Permaculture. What is it?
You can find complex definitions, descriptions, and guides all over the internet, but here’s a starting place for the general gardener:
Permaculture is garden design that seeks to work with the natural cycles and processes of nature. Its goal is an environment that is rich and abundant and sustainable
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Even if a full permaculture garden feels out of reach, there are so many simple, good ideas we can easily implement in our own spaces.
Here are two resources to inspire you:
A book: Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Ed. An accessible and inspiring read. Learn how to build and maintain soil fertility and structure, catch and conserve water, provide habitat for beneficial insects, birds, and animals, and grow an edible “forest” of seasonal food.
A film: The Biggest Little Farm (2020): A sweet and inspirational documentary. The subject is one couple’s family farm on once-barren land in California, but there’s a lot to inspire home gardeners here. This one might even inspire some of the younger gardeners in your life. A great film for families (though scenes of birth and death might be disturbing for some younger viewers). I was particularly taken with their story of how they brought dead soil back to life.