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What's permaculture all about? · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
0:14
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chipper, Chuck Bryant and there's Jerry Rowland.
0:19
Speaker 1: And we're all in great moods everybody, because it's stuff
0:23
Speaker 1: you should know. Time. Everything else just falls to the
0:26
Speaker 1: wayside when we record stuff you should know. It's just
0:29
Speaker 1: it's the reason we love doing it. Still, after a
0:31
Speaker 1: thousand episodes, do you realize every single listener right now
0:35
Speaker 1: is thinking why are they in a bad mood? And
0:37
Speaker 1: why is Josh being so weird? I don't think I'm
0:40
Speaker 1: being weird? Am I being? Am I overselling it? I
0:42
Speaker 1: think so? Oh sorry, it makes it sound like we
0:45
Speaker 1: all three were in a big fist fight and then
0:48
Speaker 1: Jerry had recorded, right, She's like just jammed to clean
0:52
Speaker 1: X upper nose to staunch the bleeding. I am recovering
0:56
Speaker 1: a bit because we just got back from New York City. Dude,
0:59
Speaker 1: it has been a week. So we did. We did
1:02
Speaker 1: show a show Sunday, a show Monday, in a show Tuesday,
1:05
Speaker 1: all sold out at the Bellhouse travel Home Wednesday, and
1:09
Speaker 1: our recording today Thursday. Yes, and I I just want
1:14
Speaker 1: to say, there's no way that people will ever hear
1:17
Speaker 1: Tuesday's episode because it was the filthiest thing we've ever
1:21
Speaker 1: done on stage. It was seriously, man, I don't know
1:25
Speaker 1: what got into us. I think it was night three
1:26
Speaker 1: of three. Uh so that is for the three and
1:31
Speaker 1: fifty people in that room. Yeah, I hope they enjoyed it.
1:35
Speaker 1: It was fun. It was fun, and come on out.
1:37
Speaker 1: Whenever we do a live show, you never know for
1:39
Speaker 1: this gonna be like this one's not getting released. Let's
1:41
Speaker 1: just go crazy, you know, especially it was a twenty
1:44
Speaker 1: one and up show, which is really well, that's why
1:46
Speaker 1: we for sure why we did it. Yeah, that's what
1:49
Speaker 1: took the feedbag off, you know. And that is saying
1:53
Speaker 1: I think so put the feedback on take it off. Yeah,
1:56
Speaker 1: I guess so. I guess so it's not really but
1:59
Speaker 1: we'll just pressed forward. How about that. Let's do so, Chuck,
2:03
Speaker 1: I know that you know this, but not everybody knows this.
2:06
Speaker 1: I had a personal conversation with one Charles C. Man,
2:12
Speaker 1: who wrote my favorite book of all time that is correct.
2:17
Speaker 1: Uh And I was talking to Mr Man and he
2:20
Speaker 1: has a I was talking to him. I've got a
2:22
Speaker 1: show coming out on Existential Risks eventually, but um, and
2:26
Speaker 1: he's going to be in it, and it's just like
2:27
Speaker 1: interviewed for it. But he has a book coming out
2:29
Speaker 1: this January and it's called The Wizard and the Prophet.
2:33
Speaker 1: Have you heard of it? No? But did you just
2:35
Speaker 1: say that he's going to be uh part of Existential Risks. Yeah,
2:39
Speaker 1: he's an Interviewee. It's fantastic. Yeah, it's gonna be pretty
2:42
Speaker 1: I was really psyched to just be able to talk
2:45
Speaker 1: to him, and even better than that, like you know,
2:47
Speaker 1: we were kind of rapping for a few minutes beforehand,
2:49
Speaker 1: and it was just as calm and casual as I
2:53
Speaker 1: had always like envisioned talking to him that would be. Yeah,
2:56
Speaker 1: it was a really really neat conversation. But he was
2:58
Speaker 1: telling me about the book has coming out, The Wizard
3:01
Speaker 1: and the Profit, and it's basically about him trying to
3:06
Speaker 1: find out how we can possibly or even if it
3:09
Speaker 1: is possible, um sustain ten billion people on planet Earth
3:14
Speaker 1: and not just sustained meaning like you know, keeping him alive,
3:18
Speaker 1: but how can we do it sustainably? And he goes
3:21
Speaker 1: back and starts digging in and finds that there's this
3:24
Speaker 1: long standing head butt between the techno optimists, the people
3:28
Speaker 1: who are like, well, we humans are smart enough to
3:31
Speaker 1: invent our way out of any problem, and the people
3:34
Speaker 1: who are like, no, we need to really like mitigate
3:38
Speaker 1: a lot of things that we're doing right now to
3:40
Speaker 1: to make sure that we actually can keep doing this
3:43
Speaker 1: for the foreseeable future. Uh. And part of it is
3:46
Speaker 1: on Norman borlog Um, and he is the wizard that's
3:50
Speaker 1: actually absolutely right there. The profit is a guy named
3:54
Speaker 1: William voked v O g T. I believe his name,
3:58
Speaker 1: and he I don't know nearly as much about him
4:01
Speaker 1: as Norman borlog which is say, I know basically zero
4:03
Speaker 1: about him, but he's the prophet, so I will know
4:06
Speaker 1: all about him when the book comes out in January.
4:08
Speaker 1: I'm psyched about it. But as I was researching this
4:11
Speaker 1: pull Perma Culture article, I was like, you can really
4:15
Speaker 1: see that that same head butt, that same push and
4:18
Speaker 1: pull between people who are saying we need sustainability and
4:22
Speaker 1: other people are like, we need to feed, you know,
4:24
Speaker 1: billions and billions of people. And that really comes together
4:28
Speaker 1: in the debate over perma culture and whether it works
4:32
Speaker 1: or whether it is just just a pie in the
4:35
Speaker 1: sky kind of idea. Well, I have a little something
4:38
Speaker 1: to say. I am a bit of an earth well
4:42
Speaker 1: not a bit. I'm an urban perma culturist. That's awesome.
4:46
Speaker 1: We have not in me as like I don't know
4:49
Speaker 1: much of while I do know about the stuff now
4:51
Speaker 1: after researching it. But we uh have are redoing our
4:55
Speaker 1: front and backyards and we hired a perma culture company
4:59
Speaker 1: to do so. Really, the Perma Culture Pros. That's not
5:03
Speaker 1: their name, but maybe it should be. Uh yeah, So
5:07
Speaker 1: we're we're we are like right in the middle of
5:10
Speaker 1: making our small little piece of Atlanta UM a perma
5:15
Speaker 1: culture urban permic I know it's hard to say now
5:19
Speaker 1: that I'm saying it out last an urban perm habitat
5:22
Speaker 1: if you will herb perm that's right. So I'll be peppering,
5:26
Speaker 1: you know, little things here and there. I think that
5:28
Speaker 1: would help a lot because UM perma culture, as it
5:32
Speaker 1: turns out, and I didn't know really anything about it
5:35
Speaker 1: until we started researching this. UM it is a wooly idea.
5:40
Speaker 1: It's tough to pin down, which is really weird because
5:42
Speaker 1: it's actually a set of design principles meant to grow
5:49
Speaker 1: food for people in a way that's sustainable and not harmful.
5:53
Speaker 1: And it basically stands in contradiction of what you would
5:58
Speaker 1: consider like big modern and agriculture, which is, we grow
6:02
Speaker 1: one kind of food and we squeeze as much as
6:04
Speaker 1: we possibly can out of it from the ground we have,
6:08
Speaker 1: using as much artificial resources as we possibly need to
6:12
Speaker 1: to increase our yield. Yeah, and that's like people throw
6:15
Speaker 1: around the word sustainable or unsustainable. Um, and maybe people
6:20
Speaker 1: sometimes folks don't even stop to think about what that means.
