hill Farm where owner Dave shows us his rotating root-crop washer:

Solar powered tomatoes!

Sister’s Hill is run with the help of interns and volunteers and runs as a CSA- Community Supported Agriculture- shareholders take a share of whatever is in season each week:

Drying onions:

Wine tasting and tour of vineyard nearby:

Details of vine-pruning on a display board:

Last stop: Manhattan. The Empire State Building:

View from the top with the Statue of Liberty a speck in the top right-hand corner:

Haven in the urban jungle- Central Park:

Times Square:

The wikipedia article does a good job of relating all the topics covered in the three episodes, you might want to read that first if you havn’t seen the programs as I’m going to jump around a bit and pick out just some of the ideas that interested me.

The main theme of the series is that from the mid-20thCentury, new ideas emerging from ecology somehow hooked up with evolutionary theory, genetics and computer science to produce the idea that humans and human society, along with the rest of nature, can be understood as machines acting in a system, which are therefore controllable and predictable. Curtis sees this as a dangerous idea, that robs us of our human agency and makes us doubt the existence of free will, especially, the will to change things.

These themes converge dramatically in the Rwanda and Congo: -the Rwandan genocide is portrayed as the result of misguided liberal guilt of the departing Belgian colonialists, who had created artificial tribal conflict in colonial days by propagating the myth of Tutsi superiority; then encouraged the new Hutu government to rise up against the Tutsi minority who had oppressed them during colonial days. This was then exacerbated by misguided involvement of western aid agencies who set up camps which became breeding grounds for more violence; -meanwhile Dian Fossey studied Gorillas in Rwanda, ultimately coming to abuse the local people in efforts to protect the gorillas from poaching; -all this against a backdrop of the rise of computer technology which was fueled by the mining of Coltan in the Congo, spawning a war that has cost 4 million lives in the last 8 years- the computers being the machines which, according to some, then became the way out of economic boom and bust, the way to a stable society which could run itself- like a machine.

The series starts with a look at the influence of Ayn Rand’s influence on the modern world; I have to admit that I had no idea that her objectivist philosophy had had such influence on Alan Greenspan, who was one of here disciples.

While governments had been unable to provide stability in the markets, the advent of computers gave rise to the idea that human society itself could be modeled as a self-regulating system: computers became seen as a medium for liberation and equality. This idea emerged from Silicon valley in the 1970s at the dawn of the computer age. Environmentalist Stewart brand was one of the pioneers, providing one of the links between systems theory and ecology.

But prominent ecologists were already taking on the idea of nature as a self-organising machine. Jay Forrester was an early pioneer of cybernetics, the view that brains, cities and whole societies operated as networks of nodal connections, and that computers would be able to uncover their operating system.

The Odum brothers, Howard and Eugene, developed electronic models of ecosystems based on field data, which they claimed showed how nature self-organised towards balance: the idea of natural balance and the web-of-life. There models became accepted as fact within ecological science.

Although permaculture is not mentioned in the series, Howard Odum was a major influence on permaculture co-founder David Holmgren who dedicated his book “Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability” (2002) to him. He also references cybernetics as another strand of systems thinking, but goes onto say

the influence of systems thinking in my development of permaculture and its design principles has not come through extensive study of the literature, but more through an osmotic absorption of ideas in the “cultural ether” which strike a chord with my own experience in permaculture design. Further, I believe many of the insights of systems thinking that are difficult to grasp as abstractions are truths that are embodied in the stories and myths of indigenous cultures.

His reference to indigenous cultures provides an interesting cross-over of the role of systems thinking in actual machines- computers- to human society and nature- that there is an “intuitive” aspect to this understanding as well as an empirical one.

I had also come across systems theory in the work of Joanna Macey and Deep Ecology, and had a vague feeling then that it was somehow at odds with the “holistic” “intuitive” side of things that Deep Ecology was supposed to be all about. Computers and machines seemed the exact opposite of emotional encounter groups that were the hallmark of Deep Ecology sessions. I see now that the cybernetics part was giving the movement scientific credibility- it was science, with models and graphs and studies to back it up, but of a “holistic” kind. There were also lots of references and general interest within Deep Ecology with New Science, Capra and the Tao of Physics, Buddhism and physics and David Bohm, and so on. (From there you are only a short step away from Deepak Chopra and The Secret.)

So these ideas were taken on by greens and the counter-culture without realizing that they came from something as dry and soulless and mechanistic as computer science- the very antithesis of what the movement imagined itself to be about. “Getting in touch with nature” was supposed to be about the emotions, and spiritual forces, not lines of computer code, a great irony in this whole story which I find quite fascinating.

The idea of human systems was also influential in the next part of Curtis’ narrative, the hippy commune, and one of the greatest migrations out of the cities in America took place during the 1970s as mainly young people flocked to the land to live in small utopian communes which were non-hierarchical -they were supposed to operate like self-regulating systems. Some communes did prosper and thrive and are still around today- like The Farm in Tennesee, although Curtis mentions only that most of them failed after a few months or at most a couple of years. Why? (I lived in two communes for short periods of time; they were both pretty dysfunctional and as was often the case had rapid turnovers of residents. A major course of conflict was the dish-washing rota.)

