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· 23 ratings · 17 reviews
Start your review of Building Your Permaculture Property: A Five-Step Process to Design and Develop Land
Jun 24, 2021 Leigh Tate rated it it was amazing
When I first learned about permaculture, I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but somehow, I knew it made sense. As I researched, I realized that permaculture is so much more than a gardening technique; it's a design system. That realization was exciting, but also raised the question, "How do I take everything I've learned about permaculture design and come up with a practical plan for my property?"
Building Your Permaculture Property has been a timely answer to that question. It offers a problem-s
When I first learned about permaculture, I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but somehow, I knew it made sense. As I researched, I realized that permaculture is so much more than a gardening technique; it's a design system. That realization was exciting, but also raised the question, "How do I take everything I've learned about permaculture design and come up with a practical plan for my property?"Building Your Permaculture Property has been a timely answer to that question. It offers a problem-solving methodology through a clearly defined five-step process to help readers design, develop, and manage their permaculture property successfully.
The book is divided into steps which clearly outline the process.
"Step 0: Inspect Your Paradigm." The prerequisite for the process is a challenge to understand one's personal paradigm, i.e., the basic assumptions and beliefs that form how we view reality. The authors examine three paradigms describing how we view our relationship to nature. These are important to understand, because they define how we as individuals approach the global problems we now face. The chapters that follow focus on the attitudes and actions that lead to thriving abundance.
"Step 1: Clarify Your Vision, Values, and Resources." One of the struggles in getting started with permaculture is not knowing what to do. This chapter offers practical steps through a set of questions and exercises: What do you have? (resources), what is right? (values or ethics), and what do you want? (vision). The reader learns how to create a detailed personal inventory of resources, examines why we need an ethical framework for our lives, and how to concisely clarify what we want, including how to work through differences with our partner or partners.
"Step 2: Diagnose Your Resources for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats." A second struggle people have is not knowing where to find information they need to implement a design. There is plenty of information out there, but knowing how to connect the dots can be daunting. This chapter will teach the reader how to use nature's pattern to gather, store, and organize all that information. A two-stage process is used to identify and organize property resources, using the four variables of permaculture pattern to diagnose potential strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
"Step 3: Design Your Resources to Meet Your Vision and Values." A third struggle in permaculture is trying to figure out how it all fits together. To this, the authors say, "It is not too big of an exaggeration to say that when diagnosis is done correctly and diligently, design flows out that work, and jumps off the page right at you." This is why steps 1 and 2 are key. This chapter begins by clarifying what permaculture design is and what it isn't. It discusses design misconceptions and mistakes, the differences between the good, the bad, and the ugly of design, and shows the reader how to use five simple questions and an energy flow analysis to evaluate and gain insight into their design.
"Step 4: Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource." Once we have a design for our permaculture property, the next big question is "Where do I start?" quickly followed by "What do I do next?" This chapter helps the reader begin to implement their design by utilizing processes and tools for success. Introduces an innovative approach for building your permaculture property and teaches how to solve problems as they arise. It discusses goal setting, weekly planning, how to identify your weakest link, and how to make good decisions while avoiding bad ones.
"Step 5: Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering." The fifth question people struggle with is, "When will it end?" This chapter makes the case for learning how to monitor one's resources for well-being or suffering, rather than trying to measure outcomes as indicators of success. It provides the tools and framework to understand suffering as feedback and keep on track toward your vision and values. Discusses how to monitor yourself, your property, and the four ecosystem processes.
Exercises, charts, templates, worksheets, and tools for productivity, planning, and workflow are found throughout the book. Interesting real-life examples are provided in each section with "Takota's Story."
Highly recommended. Building Your Permaculture Property is an excellent resource for everyone wanting to put all the pieces together to create a thriving permaculture property.