6:22
Speaker 1: Sustainable or I guess we'll start with unsustainable. That means
6:26
Speaker 1: that you are you're depleting resources around you, and you're
6:30
Speaker 1: depending very much on bringing in different resources to make
6:36
Speaker 1: that thing work. Right, Like you're not just using what's available,
6:40
Speaker 1: Like that's what sustainable would be. You're using what's available
6:43
Speaker 1: at all works together to ideally sustain itself without saying, well,
6:48
Speaker 1: now I need to bring in this thing from where
6:50
Speaker 1: we're here to make this these acres of corn grow. Yeah,
6:55
Speaker 1: I've got to go burn a bunch of fossil fuels
6:57
Speaker 1: to create nitrogen based fertilizer. And uh, it's not going
7:01
Speaker 1: to attach to the soil very well, so a lot
7:03
Speaker 1: of it will run off and be wasted, and even worse,
7:06
Speaker 1: it'll end up in a pond, which will create an
7:08
Speaker 1: algae bloom which sucks up all of the dissolved oxygen,
7:12
Speaker 1: which creates a fish kill. That's unsustainable. And and it's
7:17
Speaker 1: weird because I hadn't really thought about that either, Chuck.
7:20
Speaker 1: But as growing up, as like kids who were sentiented
7:23
Speaker 1: in the nineties, you hear unsustainable and it's just basically
7:28
Speaker 1: in your mind equated with evil, like almost intentionally malicious
7:32
Speaker 1: acts against the earth, and that's just not necessarily the case.
7:36
Speaker 1: And that that's another thing about like Norman Borlog the Wizard. Um,
7:41
Speaker 1: he had the greatest of intentions, but you can also
7:44
Speaker 1: lay at his feet a lot of the ecological problems
7:48
Speaker 1: we're facing right now because of agriculture and the agricultural
7:51
Speaker 1: practices he helped pioneer in order to feed a bunch
7:54
Speaker 1: of people. So there's this this this tension between unsustainability
7:58
Speaker 1: and sustainability, but it's also of attention between what's realistic
8:01
Speaker 1: and what's not. You know, Yeah, it's definitely a little sticky.
8:04
Speaker 1: It is a little sticky, But permaculture basically is trying
8:08
Speaker 1: to create like a harmonious, holistic approach to um farming
8:13
Speaker 1: and whether it be a large farm or like in
8:17
Speaker 1: my case, like an urban a small urban plot. Uh.
8:21
Speaker 1: And like I said, well kind of go over both
8:23
Speaker 1: of those through my lens and then through the larger
8:26
Speaker 1: ideas of the farm. Um. And it's not like Robert
8:29
Speaker 1: Lamb wrote this article from stuff to pull your mind.
8:32
Speaker 1: He did a good job with it. He does, but um,
8:35
Speaker 1: he does point out that you shouldn't. It doesn't necessarily
8:39
Speaker 1: mean that you have to go back to caveman days
8:41
Speaker 1: and like you have to live like tuk tuk and
8:43
Speaker 1: scavenge the earth. Um. He said, to think of it,
8:47
Speaker 1: uh in terms of a river, Like you're a boat
8:50
Speaker 1: floating down a river and you were sustained by that river,
8:55
Speaker 1: but you are also navigating it as well with your
8:58
Speaker 1: rudder and if you have to you right now, it
9:00
Speaker 1: just increased tenfold. That's right. So yeah, it's it's it's
9:04
Speaker 1: not like just passively taking from the land what it
9:08
Speaker 1: has to offer. There's still management of it, right, But
9:12
Speaker 1: but the idea behind that management of it is is
9:15
Speaker 1: managing the land um in a way that that the
9:19
Speaker 1: land is happy with you, Like you can walk past
9:23
Speaker 1: the dog that's just sitting there looking at you, and
9:25
Speaker 1: maybe you know, give it like a wink or something
9:28
Speaker 1: like that and keep walking. Um, that's passive. But if
9:31
Speaker 1: you stop and scratch it behind the ear, you're managing
9:34
Speaker 1: that dog in a way or something like that. You're
9:36
Speaker 1: at least interacting with it more and the dog likes it.
9:40
Speaker 1: You could also walk past the dog and like poking
9:41
Speaker 1: in the ribs. That's interacting with it in a way
9:44
Speaker 1: that the dog wouldn't like. Permaculture is the middle one, right,
9:49
Speaker 1: So you're saying, hey, I want to get something out
9:51
Speaker 1: of you, like a good feeling, so I'm gonna scratch
9:52
Speaker 1: it behind the ear earth. And again, like you said,
9:55
Speaker 1: you're doing that by trying to create a system, whether
9:59
Speaker 1: it's you're little plot of land or a full scale
10:02
Speaker 1: industrial sized farm, um, in a way that it has
10:06
Speaker 1: it's sustainable, meaning it requires as few external inputs as possible.
10:11
Speaker 1: That's right, But sorry, I just need to point it again.
10:14
Speaker 1: It's still being managed. It's still being managed by you,
10:17
Speaker 1: just in a harmonious way. Yeah. I think there's a
10:20
Speaker 1: word for the other thing where you just just let
10:23
Speaker 1: everything do its thing, right. Yeah, that's nature. Maybe like
10:28
Speaker 1: wilding or something or rewilding. Have we talked about that? No,
10:34
Speaker 1: we did. I'm probably wrong anyway, although we also thought
10:37
Speaker 1: we didn't do a cat episode, So who knows if
10:40
Speaker 1: we've talked about it before or not. All right, so
10:42
Speaker 1: this all goes back to Australia and see you in
10:46
Speaker 1: September of next year Australia. Yep, right, yep, get get excited.
10:53
Speaker 1: Oh man, you just sold us a million tickets for
10:55
Speaker 1: that accent, buddy? Uh in New Zealand, Um, you gotta
11:01
Speaker 1: you gotta take it better than that. Well, no, I'm
11:03
Speaker 1: I'm super excited about going to New Zealand. I didn't
11:05
Speaker 1: want to not mention that, you say in New Zealand.
11:09
Speaker 1: In New Zealand. Uh So in Australia in the nineteen
11:13
Speaker 1: seventies there were a couple of dudes named Bill Mollison
11:16
Speaker 1: and David Holmgren and imagine they were sitting around smoking
11:21
Speaker 1: a joint one night and in the version that I
11:23
Speaker 1: have in my head, when they dreamed up the word
11:26
Speaker 1: perma culture, in which is basically what we've been talking about.
11:31
Speaker 1: This is just put a word on it. Um actually
11:34
Speaker 1: two words permanent and agriculture. Good point, and they said,
11:37
Speaker 1: let's join those up. And he said, and that was it.
11:43
Speaker 1: That's how I went down. Uh. And it's a self
11:45
Speaker 1: sustaining alternative to like what you were talking about, which
11:48
Speaker 1: is mass production of a single crop. And there are
11:51
Speaker 1: three basic ethics to the perma culture movement. Um, care
11:56
Speaker 1: for the earth, care for the people, and then setting
11:59
Speaker 1: limits on population and consumption. Right. And so Mollison, I believe,
12:05
Speaker 1: was a professor at the time and Homegren was a student,
12:09
Speaker 1: and they they split within a few years. They had
12:13
Speaker 1: creative differences. I guess you could kind of call it.
12:16
Speaker 1: They both like pursued perma culture, but through different ways.
