Real permaculture ...

I’m giving this blog a makeover, aiming to post a bit more regularly. Life, article writing and other projects have served as excuses but I believe that one of the reasons I’ve blogged less is my commitment to blog bilingually. My French always needs correcting and I lean heavily on the same friends for my articles, so I feel reluctant to ask for the blogs and, anyway, it somehow loses spontaneity. Permaculture en Bretagne has its own website now and I’ll be putting useful resources on there, such as a list of permaculture principles in French.

In addition to the continuing tale of our experiences on our permaculture smallholding, I’ll be commenting on permaculture. In my opinion, there’s a lot of fluff and nonsense out there purporting to be permaculture. If there is something meaningful behind the hype then it should be able to withstand some decent questioning. I have recently read a magazine article where the author, stuck on a camping trip without sugar or milk, suggested a solution arrived at through permacultural thinking was to substitute a bit of cheese and an mint imperial. This isn't a permaculture that I recognise.

A few weeks ago, I attended a conference of French authors and it was illuminating to see that, amongst this experienced group of organic gardeners, permaculture does not have a very good reputation. In order to persuade them otherwise, we need to show them what extra possibilities are opened up to us through a permaculture approach.

It was a convivial and constructive meeting and I’ve made some new friends. From one of them, I received an email this week asking my opinion on a paper “Including insects in Organic poultry diets” and posing the question whether we (writers) should encourage amateur chicken keepers to rear insects to balance their winter rations. It reminded me of a Geoff Lawton video where he visits Vermont compost king, Karl Hammer, who produces organic compost at the same time as feeding a flock of chickens. A great example of what I understand as permaculture designing. Geoff returns home and creates a smaller system that uses the same basic idea as Karl’s setup, but on a scale that better suits his situation. This idea could be scaled down even further, creating a pair of compost heaps in the chicken run, for example, allowing them access to only one at a time, while the population of nutritious creepy-crawlies builds up on the other. We’d been thinking of incorporating something similar in Gabrielle’s chicken habitat design that we’ll finally get round to implementing this winter (click on “Gabrielle’s PDC design” in the menu bar above to read more).
 
I’ve yet to receive a reply back from my sceptical French writing friends but I hope that they’ll be suitably impressed with this real example of permaculture, something a lot more meaningful than adulterating a cup of black tea with a slice of Roquefort and a Fisherman’s Friend !

Finally, the barn renovation is finished

It’s over. After around 8 years of work, we finished the renovation of a barn into a gîte (holiday cottage to rent) with just 30 minutes to spare before the first holidaymakers arrived. As it got more and more busy and stressful towards the end, with not a day off for weeks and progressively longer days, we asked ourselves how we got into this situation. Maybe it had to be like this as without a deadline, I’m sure other jobs would have intervened and diverted us from the barn and we’d still be working on it at Christmas.

We now have the opportunity to start catching up with a long list of things that have been ignored, like separating the sheep from their winter coats. It’s never a job I look forward to as, with only a few to do each year, I never become really expert and I’m always wary of cutting them. That’s easy to do, especially as our pint-sized local breed Ouessant sheep are too small to hold between the knees, Bowen-method style and, being a rustic breed, they seem to resent being manhandled and wriggle more than normal. Happily for me and him, the ram was particularly easy this year as the wool had already detached itself in several places. The belly neck and legs were already clean and with a quick whizz up and down both sides, he was shorn for another year.

I’m hoping to have a little more time available now for my pastimes of writing and photography and shall make an effort to keep this blog updated much more frequently. I also need to update the “Magazine Articles” page. My latest forays into print are a couple of articles in the current edition of Les 4 Saisons du jardin bio about

keeping pigs and dangers in the garden and in the autumn edition of Permaculture Magazine is an article discussing Zone 5 where I suggest that it’s not actually a place but rather an informing idea.

Where's Wally ? ( ... or find the Queen)

Where's Wally ?

The barn renovation-into-a-gîte project that, I’m embarrassed to say, started way back in 2006, is entering its final phase. Last Sunday, on a sunny day he should have better spent relaxing in the warm bosom of his family, our friend Bruno generously gave up his time, his expertise and his personal recipe to help us trowel earth plaster onto the wall between the bedroom and the living area.

 
We started promptly at 9 o’clock, wetting the walls again, tacking mesh to the inside of the doorway and then mixing riddled subsoil rich in clay with building sand, a few handfuls of chopped up flax stalk and a mug of flour paste. This was smeared onto the walls with a float and, when it had dried off a little, polished with a dainty, handmade, flexible Japanese spatula.

I left Gabrielle and Bruno to go and light the barbeque. As I approached, I heard the unmistakeable, heavy buzz of a bee swarm and looked up to see a swirling cloud of bees. Smallholding’s a bit like that. Fully absorbed in one task, with not a moment to spare for anything else, something presents itself, requiring immediate attention.

