Gidday,

Just as my last course at Zaytuna Farm was ending (a few weeks ago), Geoff (the main teacher there) asked if any one had any questions before the course ended. I did have one, of sorts, but I waited until the end of class and spoke to him privately. I told him that I didn't feel I cognized all the large amount of information given, from either not having yet cultivated an eager interest in the paricular subject, or just by zoning out in the classroom (I was quite good at that, as I think I'm quite bad at learning in a classroom environment). I was kind of looking for some kind of hope from him. I don't remember everything he said to me, but he honestly didn't look at all worried about my statement. He seemed convinced that all the relevant information had gone in subliminally and it was just a matter of researching whatever was necessary for what I had to do in the future. He listed a lot of things that I don't necessarily need to have an interest in, with the exception of 'gardening'. I think when he said this, a penny dropped, so to speak.

Since then I have, at times, taken a sincere interest in botany. Recently, I've quite often fantasized about creating productive, diverse and beautiful kitchen gardens and food forests (also sometimes called forest gardens or agroforestry) attracting all kinds of life, which has motivated me to research about it (along with caring for chickens and ducks which can play a vital role in permaculture gardening, as well as the obvious of giving organic eggs and meat)

Another relieving aspect of not feeling 'I got it all' during the Permaculture Design Course, was Geoff constantly stressing throughout the course: "Getting an understanding of the mainframe of design is far more important than examples of techniques. The devil is in the details." When I caught myself paying no attention whatsoever, I often repeated the phrase 'get the mainframe' like a mantra (I also took notes on a lot of things I didn't follow or understand at the time).

Permaculture is rooted (rooted here, meaning it's the most important thing) in 3 ethics:
1. Care of the Earth
2. Care of People
3. Return of surplus (to the 2 above)
The next most important aspect is principles, then strategies, then techniques. Because Permaculture is synnergistic with so many different disciplines (gardening, farming and architecture, perhaps being the main ones, or some of them) it is clearly impossible to know everything covering this subject, and I for one, am not interested in taking in any information that I don't feel I need to know.

For over a week now I have been WWOOFING at the Southern Cross Permaculture Institute (www.southerncrosspermaculture.com.au) which is about an hour and half away from Melbourne. I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I've mainly been weeding, pruning trees. Other odd jobs have been planting beans for the spring, helping build a new chicken house, digging water pathways for overflowing dams (this is a very high rainfall area as far as Australia goes) and shovelling manure. There's a wealth of relevant research material here for me to study and it's a conducive environment for me to do that. I'll you keep you posted. 

I've designed this blog mainly with the intention recording farm progress, but I'm happy to share things about my understanding in correlation with that progress. In that spirit here's some definitions of permaculture. It apparently has over 30 defintions. Here's some that I found just now:
"The development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient." (dictionary)

"A system of perennial agriculture emphasizing the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems." (dictionary)

"Permaculture uses a set of principles and practices to design sustainable human settlements." (Toby Hemenway)

"Permaculture is a sustainable design system stressing the harmonious interrelationship of humans, plants, animals and the Earth. The core of permaculture is design and the working relationships and connections between all things." (Bill Mollison)

"Permaculture is a way of life which shows us how to make the most of our resources by minimizing waste and maximizing potential. Conscious design of a lifestyle which is highly productive and does not cause environmental damage. Meeting our basic needs and still leaving the earth richer than we found it." (Graham Bell)

"Permaculture offers an understanding of how biological processes are integrated, and it deals primarily with tangibles: plants, soils, water, animal systems, wildlife, bush regeneration, biotechnology, agriculture, forestry, architecture, and society in the areas of economics, land access, bioregions and incomes tied to right livelihood. " (Rosemary Morrow) 

Hi All,

Please excuse me for not writing a post for so long. The only time and place I was able to do it at Zaytuna Farm was in the evening at a common room full of often bubbly (loud) people; a distraction that further impedes my, already lousy, typing skills (pathetic excuse maybe, but I thinks it's fair to call myself an easily distracted, non-multi-tasker. I personally, need to make my environment conducive for the task at hand, and nothing else. This could be as simple as moving a chair & table, or somehow blocking my access to the web, so I'm not tempted to watch 'The Mighty Boosh' (stunning British comedy) on YouTube, as an example).
After the PDC (permaculture design course) Carl and I did a week of WWOOFing then enrolled on the earthworks course, which ended a couple of weeks ago (I type that last statement with great satisfaction; as a fair few people know, I'm not much of a classroom person). Earthworks (mainly for water harvesting) is considered the skeleton of permaculture design. In a nutshell, the land is dug with dams and swales (a level trench on the contour of a slope, with a soft mound on the lower side that absorbs rainfall, in turn slowly and gently soaking into the soil down the rest of the slope), in order to catch and passively spread as much water and nutrients (rainfall coming of trees, for example, will have this) as possible. Earthworks also include any better road access, as well as any levelling of land for structures, like a house.
I thoroughly enjoyed my 7 weeks at Zaytuna farm; the people (of diverse backrounds around the world. I sincerely miss a handful of them) the farming system and it's principles thoroughly rooted in sustainabilty, the lifestyle of farming, and the charm of the place and area itself. Looking back, I'm suprised at how much fun I had there.
On the week after the earthworks course, we embarked on a fruitless property search around southern New South Wales. The next day on our way back through Victoria, we found a seemingly stunning property only 2 and a half hours away from Melbourne. Along with being beautiful, in a beautiful location, it ticks a lot of boxes on a practical level for efficient permaculture design, and is at a good price (I only compare that to every other property we've looked at). We are currently waiting on a couple of things for the owner to do before Carl can put in an offer. (Any person of faith, please pray that we get it! Joke, but please do if you want to)

When I got back to Melbourne there was so much I wanted to study (permaculture covers every bloody aspect of living sustainably. Examples beyond farming are: construction, cooking and food preservation, water havesting, aquaculture to name but a few), but I've honed it down to 2 priorities at the moment. These are organic gardening and chicken farming, as these will be the first things we will be doing (after any earthworks) when we move on to the property (I've suprised myself in the interest I've taken in soil and the importance of it's biology). I'm spending a large part of my days in the library researching these 2 things and if moving onto a property takes much longer I may see if it's possible to do some WWOOFing on a permaculture farm nearby (largely to get some more gardening experience and to see what grows well in this area).

Om Tat Sat