12:19
Speaker 1: So Mollison is frequently um accused, or was I think
12:23
Speaker 1: he may have passed um accused of being kind of
12:26
Speaker 1: a dogmatic, um charismatic, egomaniac maybe where it was like,
12:34
Speaker 1: it's more way, you're the high way, um, and and
12:39
Speaker 1: that that extended to even principles of perman culture, right,
12:42
Speaker 1: like if he said it, it was just that was
12:44
Speaker 1: just true. Whereas Homegrown apparently took a little more of
12:47
Speaker 1: a pragmatic approach to studying it, finding out the best practices,
12:52
Speaker 1: discarding the ones that didn't work. Even if they were
12:55
Speaker 1: like precious to everybody, including the entire Perma culture movement,
13:00
Speaker 1: and and movement is actually the right word, because there
13:03
Speaker 1: is like this definite um well, like Mollison put the
13:08
Speaker 1: cult in permit culture, you know what I'm saying, Like,
13:11
Speaker 1: there's definitely an adherency to it that's kind of fervent.
13:15
Speaker 1: You know that that the whole movement gets criticized for,
13:18
Speaker 1: rightfully or wrongly, but they they both kind of um.
13:23
Speaker 1: I think the fact that they did split probably added
13:25
Speaker 1: to this field even more because there's two different courses
13:29
Speaker 1: of study or of um thinking about it, at least
13:32
Speaker 1: um that were able to develop in tandem. Yeah, and
13:36
Speaker 1: this stuff is nothing new. They didn't intervent this idea
13:38
Speaker 1: because took took in the gang way back in the
13:42
Speaker 1: ancient days did things like this. They worked with what
13:45
Speaker 1: they had. They didn't have four acres of corn. They
13:48
Speaker 1: had they did forest farming, they had crop rotation, they composted,
13:53
Speaker 1: they had multiple crops. Uh. And they were not just
13:56
Speaker 1: out to be leading pioneers and environmentalism. They were that
14:00
Speaker 1: was just the way you work the earth back then.
14:02
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of what perman culture is all about.
14:05
Speaker 1: Is returning to this idea of of just sort of
14:10
Speaker 1: doing it the smart right way. Uh. And again, this
14:14
Speaker 1: is probably not going to be the thing that feeds
14:16
Speaker 1: the world. But that's not to say you can't have
14:19
Speaker 1: a perman culture movement in farms and urban perman culture
14:23
Speaker 1: going on. Well, that's one of the things that it
14:25
Speaker 1: gets criticized about is that people, um who are big
14:29
Speaker 1: time adherents of perman culture do tend to say, like, uh, yeah,
14:34
Speaker 1: this is this is what we need to feed the world,
14:36
Speaker 1: and if we don't do this, then there's not going
14:39
Speaker 1: to be people around two feed because we're going to
14:42
Speaker 1: wreck the earth and die from climate change. Yeah. I
14:45
Speaker 1: get that, but I think I come from the like
14:47
Speaker 1: reality camp, and you're not going to undo conventional modern farming.
14:53
Speaker 1: You're not gonna just completely supplant that anymore. It's kind
14:56
Speaker 1: of too late. I agree with you. I am of
14:59
Speaker 1: the same mindset. Um. I do think though that you
15:03
Speaker 1: these practices are most of them should be incorporated as
15:07
Speaker 1: best as possible. That'd be great. So I think there's
15:10
Speaker 1: a happy medium between you know, big big time monoculture
15:15
Speaker 1: agriculture and pure perma culture, just because they're both probably
15:22
Speaker 1: unsustainable for what we need, which is to feed a
15:24
Speaker 1: bunch of people in a way that doesn't wreck the earth. Yeah,
15:28
Speaker 1: I'm with you, man. Should we take a break? All right,
15:30
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a little, uh, a little pause for
15:33
Speaker 1: the cause and then come back. That was so corny
15:36
Speaker 1: and so I'm like a radio dj uh and then
15:39
Speaker 1: come back and talk about design principles of perman culture
15:42
Speaker 1: right after this. Okay, you're back, We're back. Are we back?
16:06
Speaker 1: I'm back. Okay, I'm back to Jerry. You're back. She's back.
16:10
Speaker 1: She's back. So um, Like I said early on Chuck,
16:13
Speaker 1: the permaculture is a little it's wooly. It's a wooly idea.
16:17
Speaker 1: There's so many different definitions of it, and as a result,
16:19
Speaker 1: it's it's um image kind of suffers in the mind
16:22
Speaker 1: of rational skeptics. Right. But I did find one um
16:29
Speaker 1: one definition of it that I thought really got the
16:31
Speaker 1: whole point across the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally
16:37
Speaker 1: productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of
16:41
Speaker 1: natural ecosystems. That's a big one. There's a second half
16:45
Speaker 1: even it is the harmonious integration of the landscape with
16:49
Speaker 1: people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and
16:53
Speaker 1: non material needs in a sustainable way. That is a
16:56
Speaker 1: great definition. I agree wholeheartedly. And I'm not sure who
17:00
Speaker 1: the actual person who who said or wrote it was,
17:03
Speaker 1: because it's it was misattributed to at least three different people.
17:06
Speaker 1: But regardless, it's a great definition. We should just throw
17:08
Speaker 1: your name in there too. Sure we'll say I said it.
17:12
Speaker 1: So you said you brought up the three basic ethics, right,
17:14
Speaker 1: the care for earth, care for people, and setting limits
17:17
Speaker 1: on population. I feel like we should kind of go
17:20
Speaker 1: over those a little in depth, don't you think. Yeah,
17:22
Speaker 1: care for earth is um it's not just like a
17:27
Speaker 1: lot of this is about plants, of course, but it's
17:29
Speaker 1: also animals and insects and how the air moves through
17:33
Speaker 1: the area and minerals in the earth. Um, And it's
17:37
Speaker 1: basically respecting all of the things within the ecosystem. How's that?
17:43
Speaker 1: I think that's great? Care for people right? So basically
17:48
Speaker 1: that's saying like, um, that there's an importance to community.
17:52
Speaker 1: It's every person isn't just an island, right, and that
17:56
Speaker 1: this is a big one too, that access to resources
17:59
Speaker 1: is a human right and it's easy to take that
18:03
Speaker 1: for granted. You know where in places where you you
18:07
Speaker 1: have easy access to um land or water or something
18:11
Speaker 1: like that, but in places as diverse as Flint, Michigan,
18:16
Speaker 1: or Central America, they're there the access to good stuff
18:21
Speaker 1: like water is highly restricted or the water is just
18:27
Speaker 1: not good. So the idea that everybody should have easy, cheap,
18:30
Speaker 1: if not free, access to something like clean water is
18:34
Speaker 1: that's a that's a big one. That's that's kind of
18:37
Speaker 1: radical in a weird way these days. Yeah. And as
18:39
Speaker 1: far as the limits on population and consumption, Robert puts
18:42
Speaker 1: it as recognizing how you have to reinvest money in
18:47
Speaker 1: surplus labor and energy into caring for the planet. Like
18:52
Speaker 1: it's it's it takes work. Right, So those are like
18:57
Speaker 1: the three ethics. That's not how you go permacal ulture.
19:00
Speaker 1: That's just kind of the basis for the designs to permaculture, right.
19:06
Speaker 1: And I think, um, you said that this is this
19:09
Speaker 1: is not new, right, this is something that's been around
19:12
Speaker 1: for a very long time or these some of these
19:14
Speaker 1: ideas are the sustainable practices are adopted from like generations
19:18
Speaker 1: and generations of proven techniques, right, Um, which is pretty
19:23
Speaker 1: interesting if you ask me. That's another thing too. If
19:26
Speaker 1: if you if you have not read have you read
19:28
Speaker 1: fourteen ninety one yet? Oh man, you have to read it.
19:32
Speaker 1: It talks about this kind of stuff where like they
19:35
Speaker 1: they from just looking into it, they've and they've found
19:39
Speaker 1: that there's always sophisticated land management techniques that were just
19:44
Speaker 1: totally lost the time until um archaeologists started discovering them.
