Permaculture: Grow food by mimicking nature—how to create a diverse, easy-care and self-sufficient garden
Would you like to discover the secrets of permaculture? This cultivation method improves soil health and enhances biodiversity, guided by nature. Its aim is a garden that provides food not only for the gardener but for many other species as well.
1. Take inspiration from nature
The principles of permaculture are work well in eco-friendly gardening. Learn to take inspiration from nature and from the interaction of all its elements: how the soil works, which plants naturally thrive where, how water moves, and where it tends to naturally accumulate.
2. Grow many different species
Even a small area can yield plenty of edible produce if you plant as many different species as possible side by side, ideally ones that mature at different times. A diverse selection of plants also ensures you still get a harvest even if everything goes wrong with one species.
3. Avoid digging
Make new plantings on top of the soil in raised beds. Tilling disturbs the small organisms working in the soil and weakens its structure. With gentle care, the soil’s condition improves, while the need for fertilizing and the number of weeds decrease.
4. Plant in guilds
Group together plants that benefit from and support each other; plants that fix nitrogen, loosen the soil with their roots, attract beneficial insects, protect the soil surface, or repel pests with their scent. These mixed plantings are known as plant guilds.
5. Fall in love with unbred varieties
Opt for wild, native species and only lightly bred plants, as they tend to be more resilient than heavily cultivated varieties. They require minimal care and often tolerate dry conditions well. Chives, calendulas, and numerous other flowers also provide pollen and nectar for pollinators all summer long.
6. Invest in planning
Cultivating a broad range of plants requires organization, especially in the initial stages. Each year, make a record of at least your planting plan and your most important observations from the growing season.
A diverse plant selection improves soil health and increases the overall harvest.
7. Don’t stress about weeds
If a plant that appears in your garden on its own doesn’t crowd out your sown or planted species, let it continue growing among the seedlings. For instance, borage or lacy phacelia seedlings typically don’t pose a problem for other plants.
8. Use water wisely
Favor rainwater over tap water for irrigation. Rainfall and the greatest need for watering don’t often coincide, so you may need to store water. Channel rainwater from roofs into tanks to use when needed. You can find affordable, cubic plastic tanks on online flea markets. If you have access to well water, it’s a good idea to pump it into tanks so it can warm up, as plants don’t like cold water.
9. Cover with mulch
Mulch any bare soil with straw, leaves, chopped plant matter, or compostable waste. The mulch layer helps suppress weeds, and the soil underneath remains warm, soft, and crumbly. It also prevents moisture from evaporating out of the soil. As the mulch breaks down, it gradually adds organic matter—humus—to the soil, which increases its water-holding capacity over time.
10. Add biochar
Use biochar made from twigs or other organic matter. It retains moisture and nutrients for plants and improves the soil and the living conditions of the micro-organisms in the soil. It also works well as compost bedding.
11. Make your own liquid fertilizers
Don’t buy fertilizers—utilize materials from your own garden! For example, soaking chopped nettle or comfrey in water creates a nitrogen-rich liquid in just a few days. Dilute it with water at a 1:10 ratio before using it.
12. Explore new flavors
Use your harvest creatively to discover new flavors and boost your total yield. When radishes begin to flower, their bulbs become woody, but you can still eat their crispy seed pods instead.
13. Let potatoes do the work
In addition to the crop they provide, potatoes loosen compacted soil, cut down on weeds, and generally prepare the ground for other crops in subsequent years. That’s why potatoes are called a pioneer plant. They’re easy and undemanding, and you can even get a harvest by planting them in a thick layer of straw or leaves spread directly on top of the soil.
14. Harvest mushrooms
Grow mushrooms yourself to extend the mushroom season and add variety to your meals. Oyster mushrooms and shiitakes are the most common varieties suited for home cultivation. You can plant mushroom spawn plugs in birch logs or deciduous sawdust.
15. Plant an herb spiral
Build an upward, snail-shell-like spiral from heat-retaining bricks or stones and soil. It needs little space and provides ideal conditions for all sorts of herbs, from dry and sunny to moist and shaded. The top section facing south is great for plants like rosemary, while lemon balm and mint do well lower down on the north side.
Permaculture plants art ornamental, edible, and appealing to pollinators all at once.
16. Make use of outhouse waste
Fully composted outhouse waste can be used to improve the soil for ornamental plants. If you’d like to safely apply it to edible crops, further compost the material removed from the tank for at least one winter to let it freeze completely. Also see our article on using urine, or “golden water,” in the garden.
17. Recycle materials
Making use of existing resources is a key element of permaculture thinking. Rely on what’s already available in your garden or nearby—leftover wood for building raised beds, or wood chips and sawdust for covering pathways.
18. Embrace low-energy living
Carry out your garden tasks by hand—large motorized equipment is seldom necessary. Store most of your harvest without using electricity, for instance by drying it at room temperature or fermenting or pickling it in a cellar. You can also boost your energy self-sufficiency with solar panels.
19. Save seeds
Collect seeds from your own plants. This saves money and is part of self-sufficiency. It’s easiest to harvest seeds from species like squash or peas, which produce seeds in their first year of cultivation. Carrots and parsley, on the other hand, require two years before you can collect their seeds.
20. Remember community-based sharing
Being self-sufficient is a nice goal, but you can’t and shouldn’t do everything by yourself. Community-based sharing means you might arrange with neighbors to share the harvest: one grows garlic for everyone, another grows zucchini for the entire neighborhood. It’s also a good idea to share equipment!
Expert interviewed for this article: Lumia Huhdanpää-Jais. Photos taken at: Beyond Buckthorns homestead, Finland.