Voila! One swarm, still attached to the branch.

We started the year with two healthy hives. At the beginning of April, we opened them up to mark the queens with a spot of paint and noticed that one colony was particularly strong. It was therefore likely to create new queens soon although there were no queen cells at that time. 

Bad weather prevented us from looking again and the very day that we had agreed to conduct an artificial swarm (where we control what’s happening) they beat us to it and swarmed. Now we had three colonies. A cast swarm followed, which we failed to collect and bee life settled down again. We had no idea that the weaker colony had put on such a burst of fecundity and were ready to swarm.

I throw the bees onto the board

They swarmed onto the outer branch of an oak tree. I erected a scaffold tower, made all the more difficult as I was wearing full protective clothing on a hot day. As I got ready with loppers and pruning saw to go up and cut the swarm down, I noticed they’d gone … into a nearby myrobalan tree. I moved the scaffold tower and Gabrielle joined me at altitude to carefully remove the branch to which the buzzing ball of bees was attached. I’d placed a ramp up to the entrance of a “Nuke” (nucleus) box and with a violent shake of the cut branch, dumped the whole lot. Seconds later, the bees started moving upwards to the hive entrance. It’s normally the old queen—which we had marked—who leaves with the swarm. 

While I was filming, much like finding Wally, I suddenly spotted the queen amongst the crowd, which was both exciting and reassuring that things were playing out as they should. We watched her all the way into the hive.

Back to the barbeque, lunch, and then the afternoon earth plastering. We now have four hives of bees and a beautiful deep orange wall.

Why I have not been blogging for a while – excuses 7, 31 and 302b

To add to the usual excuses of being busy with our permaculture smallholding and barn renovation and distracted by writing magazine articles, I have recently started another blog. Clive and Wendy first came to visit as paying guests in our gîte. They liked it so much they came again. They came as volunteers. Then as friends. This Christmas gone, they looked after our chickens, sheep and cats, which allowed us to leave together (for a change) to visit our mums in the UK.
 

Soon after they got home, Clive fell ill. The shocking news is that he has a cancer of the brain, which, among other traumas has rendered him blind. Clive is a professional photographer and senior lecturer in photography at Leeds Metropolitan University. 

I have started a project to get one of Clive’s own photographs—which he has in his head—into a tactile image that he can feel. We quickly raised all the money we needed for that and Clive has asked that we put on an exhibition of his work and that of his students in both conventional and tactile images, so make accessible the world of photography to those who are visually impaired. If you’d like to read more about Clive and his project, click over to the blog “A Tactile Image for Clive”.

I got carried away with Photoshop !

As regards permaculture (i.e., this blog) I have loads to tell but so little time to type. All the lambs are born, three Ouessants and a pair of Ouessant x Belle Isle twins. The barn renovation project has taken huge leaps forward since I last blogged about it. We’ve added another 15 metres to the forest garden windbreak. All the new spring salads are up, so are the tomatoes and Gabrielle’s waiting for slightly better weather before planting out the courgettes and squashes and we’re right in the middle of asparagus eating season.

We’ve a colony of midwife toads in residence in the polytunnel and saw a kingfisher perched watching our pond today. Next week, we have some friends helping us to harvest the wood cut last winter and this winter just gone and the bluebells are out, in their ever-extending beautiful carpet of blue.

The new (Summer) issue of Permaculture Magazine is out and I have an article in it about my visit to Martin Crawford’s forest garden in Totnes, Devon, UK last year. An article written by Patrick Whitefield also mentions us. I promise to carry on blogging here a little more often, so watch this space.

Learning about permaculture

Version française à suivre bientôt

What is permaculture? Search in books for definitions of permaculture and you will find many variations; permaculture means different things to different people. I think that worries some, who would rather add rules and regulations, checks and balances, to make sure that permaculture is the same wherever you happen to be, like a Holiday Inn hotel.

But permaculture is site specific, so why not person specific? In order to find out what permaculture means to you you have first to learn a bit about it and for that, there's no better starting place that a well-run Permaculture Design Course, run by someone with loads of experience. You will learn about its ethics and principles.

Patrick demonstrates how to use an A-frame

You'll also learn about the practical tools you'll need to employ, such as how to measure your land topographically for level and contour, and then map that information. You'll learn how to design using permaculture principles and will probably leave the course inspired, impatient to get designing and eager to tell everyone else what a wonderful thing permaculture is.

Permaculture courses and books will provide you with an ambitious wish-list of things you'd like to include on your land. However, there's another part to all this learning, made more difficult if, like us, you haven't come from a background of horticulture and agriculture and that's learning about all the individual plants that you want to include in your permaculture design and all the animals that will be involved (both the planned domestic ones and the ones that just turn up, on wings, feet or just wriggling on their belly).