19:49
Speaker 1: And at first they didn't even realize what they were
19:50
Speaker 1: looking at, and they'd be like, well, there's a lot
19:53
Speaker 1: of kind of weird hills in this this area, it's
19:55
Speaker 1: otherwise pretty flat, and then they realized, oh wait, this
19:58
Speaker 1: is entire system of berms that used to be planted.
20:02
Speaker 1: And in between the berms were aquaculture ponds where they
20:05
Speaker 1: raised fish, and they were just doing all the sophisticated
20:08
Speaker 1: stuff that no one had any idea. That book is
20:11
Speaker 1: just all about chasing that stuff down and figuring it out.
20:14
Speaker 1: So so good, Chuck, one day you'll read it, right
20:16
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, So before the break, I promise some
20:20
Speaker 1: design principles and there are believed like ten of these
20:24
Speaker 1: in our article. And it breaks down like this, and
20:28
Speaker 1: this is this is talking about a farm, but we
20:32
Speaker 1: have incorporated in this company that's come in is incorporating
20:35
Speaker 1: these most of these same principles within like our place
20:39
Speaker 1: as small as our backyard, for instance, zones. We have
20:42
Speaker 1: divided our yard up into zones now, uh, And basically
20:46
Speaker 1: in the case of a farm, it's a little bit different.
20:48
Speaker 1: They divide areas into zones based on based on the
20:53
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. It's just sort of makes sense,
20:56
Speaker 1: and it's all seems like it would be intuitive and
20:58
Speaker 1: how tuk tuk would have done it. So it divides
21:01
Speaker 1: into zones based on like how much attention certain things
21:04
Speaker 1: need on the farm and what does it require out
21:06
Speaker 1: of people in the different areas. And so if if
21:10
Speaker 1: you think of it as a circle, you got your
21:11
Speaker 1: farm in the center. So obviously the stuff that needed
21:15
Speaker 1: the most attention would be closest to the center where
21:19
Speaker 1: the people are. And then as you go out and out, uh,
21:23
Speaker 1: the activity uh decreases, like the human activity, and things
21:27
Speaker 1: are allowed like maybe trees to grow a little more wildly. Right, Yeah,
21:32
Speaker 1: So like the zone is kind of like riffles in
21:34
Speaker 1: in a pond or something right there, concent concentric circles, yeah,
21:39
Speaker 1: radiating from the center. And I guess the center is
21:41
Speaker 1: the actual farmer, in this case your house. Uh yeah, okay,
21:47
Speaker 1: so that's understandable enough. And then you look into something
21:51
Speaker 1: called sectors, and that's kind of similar, it seems like,
21:55
Speaker 1: but it's actually not. With sectors again, the center of
21:58
Speaker 1: the whole, the whole um permana culture land or whatever,
22:04
Speaker 1: is the farm where the people live or whatever. And
22:07
Speaker 1: then the the zone or the sector's radio outwards. So
22:12
Speaker 1: the whole thing is one big circle around the center,
22:15
Speaker 1: but this time it's sliced into like like pizza slices.
22:18
Speaker 1: Basically alright, I'm hungry enough, okay, So but with that,
22:23
Speaker 1: so that doesn't mean like you do sectors or zones.
22:27
Speaker 1: These are two different ways of looking at the land
22:30
Speaker 1: that will overlay one another. Right, And I've seen a
22:34
Speaker 1: couple of places that recommend if you're setting up a
22:37
Speaker 1: perma culture farm, you want to spend basically an entire
22:41
Speaker 1: year doing nothing but observing. Don't plant anything, don't cut
22:46
Speaker 1: anything down, don't dig a pond, don't do anything like that.
22:49
Speaker 1: Just observe. Figure out where the sun is at different
22:52
Speaker 1: parts of the year, where does the wind come from,
22:55
Speaker 1: where does the water go, um are there pollutants that
22:59
Speaker 1: come on the property that you need to to you know,
23:02
Speaker 1: manage where do the animals, Like if there's deer that
23:06
Speaker 1: come in and eat the eat the garden, like, where
23:08
Speaker 1: would they be coming from? And so that's what you
23:11
Speaker 1: base the sectors on. And then that that creates kind
23:16
Speaker 1: of like this underlying map beneath the zones. Does that
23:20
Speaker 1: make sense? Yes? Okay? And I got that one right, Yeah,
23:24
Speaker 1: I think so? Okay. I mean I'm sure a perma
23:26
Speaker 1: culture expert would say, oh boys, right. Uh. Relative locations
23:33
Speaker 1: another important part of permaculture. That is basically designing things
23:38
Speaker 1: and again in a way that makes sense relative to
23:41
Speaker 1: one another. So the great example that Robert gives is
23:44
Speaker 1: is planning a crop downhill from a pond. That way,
23:48
Speaker 1: it's downhill, you don't need to install a pump system.
23:51
Speaker 1: The whole idea of sustainability and so if you can
23:54
Speaker 1: have the stuff you need to water downhill from your water,
23:58
Speaker 1: then you have just created a stable environment. Right, And
24:02
Speaker 1: that one is um there's a it's an actual design principle.
24:06
Speaker 1: Like David Holmegrin came up with twelve of them. One
24:09
Speaker 1: of them was called integrate rather than segregate, and that
24:12
Speaker 1: one's definitely part of that. That's right. There's also um
24:16
Speaker 1: having single elements with multiple functions. Right, So going back
24:20
Speaker 1: to that, like a pond example, um upon also um
24:25
Speaker 1: not only serves as a source for irrigation, but it's
24:28
Speaker 1: also a water source for your livestock. And depending on
24:31
Speaker 1: where you put it, it also acts as a barrier
24:33
Speaker 1: between your livestock and the edge of your property. So
24:36
Speaker 1: you don't even need offense because cows aren't going to
24:39
Speaker 1: swim across the pond. No, you try to find one
24:42
Speaker 1: doing it, they won't do it. Or a hedge, a
24:46
Speaker 1: hedge lovely hedge connect as a wind block, things like that,
24:50
Speaker 1: right or and and it can also like produce seeds
24:53
Speaker 1: that your chickens eat right right, or shade if you
24:56
Speaker 1: need shade, right and so all that, I mean that
24:58
Speaker 1: just makes total sense. Of course you want to do that.
25:00
Speaker 1: But when you stop and think about the fact that
25:04
Speaker 1: they don't do this on big modern farms, like this
25:07
Speaker 1: stuff is not that's just wasted area where you could
25:10
Speaker 1: be planting more corn, you know what I mean. Yeah,
25:12
Speaker 1: and they don't do Most people don't think about this
25:15
Speaker 1: when they're designing their home backyards either they want they
25:19
Speaker 1: just say this looks pretty. That looks pretty, uh, and
25:22
Speaker 1: it and it may be laid out in such a
25:24
Speaker 1: way that it's completely unharmonious and working against each other
25:29
Speaker 1: at times. Likewise, that thing, Diane, it's so pretty, it's like, well,
25:34
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not where it should be. Another permit
25:38
Speaker 1: culture principle that stands in stark opposition to monoculture is
25:42
Speaker 1: having a single thing um have just one function, or
25:48
Speaker 1: have okay, a bunch of different things serving as fail
25:52
Speaker 1: safes to one another. See what I'm saying. So like
25:55
Speaker 1: that pond um can also provide water, right, so it's
26:00
Speaker 1: a it's a water reservoir um. But you may also
26:03
Speaker 1: have rain barrels on site as well. So you have
26:06
Speaker 1: all these different things serving multiple functions but also serving
26:09
Speaker 1: backups to the functions that they share with one another.
26:13
Speaker 1: And again, this is the idea that you're doing this
26:18
Speaker 1: if you take the time to diversify. Like this is
26:21
Speaker 1: where the idea that you you shouldn't put all of
26:24
Speaker 1: your eggs in one basket. It came from the farm.
