> I think the thing that creeps me out the most is that these trees do
> not give me the sense of working with nature, but making nature your
> bitch.
Paul, I think the problem here is a matter of degree.
If you stake your tomatoes (or even pinch out the top or side
shoots) are you treating that plant as your biatch, or does this
fall within the acceptable limits of what you can do to a plant?
> My impression of permaculture is coming
> up with systems where you can walk away and just come back for the
> harvest each year.
This works well for systems based around perennials, but doesn't
scale so well with to vegetable garden (assuming you decide you
need one). You can reduce the effort, but it's still going to be a
comparatively intensive operation.
Perhaps if you considered these trees as an annexe to the high-
intensive vege patch rather than the low-maintenance rambling
orchard, they'd sit better with you.
> And are being shaped
> to something that nature did not intend.
Did nature intend you to come along and cut your comfrey and
alfalfa down to the ground several times a year, shift it into a big
pile, mix it up with animal poo then scatter the results around your
garden?
Did nature intend carrots to grow anywhere other than the
middle east?
Oranges and bananas to grow sans seeds?
I have a hard time with any anthropomorphism of nature, but this
is a particularly tenuous claim.
I don't think I'm prepared to defend the unstated claim that what
this lass was doing 'is permaculture' .. but I will happily (as above)
point holes in any argument, coming from a permaculturist, that is
predicated on the 'we leave nature alone' myth. This is absolutely
not what we do.
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