An idealised layout (© Mollison's Intro to Permaculture, p.102)

Books can give you neat, mandala-like suggestions of how to arrange your site but real life doesn't really work like that. If you want to avoid making some of the mistakes we've made—having plants die and having to relocate others a year after planting—it's best to learn about their needs, what conditions they require to thrive. In this way, once you've surveyed your land and its soil, discovered the microclimates and how they change through the year, you can plant something where it'll be happy. In the windbreak at the bottom of the field at the exposed end of your property, you'll choose something that is hardy to cold temperatures and harsh winds and doesn't mind its feet wet in winter and plant blueberries only in soil that's acid enough for its taste. Make no mistake, this is a long journey, requiring you to delve deep into plant encyclopaedias, nursery catalogues and conventional garden design books.

screenshot from Patrick's online course

Returning to Permaculture Design Courses (PDCs): we both did our PDCs with Patrick Whitefield, I did my course residential at Ragmans Lane Farm in Gloucestershire and Gabrielle studied online for hers.

In an article in the new edition of Permaculture Magazine  Gabrielle and I compare and contrast online Permaculture Design Courses to the conventional face to face models and explore available online options and what they actually offer students. You can buy the magazine as a hard copy or a downloadable PDF

Finding time to write

There has been a hiatus since my last blog and, not for the first time, I find myself wanting to start a blog with an apology, shortly followed by a weak excuse. Sorry! (… and now the excuse:) Hot on the heels of a couple of articles in French (so always longer to write) I plunged into another article. It involved several phone and Skype interviews with people in England, the Netherlands and the Lebanon and long email conversations to Spain and Australia. This entailed transcribing these conversations (I don't use shorthand or have other skills to speed this along) and then stitch this all together into a magazine article where there is always a squeeze on word count. It's fun, I always learn loads but it's time consuming. And time—with our busy smallholding lives and building projects and the winter tree-felling season upon us—is not something I think I have much spare of.

Un certain temps c'est écoulé depuis mon dernier blog et, ce n'est pas la première fois ! Je me retrouve à nouveau à vouloir commencer le blog avec des excuses, rapidement suivies par l'explication.. Désolé ! Et maintenant le pourquoi du retard : dans la foulée de la rédaction de quelques articles en français (donc toujours plus longs à écrire), je me suis plongé dans un autre article. Il nécessitait plusieurs entretiens par téléphone et Skype avec des personnes en Angleterre, aux Pays-Bas et au Liban ainsi que de longs échanges par courriel vers l'Espagne et l'Australie. Il a fallu transcrire toutes ces conversations (je n'ai pas de compétence en sténographie ni dans aucun autre domaine qui pourrait accélérer ce long travail) et les rassembler dans même un article pour une publication dans un magazine où il y a toujours une forte pression sur le nombre de mots. C'est amusant, j'apprends toujours beaucoup mais ça prend beaucoup de temps. Et le temps nous manque avec la vie sur notre petite ferme familiale, des projets de rénovation et de construction et maintenant la saison de l'abattage et de l'élagage des arbres dans nos 4,5 hectares de bois.

A Christmas present from Gabrielle—efficiently delivered by a white-bearded Scandinavian chap—has inspired me to (try to) change my daily routine to find a little more time. Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey, details the daily habit of 161 writers, artists, composers and productive and creative people. It seems that people work best at a particular time of day; like many, I work best in the morning.

Un cadeau de Noël de Gabrielle – livré efficacement par un homme de Scandinavie avec une barbe blanche - m'a inspiré pour essayer de modifier mon quotidien afin de dégager un peu plus de temps. Daily Rituals: How Great Minds Make Time, Find Inspiration, and Get to Work by Mason Currey (lit : Rituels quotidiens : Comment les Grands Esprits prennent le temps, trouvent l'inspiration, et se rendent au travail) détaille les habitudes quotidiennes de 161 écrivains, artistes, compositeurs et autres personnes productives et créatives . Il semble que ces gens travaillent mieux à un moment donné de la journée ; comme beaucoup, je travaille mieux le matin.

Black coffee, cigarettes and alcohol feature often in these cameos, with some artists seeking stronger stimulants. Exhausted by too much work, wine and cigarettes, John-Paul Sartre turned to Corydrane, a combination of amphetamine and aspirin, crunching on twenty a day, at a rate of two pages written per tablet. 

Café noir, cigarettes et alcool composent souvent dans ces camées, mais quelques artistes cherchent parfois des stimulants bien plus forts. Épuisé par trop de travail, le vin et les cigarettes, Jean -Paul Sartre se tourna vers le corydrane, une combinaison d'amphétamine et d'aspirine,. Il en croquait jusque vingt par jour, à une fréquence de deux pages écrites par comprimé.