26:27
Speaker 1: And this is this pert Like some of these principles
26:29
Speaker 1: are just getting back to that very simple maxim which
26:33
Speaker 1: is you have to diversify, and the more you diversify,
26:36
Speaker 1: the better off you're gonna be. If something befalls, like
26:39
Speaker 1: if an avian flu wipes out your chicken flock, well,
26:42
Speaker 1: if all you do is raise chickens, you're ruined. Your
26:45
Speaker 1: your family is going to start, You're gonna lose all
26:47
Speaker 1: of your money, and the farm is going to be
26:49
Speaker 1: taken from you. If chickens are just one part of
26:51
Speaker 1: a larger holistic farm you have going on, then you
26:55
Speaker 1: lose your chickens, and that's awful, but you still have
26:58
Speaker 1: You know you can you can out off a cow's
27:00
Speaker 1: foot and chew on that for the winter. You know
27:03
Speaker 1: where the chicken and the eggs in the basket comes from. Right,
27:08
Speaker 1: Little Bobby Joe going out to get the chicken eggs
27:11
Speaker 1: one morning, taking one basket, he says, Paul, I got him,
27:16
Speaker 1: don't don't fret, And then he trips on the way
27:19
Speaker 1: back and breaks all his eggs, and Pau says, put
27:22
Speaker 1: all the chicken eggs in one basket. Now, ain't got
27:24
Speaker 1: no eggs. And then Bobby Joe says, will then Paul
27:29
Speaker 1: have more kids or get more baskets? That's right, and
27:32
Speaker 1: that happened in December of eighteen forty two in Georgia.
27:37
Speaker 1: That's right. Those were my relatives. That was a great ware.
27:40
Speaker 1: They choc taw no, no, no, this is from the
27:43
Speaker 1: other side of the family, the other side. Okay, yes,
27:46
Speaker 1: you can say, the redneck side. Uh. Energy efficiency is
27:49
Speaker 1: a big deal using energy efficient designs, whether or not
27:53
Speaker 1: you're straight up using like wind power or solar or
27:57
Speaker 1: you can just simply, like I said, build in a
28:00
Speaker 1: way where you have natural wind breaks built in or
28:02
Speaker 1: places to allow the wind to come through and spread
28:05
Speaker 1: seed and stuff like that. Right. Uh, My favorite dude
28:09
Speaker 1: of all is the biological resources, let's hear it. So
28:13
Speaker 1: it's just basically using nature to help solve the problems
28:18
Speaker 1: that you have. Right. So Um Mollison one of the
28:22
Speaker 1: creators of it. What is his first name again, Bill
28:24
Speaker 1: Bill Mollison. He had a saying you don't have a
28:27
Speaker 1: snail problem, you have a duck deficiency, which is to
28:30
Speaker 1: say that that was a great T shirt too. It
28:33
Speaker 1: was for a little while. It was almost out sold
28:36
Speaker 1: gas grass or you know, right, Um. But the premise
28:43
Speaker 1: of it is that if you are over hum with snales,
28:46
Speaker 1: get more ducks because the ducks are gonna eat the snails.
28:49
Speaker 1: And it's fine. It's good to have ducks because they
28:51
Speaker 1: do other stuff too, like they walk around and poop
28:54
Speaker 1: um all over your property, fertilizing it as they're doing. Right. So, um,
28:59
Speaker 1: the just to kind of take a take a step
29:01
Speaker 1: back and look at it like, okay, what how just say,
29:04
Speaker 1: like what would nature do? That's a great way to
29:06
Speaker 1: solve your problems through permit culture. Um. Another one is
29:11
Speaker 1: um using pigs or chickens to till the ground and
29:16
Speaker 1: to actually rotate where you plant crops every year, and
29:19
Speaker 1: so this year's pig pen is next year's crop land
29:24
Speaker 1: because you can move the pigs onto another area and
29:27
Speaker 1: they'll turn it all muddy and turn it up and
29:29
Speaker 1: and get it ready for planting, just like they did
29:32
Speaker 1: for this year's crop land that you're using. Now, pretty
29:35
Speaker 1: great insects too, Yeah, very big thing to bring in
29:39
Speaker 1: the right kinds of plants, to attract the right kinds
29:41
Speaker 1: of insects, to take care of the wrong kinds of insects. Right,
29:45
Speaker 1: But this raises an issue though too. Um. One of
29:49
Speaker 1: the criticisms of permit cultures. It's like, well, where you're
29:53
Speaker 1: gonna bring in those insects from right. So if, for example,
29:56
Speaker 1: if you order ladybugs online, it can actually be really
30:00
Speaker 1: bad for the ladybugs that live in your area because
30:03
Speaker 1: if they are lab raised or farm raised ladybugs, they
30:07
Speaker 1: very frequently carry a parasite that you're bringing now into
30:11
Speaker 1: your neighborhood and you can wipe out the existing native
30:15
Speaker 1: ladybug population. So what do you do? Well? The permit
30:18
Speaker 1: culture way would be to say, I need to attract
30:21
Speaker 1: more native ladybugs because I got a FIDS on my
30:23
Speaker 1: lemon trees. So how do I do that? Well, you
30:27
Speaker 1: just plant more high pollinating plants like sunflowers and um
30:33
Speaker 1: voila native ladybugs parasite free. I love it. I didn't
30:37
Speaker 1: know people about ladybugs online. Yeah, I know that because
30:42
Speaker 1: I've had a FIDS before I looked into it, he said, Duck,
30:45
Speaker 1: I got a FIDS in my lemon tree. Shot. Plant
30:52
Speaker 1: succession is another design principle. UM. If you think about
30:56
Speaker 1: how land was before people were messing around with it.
31:00
Speaker 1: In a natural scene, UM, things that just sort of
31:04
Speaker 1: grow and develop as they as nature intended, and fields
31:09
Speaker 1: might be barren and then grow into weeds, and that
31:13
Speaker 1: that that might eventually grow into plants that may eventually
31:16
Speaker 1: grow into trees, and then what do you know, You
31:19
Speaker 1: have a forest. Right, So Robert makes the case like
31:23
Speaker 1: that's apparently the natural progression of a temperate area that
31:27
Speaker 1: if you leave it alone for long enough, it's going
31:29
Speaker 1: to turn into a forest. I didn't realize that. I
31:31
Speaker 1: guess it makes sense. So this is basically saying, well,
31:34
Speaker 1: how can we how can we do that if that's
31:35
Speaker 1: the way the plant, if that's the way that the
31:37
Speaker 1: area wants to be, how can we accommodate that while
31:41
Speaker 1: also getting um, you know, food food staples from that too. Right.
31:48
Speaker 1: There's also a nutriment recycling, which is basically composting. And
31:51
Speaker 1: I was thinking the other day, I don't answer enough
31:55
Speaker 1: when asked to what my favorite episode is. Composting is
31:58
Speaker 1: definitely up there. That was a great one. All right,
32:02
Speaker 1: if you're digging this episode at all, go listen to
32:05
Speaker 1: composting if you haven't already, it's a good one. Yeah.
32:07
Speaker 1: And finally, diversity, uh, raising multiple crops um, having different
32:13
Speaker 1: kinds of animals. Like we said, we've kind of been
32:16
Speaker 1: beaten up on corn. But that's the ideas and not
32:19
Speaker 1: have you know, a thousand acres of a thing and
32:22
Speaker 1: have many different things. So, like you said, the benefits
32:25
Speaker 1: there if if something comes along that is an illness
32:29
Speaker 1: to a crop, you're not wiped out completely, right, you know.
