permaculture

[<permed@nor.com.au>]

Darren wrote:
>Permaculture is a system of design focussed primarily
>on human settlements. Therefore these cultivated systems rely on, to varying
>zone-based degrees, human intervention in their management. Otherwise the
>system will to revert simply to the whims of natural succession.

This is nowhere more evident than in zone 1 annual vegetable gardens 
which are the most labour intensive and yet can provide more of our daily 
food needs than other other systems. 
In effect we are stopping the ecological clock at the first stage of 
succession and to keep it there requires constant or consistent 
intervention.

I've seen well established food forests abandoned for a few years also 
subject to strangulation by vigorous vine, woody and tree pioneers and 
the fruit trees suffering with little or very low production. 
Robyn