Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Mike Edmonds" <mikee@miva-ltd.com>]

Bill Mollison states that permaculture is a set of directives. He (and
others - not even necessarily of the permaculture community) have already
done the work that achieves the principles of permaculture. (He doesn't
claim that all the discoveries have been made). All one has to do is apply
the work to your circumstances and landscape.

You could also call some of the "directives" patterns or plans.

Some of the directives are particular to zone 1 - which is your garden.

And you can apply as many or as few of these directives as you want. If you
feel uncomfortable calling it permaculture - then don't. Most of them will
work without others, although you may have to supply some of the energy
yourself. I can't recall anyone saying that you have to have zomes 2-5 to be
a permaculturist. (In any case, everyone has a zone 5 - no matter how small
your site. Zone 5 is the area you leave alone to do its own thing. It might
not even be on your own property)

Since permaculture is simply a collection of things that work, some of the
techniques that you can use in the garden may also be called something else
by others. I call my zone 1 garden a permaculture garden - but in reality it
is just a sheet mulched garden built up as described in the Permaculture
Design Manual.

I don't know exactly the answer to your original question, but here is a
direction you can start: Nitrates both leach and runoff. Leaching is
groundwater movement, runoff is surface water. I am not quite sure whether
legumes create nitrates, or some other form of nitrogen. Follow this angle
and you will find your answer.

The usual answer to this question is to intercrop (in space or time) with
legumes in the garden.

Mike


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Jenkins" <medaniel@direcway.com>
To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing"
<livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2006 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Nitrogen behavior


>
>  >I'd answer no.  As for permaculture, my understanding is that, as
> developed by Holmgren and Mollison, it's more a sustainable,
> integrated homestead philosophy than a system for practical home food
> production.<
>
> Thanks Paul.
> I would say that I don't intend to be a permaculture purist, but want
> to incorporate as many of the principles as is practical in my
> situation, with the aim of increasing each season as time, money and
> effort allow.  Primarily in the area of gardening, but I realize
> "gardening" is a pretty simple term to apply to anything resembling
> permaculture as laid out by Mollison.  My hope is to provide
> supplemental food for friends and family, my goats, and wildlife and
> to improve my soil while at the same time using less and less water
> and labor each year. Terry
> _______________________________________________
> Livingontheland mailing list
> Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland