Permaculture Principles: Obtain a Yield and Everything Gardens

The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter. -Bill Mollison

Reading these wise words from the father of Permacultue, one would typically imagine the radical act of growing tomatoes in your garden, or if there is no garden, maybe some parsley on the windowsill. But there is much more to the concept of production than vegetables. For example, if I put your fresh tomatoes and parsley into my solar dehydrator to make them less perishable, that would also be a type of production, wouldn’t it? And likewise, if I assemble a dehydrator for you, so you can dry your own produce.

This call to being producers doesn’t only go for people who have the space to plant a garden. On the contrary: having lived in cities for most of my life, at which I’m by no means alone, I realize the importance of producing something, anything, to enrich our communities. This is precisely what got me into probiotic drinks, vermicomposting, spirulina cultivation, becoming active at the producers’ market, in short, things that can be described as urban homesteading.

But wait… if being a producer is such a wide, all-encompassing term, would that make us all gardeners of sorts?

Indeed, it would! You could fix someone’s car, cut someone’s hair, do a kickass translation of a text, whatever it is that you do, it can be seen as gardening. Which is why I decided to write about both principles, Holmgren’s Obtain a Yield and Mollison’s Everything Gardens. We already garden, whether we know it or not.  

When discussing this principle in his Designers’ Manual, Mollison uses the example of a squirrel burying nuts, forgetting about them, and thus planting trees. Sure, it is gardening, similarly to pigs who naturally till the soil by rooting around for food, or how birds spread seeds over considerable distances. 

Whether these processes are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depends on the perspective. If a goat chews off the bark of trees, it could be a recommendable feat if we want it to help us clear the brush. On the other hand, it could be disastrous, if the trees in question are some well producing fruit trees, grown lovingly from seed with lots of patience and care.  

In other words, everyone gardens (or every thing, if you don’t want to include animals, plants, or forces of nature among people), meaning we all have an effect on our surroundings. Question is, what do we do with it? How do we utilize this effect? Does this gardening help us obtain a yield? Do we let them (animals, plants, or even the wind) do some work for us? Why not, if that’s what they would do anyway? Chickens, for example, love to scratch. So if we let them do just that, in the controlled setting of a chicken tractor, they will move the soil around, fertilize it, and clear it of weed and seeds.

In other words, they prepare some garden beds for us. Great! But what about the gardening of a slug that chews threw the stems of young beets? How can that contribute to obtaining a yield? By turning the problem upside down, and letting them feed your ducks. Once again, the two species will be gardening together, and if their system is well designed, everyone benefits.  

So, let’s apply the same concept to something very close to home: How can the “useless kid who hangs around the internet all day, posting stuff on social media” be a useful gardener obtaining a yield? By doing the same thing on Steemit, of course, where the community makes sure that content becomes quality. In the end they may even earn some reward for their effort.  

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4 Pics: 1, 2, 3, 4

    

To see my discussions of other Permaculture Principles, take a look at these posts:

Permaculture: A Starting Point

David Holmgren

1. Observe and interact
2. Catch and store energy
3. Obtain a yield
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. Use and value renewable resources and services
6. Produce no waste
7. Design from patterns to details
8. Integrate rather than segregate
9. Use small and slow solutions
10. Use and value diversity
11. Use edges and value the marginal
12. Creatively use and respond to change

Bill Mollison

1. Work with nature, not against it
2. The problem is the solution
3. Maximum effect for minimum effort
4. The yield of the system is theoretically unlimited
5. Everything gardens

Scott Pittman

1. Cooperation instead of competition
2. Every function is served by multiple elements
3. Every element serves multiple functions
4. Make the most out of energy
5. Use the edge effect
6. Everything is connected
7. The problem is the solution