32:34
Speaker 1: So speaking of wiping out, let's take a break for
32:37
Speaker 1: a second. Okay, are you wiped out? I'm a little
32:40
Speaker 1: wiped I need to regenerate here. Okay, Okay, we'll be
32:42
Speaker 1: right back. Okay, we're back. I'm feeling restored. Chuck good, Well,
33:05
Speaker 1: he took a nap on my shoulder and that always helps.
33:07
Speaker 1: I got a little jewel on your sleep. Okay. So
33:13
Speaker 1: when when you're talking about this, like design principles are
33:16
Speaker 1: great and and good and they are really interesting to me.
33:20
Speaker 1: I think ecology is incredibly fascinating. Um. But there to
33:27
Speaker 1: actually feed people, you have to take them into action
33:30
Speaker 1: and like do something. And people have been trying this
33:34
Speaker 1: right to varying degrees of success, and more importantly, to
33:38
Speaker 1: varying degrees of scientific study. Um. I ran across a
33:42
Speaker 1: professor and I believe the UK, at a place called
33:45
Speaker 1: Schumacher College. Her name is Bethan Stag and she I
33:51
Speaker 1: get the impression Schumacher College is a little crunchy. I
33:54
Speaker 1: think they're the fighting granola just a tad But one
33:59
Speaker 1: of the things they teaches permaculture, and so Beth and Stagg,
34:02
Speaker 1: one of the professors there, um basically studied this permaculture
34:07
Speaker 1: next to traditional like gardening um plots that are the
34:13
Speaker 1: same size there there like everything's the same, the amount
34:18
Speaker 1: of wind and rain and sun they're getting. The differences
34:21
Speaker 1: one is one is cultivated in a through perma culture methods.
34:25
Speaker 1: The other ones more just like traditional gardening like go
34:27
Speaker 1: by fertilizer and stuff like. It depends on your definition
34:32
Speaker 1: of one. Well, which one was lying dead in the
34:34
Speaker 1: field afterwards the regular gardener. They both got a couple
34:40
Speaker 1: of good licks in on one another. Ultimately, I think
34:42
Speaker 1: most people would say that the traditional gardening UM or
34:46
Speaker 1: the the normal modern gardening method one. The reason why
34:50
Speaker 1: it one was because for a hundred for every hundred
34:54
Speaker 1: square meters of land, it yielded thirteen of edible food.
35:01
Speaker 1: The permit culture one yielded two point three kilograms per
35:05
Speaker 1: hundred meters. So far far far less food was grown.
35:09
Speaker 1: But there's a couple of things you got to point
35:11
Speaker 1: out here. There was also far, far far less time
35:14
Speaker 1: put into the perman culture plot, because that's one of
35:17
Speaker 1: the tenants of permit culture is just like like plant
35:20
Speaker 1: this stuff and then just forget about it. You're not
35:22
Speaker 1: ever supposed to mess with it again except to harvest stuff.
35:26
Speaker 1: There's an emphasis on perennials rather than annuals. There's far
35:30
Speaker 1: less inputs that are meant to be made into it.
35:32
Speaker 1: It's just supposed to be like a like a little
35:34
Speaker 1: engine you you build and then start and it just
35:37
Speaker 1: keeps going forever. So far less time and far less
35:40
Speaker 1: effort on the permit culture side, so it kind of
35:43
Speaker 1: wins in that respect, right. But then also there was
35:46
Speaker 1: over this three year study there were also at least
35:49
Speaker 1: one year where the weather was really bad, and so
35:52
Speaker 1: the normal modern gardening suffered as a result, whereas the
35:58
Speaker 1: perma culture one, which was more diversified I had about
36:00
Speaker 1: the same yield as the other years. So so they
36:05
Speaker 1: both won. They're all winners. It's like a soccer game. Yeah,
36:09
Speaker 1: And I think the idea too, is it's not like
36:13
Speaker 1: like that's the kind of test that should be carried
36:14
Speaker 1: out over a hundred years. Almost, Yes, And the whole
36:17
Speaker 1: point is that though still that perma culture is not like,
36:20
Speaker 1: they're not saying we will shall create more yield than
36:23
Speaker 1: any other farm. That's not the whole point. Again, though
36:27
Speaker 1: it depends on who you talk to. There are definitely
36:30
Speaker 1: perman culture adherents out there who think that anyone who
36:32
Speaker 1: doesn't use permacultures, anydiget who's ruining, ruining the planet and
36:36
Speaker 1: this is the way. No, I'm not saying that. But
36:38
Speaker 1: are they saying that they can they can provide more
36:41
Speaker 1: yield the conventional farming. I think if you backed them
36:44
Speaker 1: into a corner, they would probably hedge that. But I
36:47
Speaker 1: think that when they're amongst themselves, they may yes, okay
36:52
Speaker 1: there like you guys, totally no, we can't comp okay,
36:55
Speaker 1: we just wanna talk about it. Shut up, simon. Um.
37:00
Speaker 1: So there are people doing this to varying degrees all
37:02
Speaker 1: over the world. Whether or not is uh. If you
37:04
Speaker 1: have a full scale permaculture farm, then you are almost
37:11
Speaker 1: likely to be a pomic perma culture activist. For an educator, um,
37:17
Speaker 1: it's not something you're doing lightly. You may also be
37:20
Speaker 1: someone who's like, well, you know, part of my part
37:23
Speaker 1: of my farm here, I'm doing in in such a
37:25
Speaker 1: manner part of it. I'm not, um, but there are
37:29
Speaker 1: things that you can do even at your own home,
37:33
Speaker 1: like a forest garden. Well that that's like what perma
37:36
Speaker 1: culture seems to really be best at is is backyard gardening. Yeah,
37:42
Speaker 1: so tell him about the forest garden because I found
37:44
Speaker 1: this fascinating. Man. Yeah. I mean, if you've got a
37:47
Speaker 1: if you have a back lawn that is just a
37:50
Speaker 1: big grass lawn. Um. And you know, during our grass episode,
37:54
Speaker 1: we we didn't get preachy, but a lot of people
37:57
Speaker 1: will say, like, that's the worst thing you can do
37:59
Speaker 1: is just to have a huge flat thing of grass
38:03
Speaker 1: as far as what's good for the earth. And that's
38:05
Speaker 1: a total I mean once in that I think I
38:08
Speaker 1: remember we talked about that literally being just like an
38:11
Speaker 1: American creation and the fifties or something. No, it was
38:16
Speaker 1: than that, Yeah, but yeah, I'm pretty sure it was
38:18
Speaker 1: pretty American. Yeah. So a forest garden is a food
38:23
Speaker 1: garden that you build or plant. You build it out
38:27
Speaker 1: of wood and iron in your backyard to that imitates
38:32
Speaker 1: a natural forest. So you're trying to sort of replicate
38:35
Speaker 1: what you might find in that natural setting in your yard. Uh.
38:38
Speaker 1: And this is gonna, like you said, make things a
38:41
Speaker 1: little easier on you because you're not gonna have to
38:44
Speaker 1: rotate crops or till like you normally would. Um, and
38:49
Speaker 1: everything is just sort of working together. And and Robert
38:52
Speaker 1: has sort of a four part example for layers, if
38:55
Speaker 1: you will, starting with trees, which are gonna obviously the
38:59
Speaker 1: big guts sing in that forest garden. They're gonna eat
39:03
Speaker 1: most of that sunlight. But they're also gonna let dappled
39:07
Speaker 1: light through, which can be great growing conditions for certain things. Right. Um,
39:12
Speaker 1: so the there's you're gonna grow things like blackberries or
39:16
Speaker 1: leaf lettuce or strawberries. Um, any vines that are shade
39:21
Speaker 1: loving that there that produce food. But the point of
39:25
Speaker 1: this is like the tree isn't just like, well, here's
39:27
Speaker 1: a tree, isn't that great? Um, It's like the tree
39:30
Speaker 1: also provides stability for the vine to climb up, right,
39:34
Speaker 1: like you said, it provides shade for these shade loving plants.