Perhaps the problem was with the underlying theory of stable, self-regulating eco-systems in the natural world which, as Curtis explains in the documentary, has not stood the test of time. The models that Odum had made were over-simplified; ecology has moved on from the notion of “natural balance” and most ecologists now agree that ecology is about constant dynamic change and adaptation. There may not even be such a thing as a distinct ecosytem anyway, since boundaries are always permeable. (The idea of the whole earth as a system was developed into the Gaia hypothesis by Lovelock, something Curtis only mentions in passing.)

There is no such thing as natural balance, and computer models cannot replicate natural systems very well at all. This is a theme explored by Aynsley Kellow in his book which I reviewed here.

So what does this mean for permaculture? I don’t know, but the idea of a design system based on natural systems does seem to me these days to be metaphorical at best: actually we don’t want our systems to be too much like nature for all sorts of obvious reasons. There are lots of good ideas in permaculture for design and the idea of self-regulation in a designed system makes perfect sense- collecting rainwater, managing perennial landscapes for food- this need not have anything to do with a natural system though. Still, it is interesting that the underlying theory may be based on a completely flawed view of nature.

This idea however went on to inform public policy quite profoundly long after the science had moved on. In 1972 the Club of Rome published The Limits to Growth, based on Forrester’s cybernetics. The report used computer models to forecast the point of overshoot when the population and consumption of people would outweigh the planet’s carrying capacity. This has become a seminal text, one of the foundations of environmentalism, and is still widely referenced today, eg in the preface of “Fleeing Vesuvius”.

Critics claim models are only as good as the data and assumptions that go into them, and that the modelers underestimated the ability of humans to innovate and adapt. Interestingly, Curtis does not mention climate change, although this would be an obvious extension to the narrative: a science relying heavily on models, but with sometimes poor data, trying to integrate human, ecological and climate systems in one huge model, a process that is itself having enormous influence on policy. It is almost as if we believe that, given enough data and computer power, we can predict the future.

Curtis takes these ideas through the east European revolutions in the early 2000s, that used the same idea of non-hierarchical organisation, but that went the same way as the communes: they failed to account for power and inequality already present and soon reverted back into corruption.

Richard Dawkins gets a mention as taking the theory further with the idea of the Selfish Gene (originally invented by William Hamilton): human behavior can be understood as being driven primarily by the impulse of the gene to survive. This doesnt make people selfish necessarily, but it does provide an explanation for things like the Rwandan genocide: from the gene’s point of view, it makes sense to kill our cousins, or at least those not too closely related but not too distantly related either.

Which raises a couple of interesting questions, because if genes mean that we really are like computers and the code is in our genetics, where then does lie free will? This is really the whole point of Curtis’ film, to question the validity of a theory that says, everything can work as an orderly whole, we are just cogs in the machine, so how can we really work to change things? Where can political action come from? Interesting questions, but I am not sure that free will’s existence or otherwise is a testable hypothesis.

Curtis is concerned that seeing ourselves as just part of a system with “natural balance” could be seen as a way of justifying discrimination and apartheid, as had been done by Field Marshall Smuts and his theory of “holism”- everything had a natural place, presided over by white men. In this sense then these ideas of basing human systems on natural systems and striving for some kind of pre-existing balance is far from liberating or progressive, but could lead to oppression and fascism.

So a lot of interesting ideas, covering science, environmentalism and policy. I’m sure I’ll return to explore more them more in the future.

Simon Fairlie

Chelsea Green 2010

pbck 322pp

My name is Graham, I’m 46 years old and I am a born-again carnivore.

Like many of my generation, my first act of rebellion was to become a vegetarian sometime around the age of 14, following in my sister’s footprints and unfairly taking out my concerns for other species on my mother’s cooking, which was mainly of the traditional variety of English food, including a wide range of meat dishes.

“Rich westerners’ eating meat is the equivalent of eating the children of Africa, South America and Asia” admonished a Marxist text that came into my hands around that time, making a profound impression on me: we in the developed rich world were taking more than our fair share of the global pie, and starvation in other countries was the end result.

Clearly we had blood on our hands, of both the animals themseleves and that of the poor. The reasons for this were that it takes several times more land and resources to feed omnivores than it does vegetarians; in a world where many were brought up to “eat what I was given because there are starving in Africa” meat became a symbol for extravagance and exploitation.

I dont think I ever really took an ideological postion regarding humans’ right or otherwise to take the life of animals for food. Social justice and environmental concerns were paramount- it seemed obvious to me then that land taken for animals was not available for the greater biodiversity afforded by woodlands, and thus an early interest in trees drew me naturally to permaculture with its vision of forest gardens and great diversity combined with habitat.

By this time, in the mid-1980s I was living in a small rural commune on the Welsh borders where I had gone to learn to grow vegetables. This happened to be a vegan commune, and although I was never ideologically a vegan, I was happy to partake of the vegan diet and learn the pleasures of home-made soya milk and tofu. One year we even grew a reasonable crop of soya beans.