...more This is just the follow-up I wanted from their great course on the same topic. It gives me all the homework pages with self reflection that was given in the class, (described so well in another review below). For me, in these times, the tools outlined in the book are a great way to set aside my old habits in all aspects of my life as well as with respect to property design, and to examine where I currently have been spending my time and efforts, and how, using their processes, I could more effic This is just the follow-up I wanted from their great course on the same topic. It gives me all the homework pages with self reflection that was given in the class, (described so well in another review below). For me, in these times, the tools outlined in the book are a great way to set aside my old habits in all aspects of my life as well as with respect to property design, and to examine where I currently have been spending my time and efforts, and how, using their processes, I could more efficiently get to my future vision and values. All the examples from Takota make it easier to embrace my mistakes, learn from them and move on. And I carry the wise words of it being best to reach out for expert advice on how to proceed AFTER my personal home-work has been done and before the obvious errors in design have occurred! This book has been a great way to start conversations while engaging in plans to set up a Community here in Alberta. The honest communication and trust building step is essential before embarking on such an adventure, and I just reminded myself that finding an accountability partner is essential! Also, the reminder was appreciated that steps unfold naturally and that I can be gentle with myself, go slowly, and take one small step at a time! Thank-you for such an inviting way to learn! Did anyone say how great the photos and figures are?! They make the book FUN! ...more
Nov 12, 2021 Tom Greentree rated it it was amazing
BYPP is an immensely practical guide to building a property that sustains and elevates all who are part of it -- organisms, vegetative, animal, and human. I loved the way the whole process is laid out, along with the stories (particularly from Coen farm) that illustrate it all.
Tennille and I attended Verge Permaculture's online summit earlier this year, and are so encouraged by this work and our ability to apply this on our own farm.
The BYPP five step process is laid out clearly, with actionab
BYPP is an immensely practical guide to building a property that sustains and elevates all who are part of it -- organisms, vegetative, animal, and human. I loved the way the whole process is laid out, along with the stories (particularly from Coen farm) that illustrate it all.Tennille and I attended Verge Permaculture's online summit earlier this year, and are so encouraged by this work and our ability to apply this on our own farm.
The BYPP five step process is laid out clearly, with actionable steps in each, forming a coherent process that will help anyone who is wanting to become a better steward of whatever land they have.
The five steps are:
1. Clarify your vision, values, and resources
2. Diagnose your resources for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats
3. Design your resources to meet your vision and values
4. Implement the right design that will most improve your weakest resource
5. Monitor your resources for indicators of well-being or suffering.
Thanks to all three for this great resource. We'll be using it as a guide going forward.
...more May 24, 2021 Tyler Masse rated it it was amazing
Excellent book. I like that it is about a design process. Many other permaculture books give this topic only a chapter and then quickly move on to the individual design elements you can build such as herb spirals and swales, for example. This leads to thinking that they are what it is all about as opposed to tools in your toolkit. This book breaks it down to the steps you need to follow to determine if those elements are actually something for you and it sets you up for success from the beginnin Excellent book. I like that it is about a design process. Many other permaculture books give this topic only a chapter and then quickly move on to the individual design elements you can build such as herb spirals and swales, for example. This leads to thinking that they are what it is all about as opposed to tools in your toolkit. This book breaks it down to the steps you need to follow to determine if those elements are actually something for you and it sets you up for success from the beginning. ...more
In the Afterward, authors Rob, Michelle and Takota tell the story of a messenger who brings back to his/her kin the message of a new way of living in a challenging time. We are living in challenging times which require strategies adapted accordingly. This book approaches a very real challenge faced by many. It draws on their personal experiences, using Indigenous and Permaculture principals to provide the skills and approach required for success. Highly recommended.
Oct 18, 2021 Pam Dawling rated it really liked it
Thank goodness for this book! I had already admired some of the work of Michelle and Rob Avis in Adaptive Habitat (ecological design and sustainable technology), so I knew them to be committed and practical. I am one of those put off from permaculture by the worshipful jargon of some followers, and the peculiarly male-dominated field. This book restores my faith in being able to benefit from and use the good ideas in permaculture without abandoning independent thought or the all-important holist Thank goodness for this book! I had already admired some of the work of Michelle and Rob Avis in Adaptive Habitat (ecological design and sustainable technology), so I knew them to be committed and practical. I am one of those put off from permaculture by the worshipful jargon of some followers, and the peculiarly male-dominated field. This book restores my faith in being able to benefit from and use the good ideas in permaculture without abandoning independent thought or the all-important holistic approach.