39:38
Speaker 1: And I guess the point. And I didn't really see
39:41
Speaker 1: anywhere explained why people do this. I know it's like
39:45
Speaker 1: an ancient technique from um South America, I believe, like
39:49
Speaker 1: in the Brazilian rainforest it's used to great impact the trees. Yeah,
39:54
Speaker 1: forest egro forest tree basically is what it's called. But um,
39:58
Speaker 1: the I did really see what the benefits of it are,
40:03
Speaker 1: especially if it limits you to shade loving food plants, right,
40:07
Speaker 1: because there's plenty of food plants out there that don't
40:10
Speaker 1: love shade. Isn't that correct? Yeah? It, well, I guess
40:13
Speaker 1: let me talk about what we're doing. So this lady
40:17
Speaker 1: came in and she's a company owner, and she takes
40:20
Speaker 1: a look at our yard and she's basically instead of saying, hey,
40:24
Speaker 1: let's plant a tree that will take twenty years to
40:28
Speaker 1: grow to provide whatever shade and then go, she's like,
40:31
Speaker 1: let's let's look at what you got now, because Atlanta
40:34
Speaker 1: is an urban forest on its own, as you know,
40:37
Speaker 1: and there are trees everywhere, so we we had existing
40:40
Speaker 1: trees and stuff, and she basically just sort of looks
40:43
Speaker 1: at everything, draws up a design, and then comes back
40:46
Speaker 1: to us and said, here's what we're gonna do. Um.
40:49
Speaker 1: And that she's working mainly with Emily because this was
40:52
Speaker 1: sort of her initiative and she knew more about it
40:54
Speaker 1: than I did. And Emily, it's more of the gardener
40:56
Speaker 1: in the family. Emily. Yeah, but I was on board,
40:59
Speaker 1: you know, and I was it in on these meetings,
41:00
Speaker 1: going this sounds great, this sounds great. Uh. So she
41:03
Speaker 1: would say, all right, you have shade over here, so
41:05
Speaker 1: why don't we think about this here, um, like blueberry bushes. Um,
41:09
Speaker 1: this is where you might want to think about putting
41:11
Speaker 1: your herbs and downwind from there because of how the
41:15
Speaker 1: way the wind blows through your yard. You might want
41:16
Speaker 1: to think about this there. And we can move. Like
41:19
Speaker 1: we had certain things that we wanted to keep, like
41:21
Speaker 1: some azaleas and some roses and things, and she was like,
41:24
Speaker 1: we gotta move those because they're not in the right place.
41:27
Speaker 1: So we'll put that over here, move this over there,
41:29
Speaker 1: and then before you know it, she's drawn a schematic
41:32
Speaker 1: for a sustainable backyard that all works together. And you know,
41:38
Speaker 1: the the insects from the one plant are close to
41:40
Speaker 1: the where they need to be to to help kill
41:44
Speaker 1: insects that affect the other plant. And you know, I wish, I, well,
41:48
Speaker 1: it's probably great to get too wonky over my yard,
41:51
Speaker 1: but it just all works together in harmony, and we're
41:54
Speaker 1: doing it in stages. The main thing, big big change
41:58
Speaker 1: that we've done, aside from rearranging and planting new things.
42:02
Speaker 1: Is we got a a cistern finally, so we have
42:06
Speaker 1: a big huge jeez, I don't even know how many
42:09
Speaker 1: gallons I want to say, like gallon. No, it's large.
42:14
Speaker 1: I mean it's as big as that's that's an above
42:18
Speaker 1: ground swimming pool. I think you're describing. Is it is
42:21
Speaker 1: that too many gallons? That's a lot. I don't know.
42:24
Speaker 1: Let's let's say this. It is as big as a
42:27
Speaker 1: it's like half as big as a Volkswagen Beetle. Wow,
42:30
Speaker 1: it's large. So this is under our deck, so it's
42:34
Speaker 1: not an is or anything. Um, all the gutters in
42:38
Speaker 1: the house, all the water that falls onto our roof
42:42
Speaker 1: is fed into this cistern. And then that cistern has
42:45
Speaker 1: pipes that they trenched and they go all underground throughout
42:49
Speaker 1: the whole yard and just sort of uh leech water
42:52
Speaker 1: where it needs to be. And then there's also a
42:54
Speaker 1: couple of pumps. We didn't have spigots in our backyard. Um,
42:59
Speaker 1: we still don't. It's been awful, you know, we haven't
43:01
Speaker 1: had a We've had to run like hundreds of feet
43:03
Speaker 1: of hose every time we wanted to water anything. And
43:07
Speaker 1: it just feels wasteful anyway, and so we didn't have
43:10
Speaker 1: backyards pickets. So now we have these two posts with
43:12
Speaker 1: the little pumps and it's sort of gravity fed in
43:16
Speaker 1: a way, like if the cistern is full and you
43:18
Speaker 1: turn that pump on, it'll water will flow some. But
43:22
Speaker 1: then we have an actual pump installed on the cistern
43:25
Speaker 1: to where we can actually use a sprinkler if we
43:28
Speaker 1: want to. But but the the pump is squirrel run
43:32
Speaker 1: by a hamster wheel, right, and it's it's located in
43:36
Speaker 1: the the chestnut tree, so it's kind of attract the
43:39
Speaker 1: squirrels anyway. Now it's sadly it does run an electricity.
43:43
Speaker 1: I wish it was hooked up to solar, but we're
43:45
Speaker 1: not that far along yet. That's pretty cool though, Man,
43:47
Speaker 1: that's a that's a neat pro plane you got. It's
43:50
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. And guess what we have a swale. Oh,
43:54
Speaker 1: I was hoping we were going to be able to
43:56
Speaker 1: talk about sils. Yeah, Robert didn't include this in his article,
43:59
Speaker 1: but I sent you know a thing on swales, And
44:01
Speaker 1: we have a swale, which is to say, in the
44:03
Speaker 1: back right corner of our yard. Now we have a
44:07
Speaker 1: a tiny pond it's only about five ft across by
44:11
Speaker 1: five ft across, and it is around and it has
44:14
Speaker 1: a like a round berm around it, so, uh, you know,
44:19
Speaker 1: it's like a little hill and a swale. The definition
44:22
Speaker 1: of a swale it is a is a level ditch
44:25
Speaker 1: that has dug across whatever site you're in with a
44:29
Speaker 1: purpose of stopping the flow of water in order to
44:31
Speaker 1: make the water slowly filter into the land instead of
44:34
Speaker 1: rushing over it. And the idea there is is that
44:38
Speaker 1: most people design their yards uh so water won't accumulate
44:42
Speaker 1: and it will run It's graded in such a way
44:45
Speaker 1: that water rain water will just run off of it
44:47
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. And that's you know, that's very wasteful.
44:51
Speaker 1: And that's not how the ground. The ground is supposed
44:53
Speaker 1: to accept the water. I know that sounds so hippy,
44:57
Speaker 1: but in an ideal situation, the ground x steps the
45:00
Speaker 1: water into it and it's not dry a day later.
45:04
Speaker 1: It is actually feeding the ground. And so this swale
45:07
Speaker 1: now has a has a a runoff from the cistern,
45:13
Speaker 1: So when the cistern gets too full, the water will
45:16
Speaker 1: then run out into the swale and just sort of
45:19
Speaker 1: slowly lead into the ground. Around it, or if we
45:21
Speaker 1: get just tons of tons of rain, obviously the swale
45:23
Speaker 1: will collect it and the water will leach it to
45:25
Speaker 1: the ground around it. That's very cool. That is swale.