There were however at least two broad categories of vegan in this commune. On the one hand, there were those from an urban Animal Rights background, who were not too fussy about other considerations such as food miles, or whether their food included meat-substitutes like TVP, and were happy to eat white bread and even to go skip-diving for free food. Anything went so long as it was vegan, and this extended to other animal products such as clothing and footwear. They had ties with hunt saboteurs and wanted to give over some of our land for ailing sheep as an animal sanctuary.

On the other hand there were other vegans there who just didnt like animals. They wouldnt tolerate pets of any kind, much less farmed animals, retired or otherwise; land was for growing vegetables or natural habitat, period. This group tended to be much more purist about food on many levels- had to be organic and wholefood, while they didnt object so much to leather clothes.

I abandoned the vegan diet towards the end of my stay in the commune in the midst of what I thought of as The Vegan Wars, but almost never ate meat until much more recently when I moved to West Cork and meat has become a once or twice weekly part of my diet- much to the relief of my mother for now when I visit she no longer has to make a special vegetarian dish.

Here I am surrounded by small-holders who often keep some animals and local meat, fish and poultry are readily available. While factory farming has always been distasteful to me and the problems of a diet of meat three times a day seem all too obvious, I have long been persuaded at the environmental benefits of eating some meat and the ecological functions of animals in a permaculture system.

It is to these, and many other, issues of meat, veganism and farming that land rights activist Simon Fairlie, editor of The Land Magazine has addressed his fascinating book “Meat- A Benign Extravagance”.

The book is information dense, packed with statistics and graphs,and Fairlie gives a comprehensive analysis of many aspects of meat, farming and sustainability.

Interestingly, he states in the opening section that it is specifically to counter the arguments put forward by vegans that he has written the book.

His initial chapters are aimed at addressing a common figure quoted by many in the environmental movement, that it takes around 10 times the land to feed a meat eater as it does a vegetarian. Fairlie’s analysis shows how difficult this is to actually quantify: not all meat is the same; pigs traditionally were able to eat food and crop wastes and so didnt necessarily take any land; sheep can run around happily gathering nutrients from marginal land not suited to crops; farm animals can also provide other yields and services, the most important of which is manure to add fertility, without which the vegan would require more land for green manures.

Two other important points he makes which are often missing from this debate: first, that animals can be herded and shepherded, thus making the default farming system of the landless poor; second, that keeping animals acts as a buffer against shortages, allowing feed to be diverted quickly for human consumption in times of hardship or failed crops- a function that works apparently both on the small farm scale, as well as the global scale.

Fairlie has done an important analysis of 8 different land use models and calculated the land requirements to feed Britain, comparing each of organic/chemical (conventional) versions of vegan, livestock and permaculture systems.

Because organic yields of wheat and potatoes are only 60% of conventional production, and the need for grain to feed high-yielding beef and dairy cows, he concludes orthodox organic livestock-farming would have the most difficulty feeding Britain on the available land, but that with the use of traditional and permacultural practices to enhance the nutrient cycling abilities of animals, together with more dispersed production and rural settlement, this could be improved significantly.

Fairlie concludes that the actual figure is much more favourable to meat production than conventionally believed, taking all factors into consideration “the effective ratio of human edible feed to meat and other animal products in US feedlot beef comes to about 3.2:1″

Having established this- and making a strong case that the ecological benefits could outweigh the extra land with good animal husbandry- Fairlie then takes on the vegans first hand: what would the British landscape look like if it were all vegan? He suggests that few vegans have really contemplated this, and that we break our long-standing relationship with animals at out peril: the immediate question for the stockless gardener becomes, how to deal with the pests- from slugs to deer- if we cannot kill them, and what indeed will our relationship to the natural world be at all if all the unused land is simply fenced off, as Failrlie envisages would be the case if some strands of vegan thought were carried to their logical conclusion. He pokes fun at the vegans:

Nothing causes sleepless nights for conscience-stricken vegans so much as the sound of rats scuttling in the cavities in their walls.

Worse than that, is the danger of vegan dystopias of concentrated high-tech urban settlements, with vegan food produced entirley without animals in labs, possibly including synthetic meat cultured from artificial animal tissue, genetic engineering, and even transhumanism. Such visions of the future are promoted for example by influential vegan philopsopher Peter Singer, who apparently sees such developments as the logical result of a Buddhist concern to reduce suffering.

Those of us who value the natural world, and more especially our relations with members of the animal kingdom, wild and domestic, would do well to keep an eye on the vegan agenda, for it may not turn out to be quite as meek, disinterested and innocuous as it might seem.

He even takes on Greenpeace and other activists who continue to oppose whaling even of species whos stocks have increased beyond danger levels, and defends the rights of the hunter:

To the extent that they campaign against whaling on humane grounds, WWF, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherdand the like are no longer protectors of the environment, but have set themselves up as the world’s ethical policemen.