This book is a valuable and realistic resource from authors who have "earned their share of cuts and bruises"; a guide to clarifying your goals, attitudes and approaches to holistic land management; a step-by-step guide to get from today to a future aligned with your dreams.
This is not an introduction to permaculture, or a quick-fix for your garden, woodlot, home energy source, flooded land, compacted soil, or back aching from rototilling! There is a common misperception that permaculture is about a set of trendy vegetable gardening techniques. Here is a careful Five Step Permaculture Process, with exercises, templates, workflow tools and thoughtful questions. It addresses real challenges.
The book is introduced by the quote from Bill Mollison (one of the cofounders of Permaculture), defining Permaculture: "Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way."
When Rob and Michelle were teaching, Rob was often ashamed to mention the word "permaculture". Despite the elegant practical solutions for solving systemic problems with food, water, housing and energy systems offered by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Permaculture One, most people publicizing permaculture talk about zones, guilds, keyhole and spiral planting beds. "Putting a herb spiral in your backyard while you still source the majority of your basic needs from the degenerative food, water and energy systems is simply permaculture tourism." Thank you! Straightening the deckchairs on the Titanic! Society's big messes will not be helped by a herb spiral!
The authors believe that the root cause of people becoming disenchanted in permaculture is a lack of a clearly defined process. They ask the question "What is the biggest problem you are struggling with right now putting permaculture into practice?" and have found that answers fall into five categories.
1. I don't know what I should do. (Unclear goals.)
2. I don't know where to look. (Inadequate information.)
3. I don't know how it all fits. (Confusion.)
4. I don't know where to start or what's next. (Being overwhelmed.)
5. I don't know when it will end. (Burnout)
All indicate a lack of something important. The authors decided that instead of teaching students what to do, they would teach them how to solve their problems. We benefit from focusing less on specific practices (those herb spirals!) and more on making a clear step-by-step process for how to design, develop, and manage a property to provide all the food, water, shelter and energy needs in harmony with the ecosystem.
In the Five-Step Permaculture Process, each step addresses one of the five Biggest Struggles:
Step 1. Clarify vision, values, resources
Step 2. Assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats in your resources
Step 3. Design your use of resources to meet vision and values
Step 4. Implement the design that most improves your weakest resource
Step 5. Monitor for well-being or suffering
Buy the book, check out their website, I'm not going to spell it all out here! It's easy to forget that hours of learning and practicing a skill come before becoming an expert! Persistence and process are both needed.
The illustrations from Jarett Sitter throughout the book look like those from children's picture books, although examination reveals symbols of the permaculture journey. Each chapter includes sidebars with enlightening segments from Takota Coen's Story developing regenerative agriculture as a fourth generation farmer.
The heart of the book addresses the five steps and the initial foundation (Step 0) to guide you through design and management. Approach the steps in the order given, and be open to the possibility that you will need to tackle several aspects at once. Like learning to play guitar by learning to read music, keeping time, strumming a rhythm and making a chord, you will need to practice many skills and pull them all together as you go. Find an independent Accountability Partner, who is tackling a similar permaculture challenge, but is not invested in the same one as you. You will gain support and motivation.
The foundation chapter (Step 0) is about inspecting our conscious and unconscious beliefs about reality, which determine our vision, our actions and our responses to other people. We look for hindrances such as confirmation biases (remembering information that supports our existing preconceptions); endowment effects (demanding more to give up something than we would pay to acquire it); the IKEA effect (giving higher value to things we have assembled ourselves, regardless of actual quality!)