45:28
Speaker 1: It's it is super swale. But it was an important part.
45:32
Speaker 1: Like when this lady came over, she's like, we gotta
45:34
Speaker 1: have a swale. Yeah, alright, Like swales are my biggest seller,
45:38
Speaker 1: and right now it's not the most attractive thing in
45:40
Speaker 1: the world. But over time we're planning. Instead of grass
45:44
Speaker 1: and between everything or even maltu, we're doing groundcover. I
45:47
Speaker 1: can't remember the specific variety, but groundcover or malt are
45:52
Speaker 1: the two most sustainable ways to treat your yard period. Yeah,
45:57
Speaker 1: that makes sense because the multiple break down right and
46:01
Speaker 1: degrade and become nutrients. Yeah. So it's it's pretty neat,
46:04
Speaker 1: Like we've got a good scene. It's going to be
46:07
Speaker 1: years in the making. Well that's another thing too. I mean,
46:10
Speaker 1: like you've got to be very patient with this kind
46:12
Speaker 1: of stuff. That's great man. Anywhere there are and I'm wondering, um,
46:20
Speaker 1: you seem to have a pretty realistic approach to perma
46:23
Speaker 1: culture though, Like you're not going to save the world
46:24
Speaker 1: with your backyard it sounds like, but it's certainly not
46:27
Speaker 1: hurting some of the issues that the world is facing
46:31
Speaker 1: right now. We're just trying to create our own little
46:33
Speaker 1: sustainable habitat. So there are there are we should mention
46:36
Speaker 1: some criticisms of perma culture. A lot of criticisms of
46:39
Speaker 1: perman culture we should say, but um, they you know,
46:43
Speaker 1: we've kind of hit on a couple of them. But
46:45
Speaker 1: the big one probably is that it's not rigorously tested
46:49
Speaker 1: scientifically enough that it's just kind of taken like, oh, yeah,
46:53
Speaker 1: that that would work intuitively, and then that it's just
46:56
Speaker 1: left at that in a lot of ways. So there
46:59
Speaker 1: are people like Beth and Stagg who I mentioned in
47:01
Speaker 1: other people around the world who are starting to apply
47:04
Speaker 1: science to these things to say this one works, let's
47:07
Speaker 1: keep at it. Uh, this one works better if you
47:10
Speaker 1: do it this way, or this one doesn't work at all,
47:12
Speaker 1: don't waste your time. Um. And as long as they're
47:16
Speaker 1: doing that, permaculture deserves any respect it can get because
47:21
Speaker 1: it really is again intuitively, it makes a lot of sense.
47:24
Speaker 1: But um, that doesn't necessarily mean it's true in fact,
47:29
Speaker 1: which is why you got to study that kind of thing. Yeah,
47:31
Speaker 1: and the other thing that I saw in the Robert's
47:33
Speaker 1: article that did make sense to me was one of
47:35
Speaker 1: the criticisms was to Mullissen himself because he apparently had
47:40
Speaker 1: a stress on bringing in exotic plants. Uh, and that
47:44
Speaker 1: goes counter to everything that our lady for her company
47:48
Speaker 1: talked about. She is all about native plans, only native plants.
47:53
Speaker 1: And Mullison's response was, well, we've already screwed up the
47:56
Speaker 1: earth so bad that we're not trying to preserve ecosysts
48:00
Speaker 1: says they are specifically where um, we're trying to make
48:04
Speaker 1: them better through management. And it's like, um, actually just
48:08
Speaker 1: contradicted everything you said back in And I think that's
48:12
Speaker 1: a pretty good example of from what I understand of
48:15
Speaker 1: that guy. He's like, well, this is what I'm saying now,
48:17
Speaker 1: so this is true, you know what I mean? That's
48:19
Speaker 1: just and I've never met him, never heard him speak
48:21
Speaker 1: anything like that, just from reading about him. That's the
48:23
Speaker 1: impression that I have. So to the Mules and family, sorry,
48:27
Speaker 1: if that's not right, Do you have anything else? Got
48:33
Speaker 1: nothing else? You'll have to come over in in two years,
48:37
Speaker 1: I'll take you upon you to see it. Now. I've
48:40
Speaker 1: been waiting for this invitation for ten years twelve total.
48:45
Speaker 1: All right, Uh, if you want to know more about
48:47
Speaker 1: permit culture, you can type that word into the search
48:50
Speaker 1: bar how stuff works. And uh, since I said search bars,
48:53
Speaker 1: sime for listener mail, I'm gonna call this harrowing story
48:58
Speaker 1: from a fashion design In turn. Yeah, it's a good one,
49:03
Speaker 1: and I got her permission. Hey, guys, listen to internships.
49:06
Speaker 1: I wanted to say thanks for addressing this issue. When
49:08
Speaker 1: I was in college, I went to work or I
49:10
Speaker 1: wanted to work in the fashion industry, and the internship
49:13
Speaker 1: process was very difficult and exploitive. I managed to somehow
49:16
Speaker 1: get an internship without any connections, which felt nearly impossible,
49:20
Speaker 1: and worked my first gig for a top designer and
49:24
Speaker 1: she did not name the designer, and a follow up
49:26
Speaker 1: email she did, but then said maybe don't read it,
49:30
Speaker 1: but it's a top designer. And not only was the
49:33
Speaker 1: internship unpaid and one of the most expensive cities in
49:36
Speaker 1: the world, but I was also expected to wear an
49:39
Speaker 1: all black, fashionable wardrobe at all times, so I had
49:43
Speaker 1: to find housing in New York by all new clothes. Luckily,
49:47
Speaker 1: my parents were able to help me out there, but
49:49
Speaker 1: I hated how prohibitive the whole thing was. While I
49:52
Speaker 1: was with that designer, the Condonast lawsuits were going on,
49:56
Speaker 1: and I remember people saying the lawsuit was just another
49:59
Speaker 1: example stereotypical millennial entitlement. That's obviously not the case, because,
50:04
Speaker 1: as you mentioned, it's a social issue. Because of my internship,
50:07
Speaker 1: I was able to get more experiences in the fashion
50:10
Speaker 1: industry and eventually a full time job in New York
50:13
Speaker 1: after I graduated. Everyone I work with now had unpaid,
50:16
Speaker 1: fashioned internships, and almost everyone I work with as white,
50:20
Speaker 1: upper class and from a good school. Unpaid internships have
50:23
Speaker 1: led to bigger problems and diversity that I think really
50:26
Speaker 1: have hurt the fashion industry. You always hear about how
50:29
Speaker 1: retail and department stores are dying. Well, all the companies
50:33
Speaker 1: are run by old, white, straight dudes, and we lack
50:36
Speaker 1: a variety of perspectives which prevents innovation. I'm glad I
50:39
Speaker 1: had internships and I learned a lot, but I think
50:42
Speaker 1: the internship market really needs to change. So thanks again
50:45
Speaker 1: for addressing this. With a lot of people listen to
50:48
Speaker 1: your podcast and reevaluate how they do things at their
50:50
Speaker 1: own companies. And that's from Gail thanks a lot, Gail,
50:54
Speaker 1: nice one. Actually, uh, if you want to get in
50:58
Speaker 1: touch with us, like Gail did, you can tweet to us.
51:00
Speaker 1: I'm at s Y s K podcast or at Josh M. Clark,
51:03
Speaker 1: Chuck's at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on Facebook and at
51:07
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know on Facebook. I'm on there too somewhere,
51:10
Speaker 1: although I'm not sure where. You can send us all
51:12
Speaker 1: an email, including Jerry J. E. R. I to Stuff
51:16
Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and in the meantime,
51:20
Speaker 1: hang out with us at our home on the web
51:21
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
51:28
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how Stuff Works
51:30
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