Fairlie goes onto argue that this dysfunctional vegan ethic has had a disproportionate influence on the permaculture movement, and gives an analyisis of the core text for cool temperate permaculture, Whitefield’s “The Earth Care Manual”, which he says reflects the general permaculture bias towards nuts, woodlands and forest gardens and hardly any mention of grass:

What some seem to forget is that permanent grass is an entire ecosystem of perennial species (with its own stacking system) which doesn’t have any above-ground infrastructure to maintain” and goes on to sing the virtues of grass: “it is highly bio-diverse and resilient, it creates organic matter in the soil, it introduces nitrogen and improves fertility, its fertility can be moved easily from one place to another with the aid of animals, it can be cut up for mulch, it opens up ground for sunlight, it can be walked on or driven on when mown or grazed, it is the easiest surface for picking up windfalls or shaken fruit, and it is good for playing football on.

In similar vein, Fairlie takes issue with recent claims that ruminants contribute to significant amounts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions through their release of methane, which he argues are exaggerated and hide pressure for policy to favour a move towards intensive models over pastoral practices, at the expense of tackling the real causes of climate change,which is clearly burning fossil fuels.

Fairlie hardly tries to hide his own ideological bias: a small holder and stock-keeper himself, he clearly feels a strong cultural and “spiritual” need for our traditional relationships with animals in addition to the environmental benefits.

He lets his ideology run away with him however when he dismisses genetic engineering as part of a techno dystopia, in opposition to the pre-industrial rural lifestyle he clearly favours; and he criticizes initiatives like The Declaration in Support of Protecting Nature with high Yielding Farming and Forestry signed by 800 scientists and pundits of the Center for Global Food Issues:

The gist of this declaration …is that to provide sufficient nitrogen to feed a future population of 8.5billion which industrialisation will spawn, we will have to resort not only to nitrogen and other fertilisers but also to genetic manipulation. Any attempt to secure nitrogen and other nutrients through organic means would require undue encroachment upon natural habitats- if not their total destruction. If we want to feed the world and preserve biodiversity then we’d better continue with industrial agriculture. Rather than share agricultural land with nature we should spare land elsewhere. To protect nature we have to farm unnaturally.

It is a shame Fairlie does not seem aware of the essential “Tomorrow’s table” by Ronald and Adamchuk which argues that GE and Organics make the perfect bedfellows- precisely because GE is a biological, rather than a chemical approach. One might ask, what is the meaning of the world “unnaturally” in the last sentence. Why should GE be any more “unnatural” than conventional plant breeding, or indeed than any other use of technology, agricultural or otherwise? GE is just another technology, which could be and I believe is being used to help organic farmers also, and to make organic farming more competitive and sustainable- surely something Fairlie would welcome as part of his hoped for “biological agricultural revolution”.

Fairlie then goes on on the next page to accept that it is nonetheless hard to believe these more integrated, small-scale and low-tech approaches could work for the burgeoning populations in countries such as China, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Egypt, thus tacitly accepting that Center for Global Food Issues are largely correct: it is the richer countries who now do indeed have the luxury to examine their food and farming systems critically, for there is clearly huge scope for improvement; but Fairlie is wrong rubbish the Green Revolution as benefiting only the rich at the expense of the poor, as it clearly did achieve its aims of feeding millions of people and staving off famines.

He misses the point that Paalberg makes (“Starved for Science”), that the majority of the remaining hungry people in the world are in Africa where they have not yet had the benefits of the Green Revolution, and where they are already practicing traditional organic small-scale agriculture- that is why they are hungry and poor because yields are so low.

Fairlie also gives a hard time to the Haber-Bosch method of manufacturing artificial fertliser from the air: both scientists were associated with the Nazis, Haber supported the war effort and developed the chlorine poison gas; he later became head of the chemical Warfare Service but was discovered to be a Jew and removed from his post. He died in 1934 befroe he could see the gas he had helped develop be used in the death camps.

So Fairlie asks the interesting question, since the fertilisers we use were a bye-product of the war, what would have happened had we not revolutionized farming with them,increasing yields but creating a dependence on fossil energy and interfering with traditional practices of nutrient cycling in the farm? Could humanity have not taken a different path?

This rather smacks of romaticism to me: certainly chemical farming did help displace people from the land, but this process was already underway for other reasons, for example developments in horse-drawn machinery, which was already reducing the labour force on the land and causing migrations to the city. It is an interesting question, but I think one of those “what ifs?” that could be asked equally of every other major technological development we have seen- perhaps even going back to the discovery of fire.

Fairlie fails to make a convincing critical appraisal of his own clearly stated bias against modernity and preference for what appears to be a mode of living somewhere around 2-300 years ago, where people were poor but happy, living in small family groups and villages with a cow and a couple of pigs and going to country fayres. No mention of how for example education would have to be rather severely curtailed if we all went back to the land to this degree, nor any discussion of the downside of the typically conservative, religious and even oppressive values held in many rural communities, or the historic vulnerability to famines, both of which may have contributed to people fleeing the countryside when they got a chance to. Perceived negatives in this Fairlie’s romantic vision are all dismissed as a result of the pressures of capitalism and the march of modernity forcing people off the land.