The authors define two predominant downward spiraling paradigms: 'degenerative' and 'sustainable', in contrast to the upward spiraling 'regenerative' paradigm. The degenerative paradigm cycles through arrogance, extraction, combat and suffering, creating an increasingly fragile system. The 'sustainable' paradigm seeks to maintain the status quo, cycling through guilt, conserving, controlling and surviving, creating a resilient system. The 'regenerative' system is anti-fragile, getting stronger, cycling up through reverence, co-creation, designing, thriving.
I dislike this definition of "sustainable" – people in survivalist mode, delaying on their own land the effects of societal collapse. As the author of a book with the S word in the title, I feel a bit defensive. I am not the guilt-ridden, masochistic, fearful, self-hating type portrayed. How does this stereotype help the authors make converts? I share with permaculturists feelings of reverence, awe, co-operation, justice, humility, compassion and being part of nature. But I am not a permaculturist. I use the definition of sustainable in the 1987 Brundtland Report: "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." I do agree with the authors that ableness to sustain or maintain is not a guarantee that sustaining will happen.
From the perspective of word meanings, regenerative suggests being able to or tending to regenerate, renew or restore, especially after injury, or damage. It includes the sense that something has gone wrong and we are going to ride in and fix it, returning things to a previous state. Yes, corporations and individuals do co-opt the word sustainable, for industrial agriculture, as happened previously with the words organic, biological, ecological. And will happen with the word regenerative. In a few years, this word too, will be seen as having shortcomings, meaning retro-farming, or something unfortunate like that.
Step 1 is to clarify vision, resources and values. The large number of options can be reduced to those that answer all three questions, What do you want? What resources do you have? and What matches your values? The overlap of the first two filters out the impossible. The permaculture movement has developed helpful tools: the Needs and Yields Analysis, when applied to ourselves, will help answer the first two questions, and the Three Permaculture Ethics of earth care, people care and future care gives guidance on clarifying values.
Make an inventory of your resources, starting with money and material resources, and moving into natural, social, spiritual, experiential, intellectual and cultural resources. Your personal resource inventory should include debts (negative resources) and resources you have access to without ownership. Step 1 also includes thought experiments on increasing wellbeing for all, and the creation of a Vision and Values One-pager. Because most of us want to share our lives with others, we need to resolve interpersonal conflicts, to build shared vision and value statements. The process of writing down your desires in broad daylight helps with inspection and reflection.
The most common design mistakes when clarifying visions and values are focusing on the what rather than the why; using language traps like the future tense which let you off the hook for actually doing anything today; identifying yourself as outside the ecosystem looking in, and being paralyzed by perfection. The authors sell a toolkit of the templates for the exercises and provide practice tips at the end of each chapter.
Jared Diamond, in Collapse, his study of collapsed societies, notes: "Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values."
Step 2: Diagnose Your Resources for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, opens with encouragement to search out any information that could make or break your plans.
You can organize your property resources into 11 categories: geography, climate, water, access, structures, fencing, flora, fauna, business, technology and soil. There's another helpful chart. Use a pattern found in nature to gather, store, organize and retrieve your info, based on these categories. This functions to help create an ordered workflow (order of operations) for design and implementation.
Diagnosis has two stages, firstly making observations about your resources using the four variables of patterns (form, timing, placement, scale). There's a chart about this, with descriptors that fit each mode. Secondly SWOT analysis, where you make value-based judgements about each resource. Strengths and weaknesses are attributes within your project. Opportunities and threats are outside your project but close enough to have an impact. There is a big chart with examples for each of the 11 categories.
Be warned that every property seems to have a hidden piece of information that, if discovered, can change everything for the better. Takota Coen describes discovering he had (at big expense) had a pond dug in the wrong place. He thought he knew the land so well he didn't need to put his design on paper. After learning to use Google Earth Pro (it's free!), he discovered a much better pond site. The website has tools to help you make effective use of GIS programs.