 

With a mind whirling with ideas and all this extra stimulation, sleep didn't always come easy, and both W. H. Auden (amphetamines) and Marcel Proust (caffeine) turned to sedatives to help them sleep, what one friend of Proust described as “putting your foot on the brakes and accelerator at the same time.” If this sounds an unhealthy lifestyle, you'd be right. Toulouse-Lautrec told an acquaintance, “I expect to burn myself out by the time I'm forty.” But he was in his grave at thirty-six.

Avec un esprit tourbillonnant fourmillant d'idées et ce genre de stimulation supplémentaire, le sommeil ne vient pas toujours facilement... W.H. Auden (amphétamines) et Marcel Proust (caféine) se sont d'ailleurs également tournés vers des sédatifs pour les aider à dormir ! Ce qu'un ami de Proust décrit comme « appuyer le pied sur les freins et l'accélérateur en même temps. » Si cela vous semble un mode de vie malsain , vous avez sans doute raison . Toulouse -Lautrec aurait dit à un ami, « à quarante ans, je serais certainement épuisé. » Il était dans sa tombe à trente-six ans !

Time management seems to be the key and probably the most repeated theme in Currey's book is that of self-discipline and a routine to try to make the most of the day. That's not at all easy and even the great Samuel Johnson readily admitted to procrastination and a lack of discipline. I've resolved to try a little harder this year to spend less time aimlessly surfing on the Internet (usually when I wake up in the morning and when I'm tired at the end of the day) and see if I can't free up time elsewhere.

La gestion du temps semble être la clé et le thème qui revient le plus souvent dans le livre de Currey semble être celui de l'auto-discipline et une routine pour essayer d'en faire le maximum chaque jour. Ce n'est pas facile du tout et même le grand Samuel Johnson a admis volontiers sa procrastination et son manque de discipline. Cette année, jai pris la résolution d'essayer un peu plus de passer moins de temps à surfer sur Internet sans but (généralement quand je me réveille le matin et quand je suis fatigué en fin de journée) et voir si je peux libérer du temps ailleurs.

The answer might be during the night. Gabrielle and I have both noticed changing sleep patterns, which we put down to getting older. It was at first frustrating to wake up and from our warm cocoon of slumber hear the soft three, four and even five o'clock chimes of the clock in the lounge. We'd drop off to a deep sleep again, struggling to open our eyes at 7 am. 

La réponse pourrait être au cours de la nuit. Gabrielle et moi-même avons remarqué un changement dans nos habitudes de sommeil. Nous pensions que cela venait de notre âge grandissant. Nous trouvions frustrant de nous réveiller bien au chaud dans notre lit douillet et entendre les doux carillons doux de trois, quatre et même cinq heures de l'horloge du séjour. Pour nous endormir à nouveau profondément et avoir du mal à ouvrir les yeux à 7 h ! 

We've recently read that the 8-hour sleep wasn't always the expected norm and that it was very common to sleep in two chunks with a wakey-up bit in the middle. Currey reports that several artists seem to make use of this time, what Marilynne Robinson called “benevolent insomnia”: “The world is quiet. I can read or write. It seems like stolen time. It seems like I have a twenty-eight hour day.” I have once tried switching on the light and reading for an hour, after which I easily dropped off again but I've yet to have the courage to exit a warm bed to go and sit at the table and write. 

Nous avons lu récemment que le sommeil de 8 heures n'a pas toujours été la norme et qu'il était très fréquent de dormir durant deux périodes séparées d'un temps d'éveil. Currey signale que plusieurs artistes semblent faire usage de ce temps, ce que Marilynne Robinson a appelé « l'insomnie bienveillante » : « Le monde est calme. Je peux lire ou écrire. Il apparaît comme du temps volé. Il semble que j'ai une journée de vingt-huit heures. » J'ai essayé une fois d'allumer la lumière et de lire pendant une heure, après quoi je me suis endormi de nouveau facilement, mais je n'ai pas encore eu le courage de sortir de mon lit chaud pour aller m'asseoir à table et écrire.

 

The other tip I've gained from the book is to write regularly: as Gertrude Stein said, “If you write a half hour a day it makes a lot of writing year by year.”

L'autre astuce que j'ai acquis grâce à ce livre est d'écrire régulièrement : comme l'a dit Gertrude Stein, « Si on écrit une demi-heure par jour, cela fini par faire beaucoup année après année. »

What I have been writing / qu'ai-je écrit récemment :

La Passerelle Éco Nº 50 Automne 2013 “Visite d'un jardin-forêt”. A guided tour around the forest garden of Martin Crawford / un tour guidé du jardin-forêt de Martin Crawford.

Les 4 Saisons du jardin bio Nº 204 jan/fév 2014 “Faire son savon” How to make your own soap / apprenez à faire du savon en utilisant le procédé à froid.

(for the English version, see Permaculture Magazine Nº 74 Winter 2014).

… and another due out this month.