Fairlie’s book is an important contribution to permaculture, and discussions on animals in farming and diet, and more broadly, humans place in relationship to nature and the landscape in an increasingly urbanised world. He does a very good job of unpacking the ideologies behind some aspects of vegan movement and asks some very interesting questions about how this may be have created a strong vegan bias within the permaculture movement, and made a strong case that an element of meat in the diet- albeit a modest component- can still be sustainable and that farm animals play a crucial ecological function in the landscape.

I admire Fairlie’s work with The Land and of course as a rural permaculturalist I support moves to make it easier for people to create sustainable livelihoods for themseleves on the land.

I suspect however that far fewer people than he thinks really want to do this, and for good reasons: the city offers more opportunities in many ways, and life on the land is far harder for a society as a whole without various backups than he suggests. I dont accept Fairlie’s general view, the conventional one within the environmental movement, that times were necessarily better in the agrarian past at some undefined point, and people have always been forced off the land against their will;

nor do I assume as he does that people living even more post-industrial lives than they do now, would necessarily be any less happy than the self-sufficient small-holder, even if they were fed on synthesised meat tissue grown in a lab. I dont have such a horror of possible future technologies, nor do I have such a contempt for the life of the urbanite.

In fact I do wonder just where exactly Fairlie is actually coming from when I read this extraordinary statement in the final chapter:

The natural world is controlled by God, while the technological world is controlled by scientists. Both are tyrannical, but as tyrants go the former has a better record than the latter.

At this point I part company entirely with the author, who although he has done a good job of exposing some of the more extreme warped versions of what “nature” means in the end may be just trying to replace them with another, equally fanciful, of his own making

I am however glad to have such a well-researched and argued book to back me up as I go off to cook me sausages.

Actually they are not mine, but the logs were inoculated about 2 years (!) ago by permaculture students during a field trip to John Dolan’s site near Ballingeary, West Cork.

Dowels inoculated with mushroom spawn were purchased from Ann Miller’s Specialty Mushrooms. Holes are drilled into the logs- birch in this case- every few inches, and sealed with wax.

This should be done about 2 weeks after felling the logs, but no longer than 6 weeks after- seemingly when the logs are just cut they may have resistance to colonization by fungi, while if you leave them too long they will quickly be colonized by some other fungi that you might not want!

The logs should be kept in a moist dark place, care needs to be taken to ensure they do not dry out. They can be wrapped in black plastic sacks for the first few months. After 6months to a year- Oyster mushrooms can fruit from about 6 months onwards- the logs can be “shocked” to try to promote fruiting, by soaking in water for 24 hours and then banging them on the ground a few times which is supposed to simulate a branch falling.

Growing mushrooms on logs is a fantastic way to add yields to forest gardens and add value to firewood, and an ideal activity for wet cloudy climates such as Ireland.

John told us the very week they started to fruit he had a volunteer from Japan staying who was… an expert mushroom chef! She was able to show him how best to flame-cook them. Tasty!

Above: rocket stove (foreground) and Storm Kettle behind

This was made out of a Feta cheese tin from the local wholefoods shop and a piece of single-wall stainless steel flu pipe attached to a 90degree bend (which cost about 30 euros). You cut the top off the tin with a pair of tin-snips and make a hole in the lid which then is pushed down into the tin forming a collar to support the flu; the 90degree elbow goes out the bottom through a similar hole in the side of the tin. The tin is filled with ash for insulation (before you slide the lid back over…).

Here is a neat video explaining exactly how to do it.

The stove works on the principle of the insulation allowing a hotter burn- so it is very efficient. We tried a little demo on the course for fun, with two teams, one making tea on the rocket stove, the other with a Storm Kettle. The stove one hands down- ok it wasnt really a fair test. the other team hadnt even managed to get the fire lit by the time our kettle had boiled!

I also recently bought a rocket stove from Wildstoves:

This is the StoveTec Wood & Charcoal Combination Rocket Stove I have been using it mainly for making tea outside whenever the weather is fine, which has been quite a bit lately. It is also easy to use, and well designed, very efficient- start the fire with a few shavings and a few minutes later with just three or four thumb-thickness sticks you have boiling water.

The stove is built to last, and has a handy steel rack for laying the sticks onto, which can then be pushed into the firebox as the burn. Also comes with a windshield, and this one has a ceramic brick you can insert into the firebox to protect the door from burning out when using charcoal.

I have yet to spend time cooking on it, but it would also be ideal to take camping if you have a vehicle. Also would be ideal next to the pizza oven for cooking up the source.

Wildstoves do a range of great looking stoves, including tiny ones for back-packing; if you want to make your own rocket stove (see above) they also supply DIY Rocket Stove elbows.

Another great source of information on stoves is WorldStoves.com

They work in developing countries where they set up factories to use local materials and skills to produce pyrolytic stoves- stoves which convert the fuel- which can be almost any biomass- into charcoal, which can be used as a soil amendment known as biochar. They have recently completed a project in Haiti.

The stoves are extremely efficient, combusting the wood gases also, thus saving wood and cutting down oin respiratory diseases common in many countries caused by cooking fires.