Step 3: Design Your Resources to Meet Your Vision and Values. When you draw out a design in detail on paper, you gain insights into how to create it in real life and reduce silly mistakes. There are three misconceptions about what design is. Designs are not fixed in stone – if you become aware of ways to improve your design, you do it! Design is not just aesthetics, but is structural, functional, and also beautiful. The best way to improve something is not always to add to it -- many improvements come with removing something, or taking a very different approach.
Regularly ask yourself what you are aiming to achieve, and what other options would also provide the same outcome. Don't decide you need a swale, or a solar greenhouse until you identify a goal and weigh up the options for reaching the goal, and come out with the answer that best satisfies the goal.
Two useful method of design that can be tweaked for this job are the needs and yields analysis and the sector analysis. Both are carefully explained. They examine if every need of every element is fully met within your system; if every yield is fully used; if every element serves multiple functions; if every function is served by multiple elements; and if all is functioning ethically.
Consider each of the energy sources and sinks on your farm, whether you want that energy and how you will make best use of it if you do want it. There are suggestions of what sources and sinks to consider, as well as ways to reduce losses. There's an engaging list of tips, including "When you are working, work; when you are chilling, chill. Make it a binary." Also, reduce clutter, distractions (social media), and set up a ritual for starting deep work on your design. Use your accountability partner. Gather all your worksheets in one place.
Step 4: Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource, opens with a note that "the dirty little secret of permaculture is that design is the easy part, it is the implementation that kills you." When one of your resources fails, it will no longer be helping you thrive, it will start to cannibalize the farm. This can happen if you made a poor decision earlier. This chapter helps you organize workflow, make weekly plans, make good decisions, and not rush to get to your goal in what looks like the fastest way.
Problems can arise if you tackle tasks in a poor order. Go back to the 11 categories of resources. Geography comes first, because once chosen, it cannot be changed easily or quickly. The categories that are listed higher impact all those below them. Don't abandon the list because soil is last! Soil is very important, of course, but there is no value in getting into the detail of the best cover crops, if you have not dealt with water supply and drainage to prevent runoff, or dealt with wind erosion.
Look for weakest links (biggest gaps between vision and resources), turn this gap into a Wildly Important Goal (achievable and exciting), and focus with the formula "from X to Y by when?". Each week commit to one or more actions that will lead in the right direction, schedule them weekly, and check them off when done. The book has an extensive chart of examples.
Revisit Step 3 (Design) with its description of good, bad and ugly designs, and transfer the descriptions to decisions. What is your process for making good decisions? Many people are not consciously aware of how they make decisions. Intuition alone is not enough. Use the Good Decision Worksheet.
After writing down your decision, check its alignment with your values; any possibly ruinous outcome; whether it actually addresses the problem; whether it's your best use of your resources; the risk/reward ratio; then sleep on it and repeat the process; pass the idea by your accountability partner; flip a coin to check if your emotions align with your decision; write down what needs to be done, and early indications of whether you have made the best decision.
Step 5: Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering. You can only manage what you measure (but you can measure more things than you can manage!) Precision is not the same as accuracy! Knowing exactly how many beetles are on your plants does not provide the whole answer on what to do. Rather than focus entirely on numbers, monitor for suffering and well-being. "The one thing never found in a healthy ecosystem is excessive suffering." There will always be some suffering – it is feedback on the situation and the design that led to it. Determine what actions you can take to improve things.
There are two categories of resources, personal resources and the 11 categories of property resources. Look at your Vision and Values Sheet and use your Indicators of early signs of success or failure to see if you are heading towards well-being or suffering. Takota tells the story of figuring out when and why his cows got mastitis, and making a small change he had resisted, increasing well-being, and preventing mastitis from then on.
Increase awareness of your own state of being: if you feel patient, grateful, relaxed and enthusiastic, you are in a state of well-being. If you are sleepy, angry, resentful, jealous and prone to procrastination, you are suffering. Do you hum as you work, or curse? Your coworkers will know your signs of distress, if you can't tell for yourself.