Another great source of information for DIY stove enthusiasts is the Aprovecho Research Centre, who design the StoveTec stoves.

Download their Capturing Heat pdf for details on more deigns for innovative stoves.

Happy stoving!

Click here for MP3

Albert defends Steiner on the basis that Anthroposophy has created a “tribe” which he sees as a good thing. In reality, Anthroposophy is more like a cult, which obscures its intentions, and is doing untold harm in persuading people that just making stuff up is somehow just as good as scientific experimentation. Albert gives an uncritical appraisal of Steiner’s contributions to education, social care and organic farming, claiming that it provides a “holistic world view” lacking in reductionist, mechanistic approaches.

I have blogged on zone5 about biodynamics before, describing what it is, reviewing some of the scientific evidence, and explaining why it can have no place in permaculture.

BD is a system of superstition, based on astrology, sympathetic magic and animal sacrifice, believed to be true entirely on the say so of Rudolph Steiner, who never gardened or farmed himself, and claimed his knowledge came from clairvoyance, not scientific experimentation.

It is surely obvious that the reason people think it “works” is because they are doing all the things right that you need to do anyway to be a successful gardener or farmer. The superstition has nothing to do with it, although it can be argued that BD growers do well because they are more committed and spend more time in the field, and pay more attention to detail.

Anecdotes such as “I smelled the soil on a BD farm, it was wonderful!” are not science. Anecdotally I can tell you that people regularly come to my own garden, smell the soil and say “how do you get such rich black soil, it smells wonderful!”

Now, if I told them it was because I work with cycles of the moon and hang deer bladders from trees which I then add to the compost to bring down etheric energies, maybe that would be enough to convert them to BD.

Permaculture however is based on a scientific understanding of ecology, also physics, chemistry etc; so something as wacky as BD that lies far outside anything verifiable by science can play no role here.

Call a spade a spade: BD- and the occult philosophy of Anthroposophy it is a part of- is a religion. As such it can have no more part in permaculture than any religion- eg. how would permaculture students respond i wonder if I told them in a class that praying to Mecca five times a day will help the plants grow?

At this point folk will probably ask “what’s the harm?” but this is unfortunately easily answered.

BD is not just any old superstitious woo, but part of what has been called the most successful form of ‘alternative’ religion in the [twentieth] century, with hundreds of organisations worldwide including banks (Triodos), schools and colleges, and the social care Camphill Communities.

This is all very impressive- would that permaculture had achieved as much!- and therein lies the real danger, because underneath the superficial similarities with the aims of permaculturalists of alternative education, community care, organic gardening etc. lies a seriously dysfunctional ideology of anti-science and mystic racism.

Anthroposophy had historic connections with the rise of Nazism and propagates notions of Aryan supremacy, as has been extensively researched by Peter Staudenmeier.

The education system of Steiner-Waldorf schools is based on Steiner’s racist beliefs about karmic incarnation:

On the one hand there is the black race, which is the most earthly. When this race goes toward the West, it dies out. Then there is the yellow race, in the middle between the earth and the cosmos. When this race goes toward the East, it turns brown, it attaches itself too much to the cosmos and dies out. The white race is the race of the future, the spiritually creative race.

http://sites.google.com/site/waldorfwatch/steiners-racism

For many years now there has been a growing movement by parents disaffected with the covert aims of Steiner-Waldorf education, which is not to educate but to somehow guide the child’s “soul-journey”. Pity is, neither parents nor children are told exactly what is going on, while the schools themselves continue to pose as a more child-focused, alternative educational choice in order to seek state funding. In fact, they are part of a growing organisation based on a shadowy occult religion, where poor academic standards, cultish beliefs about racial purity, bullying (“it’s his/her karma”) and hard-core astrological mumbo-jumbo all-too-often prevail.

The Camphill Communities, run on Anthroposophical lines, might look like a benevolent form of social care but in fact often are based on the religious belief of Karma, ie that the physically or mentally impaired are so for karmic reasons, such as wrong-doing in a previous life.

What exactly the aims of this religion are is difficult to say, but like all religions Anthroposophy is trying hard to propagate itself, and the environmental movement, organics and now permaculture as well are all easy targets which have become vehicles for distributing a frankly vile set of beliefs.

Compost Teas- evidence that Biodynamics works?

In Albert’s interview, he points to the work of the controversial Elaine Ingham with aerated compost teas (ACTs) as evidence that Steiner was really onto something.

There seems little if any scientific research that actually supports the claims made by Ingham and her company Soil Foodweb, which sells costly tea brewers and other bits of kit.

Most scientists and reputable organizations are dubious at best. See for example this paper by Linda Chalker-Scott

and this discussion on The Garden Rant

Here is another useful discussion:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/verm/msg0620302417324.html

The upshot seems to be:

-there is little evidence ACTs work or do what they claim;

-there is a real danger of contamination with E.coli because those organisms may also be increased by the aeration process;

-the claims made seem to be more marketing hype than science, and involve the purchase of expensive equipment and the use of electricity to make the teas;

-even if they do have some benefit, you can achieve the same with simpler, cheaper and well-tried and tested methods, like just using compost itself, good mulches, no-till methods etc..

Moreover, I don’t think it is true to say that the use of ACTs a la Ingham actually replicate anything Steiner was really saying; in fact BD is often credited with being on a par with another pseudoscience, homeopathy, as described on the Village Community Farm page:

The farm is not only organic (no artificial fertilisers or pesticides) but is also Bio-dynamic -a method which aims to improve the health and fertility of the land through preparations similar to homeopathy.

Now, homeopathy is essentially no treatment at all- it is just water. So a homeopathic addition of soil nutrients or micro-organisms would be no use at all unless you believe in Steiner’s woo. Indeed, my own experiences of working alongside BD-trained gardeners in Co. Monaghan some years ago were that they clearly believed they were sprinkling magic water “homeopathically” (I dont think they actually used the word) over the land to “bring down the etheric forces” to protect and energize the plants.

The BD method of making the “preparations” involved hand-stirring a bucket of the tea for an hour or so at a certain phase of the moon- a far cry from what is demanded to make ACT, 24hrs of constant mechanical bubbling in a special tea-maker.

In Permaculture there are the Ethical Principles of “Care of the Earth, Care of the People, and Fair Shares”. Care of the People must include in my view giving the best information we can based on science, and protecting the more vulnerable from pseudoscience, snake-oil salesmen and other hocus-pocus. Permaculturalists everywhere should inform themselves about Anthroposophy and how it operates in the world and reject it as having anything useful to offer.

Further reading

Biodynamics is a Hoax

Peter Staudenmaier

Waldorf Critics

Waldorf watch

Zooey’s Blog

Nagara

The Skeptic’s Guide to Biodynamic Wine

The first day will include charcoal making (a potential business opportunity), biochar (which improves soil while also combating climate change), rocket stoves, DIY stoves, site surveying & observation techniques, basic triangulation, measurement and levels.

One of the main practicals for the day will be charcoal & biochar making.

The second day will focus on forest gardening, which is an approach that works with nature as much as possible, to generate a high food yield with minimum effort.

Topics for the day include natural succession, deciduous forest layers, canopy distances, wild plants and canopy design. The main practical exercise for the day will focus around design & work in the new forest garden at Carraig Dúlra organic farm.

Both days are open to beginners, however those with some Permaculture experience will also benefit from the practical exercises and demonstrations. You can attend one or both days.

This event takes place at Carraig Dúlra organic farm in Glenealy, Co Wicklow. Participants are welcome to camp at the farm during the course. The cost for the event is €60 each day (coffee/tea/camping included), and pre-booking is required.

More information and booking: Carraig Dúlra · Glenealy, Co Wicklow info@dulra.org · www.dulra.org/practical-permaculture · 0404 69570

Working with nature to grow edible Crops

by Martin Crawford

Green Books Hardback 384 pp

Forward by Rob Hopkins

Martin Crawford, Director of the Agroforestry Research Trust in Devon, UK, has produced a beautiful and practical book which seems sure to become the definitive text for cool temperate forest gardens.

As part of his work at the ART Martin is already the author of many encyclopedic manuals covering dozens of topics and thousands of plants, and has been producing the essential Agroforestry News since he began his forest garden in the Dartington estate 15 years ago.

Above: Martin engulfed by bamboo with Italian Alder growing behind him at his garden at the ART

Creating a Forest Garden is eminently practical and down-to-earth, packed with information and good advice, and illustrated throughout with really gorgeous colour photos, including many full-page ones making it of interest to the general lover of plants and gardens as well as the serious forest garden designer. As such it succeeds in bringing together the technical issues of forest garden design, comprehensive details on edible and useful plants as well as introducing the concept to the non-specialist.

The concept of edible “food forests” -combining tree crops such as top fruit and nuts with various understory layers such as small and large shrubs, perennial vegetables, ground-covers, herbs and climbers- expresses many of the principles of permaculture: multiple function; stacking different layers; diversity and use of biological functions such as nitrogen fixing plants.

The book is clearly laid out into three sections:

Part 1 How Forest gardens Work

This section introduces the reader to the concept of forest gardens and how they evolved in British climates from the work of Robert Hart;

There follows a survey of forest garden features and products;

a fascinating look at the effects of climate change on the UK climate and the relevance of forest gardens to landscapes resilient to these changes;

and a brief discussion on the “native-exotic” debate- Martin points out that many definitions of what constitutes a “native plant” are in fact arbitrary:

…plants introduced by other animals to a new area are “allowed” as native but those introduced by humans (deliberately or not) are not. This is an example of the all-too-common attitude of the last few centuries, of humans being separated off from the natural world as though they are not a part of it. Just look where that has lead us!

This is an important issue to forest gardeners – as Martin points out, the range of “native” wild edibles is quite small in this part of the world; productive forest gardens here will need to introduce many plants, but it should be remembered that few of our food corps- much less ornamental shrubs- are actually “native” anyway.

This section ends with a detailed look at fertility in forest gardens. Martin shows how to make an assessment of the nutrient demands of your plants and average this out over the area you have, and then how to calculate how to meet this demand from nitrogen fixing plants and mineral accumulators like comfrey.