Keeping a journal can help monitor your well-being. Write down the answers to 3 questions in the morning. What are you most excited about today? What are you most grateful for? What is one thing you could do to make today great? In the evening, ask: What is the most amazing thing that happened today? What could I have done better? What was my biggest insight today?
At the end of each month, review your weekly planner sheets, and your daily reflections. Answer questions on a range of 0-10, and compare your answers the previous month. How clear are you on what your weakest link is? How confident are you that what you are doing is addressing this weakest link and moving you towards your goal? Have you seen signs that you are increasing well-being (or suffering)? What has been this month's most valuable insight?
Monitor your 11 property resources yearly, looking for signs of increased well-being. There is a template! Shockingly, cropland globally is often bare for 30-50% of the year, wasting the potential photosynthesis, and degrading the soil. Soil carbon can (on average) hold four times its weight in water. Another source of potential wastage or potential improvement. When the solar cycle, the water cycle and the soil nutrient cycle interact well, the flora and fauna spiral towards the climax ecosystem for that region.
Monitor, reflect, record, compare results with your vision and values statement, monitor your ecosystems. Make a paper planner and use it for a full year before reviewing. There are templates and suggestions for designing your own planner.
A lot of the ideas in this book make a great deal of sense even for those of us who don't identify as permaculturists! Careful design and planning, checklists, worksheets – these can save all of us wasted effort or heartache. This thoughtful book can be useful to every farmer or landowner. As I've often noted, any gardener or farmer paying close attention and recording their results, has something valuable to teach us, whatever they call the style of their farming.
...more
This book is a valuable and realistic resource from authors who have "earned their share of cuts and bruises"; a guide to clarifying your goals, attitudes and approaches to holistic land management; a step-by-step guide to get from today to a future aligned with your dreams.
This is not an introduction to permaculture, or a quick-fix for your garden, woodlot, home energy source, flooded land, compacted soil, or back aching from rototilling! There is a common misperception that permaculture is about a set of trendy vegetable gardening techniques. Here is a careful Five Step Permaculture Process, with exercises, templates, workflow tools and thoughtful questions. It addresses real challenges.
The book is introduced by the quote from Bill Mollison (one of the cofounders of Permaculture), defining Permaculture: "Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way."
When Rob and Michelle were teaching, Rob was often ashamed to mention the word "permaculture". Despite the elegant practical solutions for solving systemic problems with food, water, housing and energy systems offered by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in Permaculture One, most people publicizing permaculture talk about zones, guilds, keyhole and spiral planting beds. "Putting a herb spiral in your backyard while you still source the majority of your basic needs from the degenerative food, water and energy systems is simply permaculture tourism." Thank you! Straightening the deckchairs on the Titanic! Society's big messes will not be helped by a herb spiral!
The authors believe that the root cause of people becoming disenchanted in permaculture is a lack of a clearly defined process. They ask the question "What is the biggest problem you are struggling with right now putting permaculture into practice?" and have found that answers fall into five categories.
1. I don't know what I should do. (Unclear goals.)
2. I don't know where to look. (Inadequate information.)
3. I don't know how it all fits. (Confusion.)
4. I don't know where to start or what's next. (Being overwhelmed.)
5. I don't know when it will end. (Burnout)
All indicate a lack of something important. The authors decided that instead of teaching students what to do, they would teach them how to solve their problems. We benefit from focusing less on specific practices (those herb spirals!) and more on making a clear step-by-step process for how to design, develop, and manage a property to provide all the food, water, shelter and energy needs in harmony with the ecosystem.
In the Five-Step Permaculture Process, each step addresses one of the five Biggest Struggles:
Step 1. Clarify vision, values, resources
Step 2. Assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats in your resources
Step 3. Design your use of resources to meet vision and values
Step 4. Implement the design that most improves your weakest resource
Step 5. Monitor for well-being or suffering
Buy the book, check out their website, I'm not going to spell it all out here! It's easy to forget that hours of learning and practicing a skill come before becoming an expert! Persistence and process are both needed.