This key idea in forest gardens of achieving a high degree of self-maintenance is one of the great strengths of Martin’s approach. Unlike conventional annual veg growing, which tends to rely on inputs of manures for fertility, a forest garden would ideally cycle its own nutrients as far as possible and limit any extra inputs.

Part 2 Designing Your Forest Garden explains the other major aspect of the self-maintaining nature of edible forest gardens- they should have perennial or evergreen groundcovers to minimize weeds.

The key to this is how to establish useful ground covers that you want in the first place. In the book Martin shows how to first eliminate the existing vegetation with plastic or cardboard mulches, which should be down for a year before removing and then planting the area with suitable beneficial ground cover plants. In my experience this is the aspect of forest gardening that is most commonly neglected or poorly implemented- people’s initial interest tends to draw them to the trees and shrubs, but in many ways it seems to me that it is the perennial vegetable and ground cover layers that really define it as such- rather than an orchard with grass that needs mowing, and this takes careful preparation and selection of species.

The chapter on growing your own plants will be essential to most gardeners- the number of ground cover plants needed to fill a space quickly and keep those weeds down can be considerable and beyond most people’s budget. Martin takes you through the main propagation techniques for a range of plants including grafting trees and shrubs.

Chapters 9 and 10 take the reader from first design steps -starting with the selection of a suitable site if one is the market for buying land- and the important aspect of wind-break design.

Then follows a series of chapters for designing each in turn the canopy layer; the shrub layer; the herbaceous perennial and ground-cover layers; and annuals, biennials and climbers, with a chapter for each with comprehensive plant lists that make for hours of happy browsing and nearly justify the book purchase on their own

Part 3 Extra Design Elements and Maintenance covers the landscape features of paths and clearings and how design them into your forest garden for maximum light.

This followed by a chapter on one of the most fascinating potential yields that an be added into a forest garden- edible fungi and how to grow them on logs or sawdust;

-harvesting and preserving- tips on what to do once you have an abundance of yields;

and finally chapters on maintenance, including weeding (which is essential but should take minimal time in a forest garden) and pest control; and ongoing tasks.

Four useful glossary’s are found at the back of the book: Propagation tables; trees and shrubs for hedging and fencing; plants to attract beneficial insects; and edible crops by month of use.

Resources- useful organizations, suppliers and publications- complete the book

There is very little I could suggest to improve this comprehensive book. I would have liked to see a couple of references to research in places- for example in the first chapter he states “there is plenty of evidence that crops from perennial plants tend to be more nutritious than similar plants from annual plants”- it would be interesting to have some references to follow up.

My visit to Martin’s 2-acre forest garden in 2008 was an inspiration, reinvigorating my interest in the potential of the concept, and showing how multiple yields can be obtained efficiently with relatively little maintenance required.

While there is still little data to demonstrate to what extent forest gardens can really feed people in this part of the world- Martin does not claim they can or should completely replace annual vegetable gardens or conventional farming- this wonderful book is another demonstration of how the edible forest garden concept can successfully integrate productive food gardens with diverse habitats, and providing many other ecological and aesthetic qualities. It is sure to inspire many more new forest gardens and gardeners over the coming years.

Drama tutors Belinda and Ian Wild

Although a big part of the theater’s appeal and charm is its open-air status, this has proved a nerve-racking experience for the drama tutors and students who had to cancel a couple of precious performances one year, or on occasion have been performing in heavy rain.

A temporary cover was in place last year but this year saw the creation of a stunning addition of a double-reciprocal-frame roof over the seating area, constructed by chainsaw-wizard Christy Collard.

Christy also helped with the outdoor kitchen nestled just below the amphitheatre, completed last year.

Pizza oven in outdoor kitchen

I also chose the reciprocal frame for my first building as tutor here, the Cordwood Roundhouse, built just behind the stage, for use as a classroom and changing room for actors during performances.

This was actually built as a training building, a composition of different styles and methods, including cordwood and cob- “cobwood”- a straw-bale wall to the north, hemp-lime and clay straw in a stud wall to the west. It is now approaching completion and can be used as classroom and workshop from next year.

“Natural building” usually refers to the use of natural materials such as cob, straw-bale, round-poles etc, but this year I made a radical departure with the introduction of the college’s first stud-frame timber building, which has proved a huge success in training students in specific skills. Alex Gazzaniga, already known to Zone5 readers for my compost toilet has taught this course with us and done a great job.

Finally, I should not forget the first building constructed by the permaculture course, a delightful small straw-bale cottage.

The opportunity to be involved in the design and construction of our own buildings and classrooms at Kinsale College is a unique opportunity for students and staff and we are very proud of all these buildings.

Despite the constraints of space in a small campus, we will continue to build new innovative structures and do our best to inspire and train the next generation of green building students.

Thanks to all the students and building tutors over the years who have helped make the Kinsale college such a special place.

This year’s college play will be Shakespeare’s “Love Labours Lost” at the college amphitheater May 6,7,8; and 12,13,14 and 15th at 8pm College Box office: 086 3648112