The illustrations from Jarett Sitter throughout the book look like those from children's picture books, although examination reveals symbols of the permaculture journey. Each chapter includes sidebars with enlightening segments from Takota Coen's Story developing regenerative agriculture as a fourth generation farmer.
The heart of the book addresses the five steps and the initial foundation (Step 0) to guide you through design and management. Approach the steps in the order given, and be open to the possibility that you will need to tackle several aspects at once. Like learning to play guitar by learning to read music, keeping time, strumming a rhythm and making a chord, you will need to practice many skills and pull them all together as you go. Find an independent Accountability Partner, who is tackling a similar permaculture challenge, but is not invested in the same one as you. You will gain support and motivation.
The foundation chapter (Step 0) is about inspecting our conscious and unconscious beliefs about reality, which determine our vision, our actions and our responses to other people. We look for hindrances such as confirmation biases (remembering information that supports our existing preconceptions); endowment effects (demanding more to give up something than we would pay to acquire it); the IKEA effect (giving higher value to things we have assembled ourselves, regardless of actual quality!)
The authors define two predominant downward spiraling paradigms: 'degenerative' and 'sustainable', in contrast to the upward spiraling 'regenerative' paradigm. The degenerative paradigm cycles through arrogance, extraction, combat and suffering, creating an increasingly fragile system. The 'sustainable' paradigm seeks to maintain the status quo, cycling through guilt, conserving, controlling and surviving, creating a resilient system. The 'regenerative' system is anti-fragile, getting stronger, cycling up through reverence, co-creation, designing, thriving.
I dislike this definition of "sustainable" – people in survivalist mode, delaying on their own land the effects of societal collapse. As the author of a book with the S word in the title, I feel a bit defensive. I am not the guilt-ridden, masochistic, fearful, self-hating type portrayed. How does this stereotype help the authors make converts? I share with permaculturists feelings of reverence, awe, co-operation, justice, humility, compassion and being part of nature. But I am not a permaculturist. I use the definition of sustainable in the 1987 Brundtland Report: "meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." I do agree with the authors that ableness to sustain or maintain is not a guarantee that sustaining will happen.
From the perspective of word meanings, regenerative suggests being able to or tending to regenerate, renew or restore, especially after injury, or damage. It includes the sense that something has gone wrong and we are going to ride in and fix it, returning things to a previous state. Yes, corporations and individuals do co-opt the word sustainable, for industrial agriculture, as happened previously with the words organic, biological, ecological. And will happen with the word regenerative. In a few years, this word too, will be seen as having shortcomings, meaning retro-farming, or something unfortunate like that.
Step 1 is to clarify vision, resources and values. The large number of options can be reduced to those that answer all three questions, What do you want? What resources do you have? and What matches your values? The overlap of the first two filters out the impossible. The permaculture movement has developed helpful tools: the Needs and Yields Analysis, when applied to ourselves, will help answer the first two questions, and the Three Permaculture Ethics of earth care, people care and future care gives guidance on clarifying values.
Make an inventory of your resources, starting with money and material resources, and moving into natural, social, spiritual, experiential, intellectual and cultural resources. Your personal resource inventory should include debts (negative resources) and resources you have access to without ownership. Step 1 also includes thought experiments on increasing wellbeing for all, and the creation of a Vision and Values One-pager. Because most of us want to share our lives with others, we need to resolve interpersonal conflicts, to build shared vision and value statements. The process of writing down your desires in broad daylight helps with inspection and reflection.
The most common design mistakes when clarifying visions and values are focusing on the what rather than the why; using language traps like the future tense which let you off the hook for actually doing anything today; identifying yourself as outside the ecosystem looking in, and being paralyzed by perfection. The authors sell a toolkit of the templates for the exercises and provide practice tips at the end of each chapter.
Jared Diamond, in Collapse, his study of collapsed societies, notes: "Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping the outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning and willingness to reconsider core values."
Step 2: Diagnose Your Resources for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, opens with encouragement to search out any information that could make or break your plans.
You can organize your property resources into 11 categories: geography, climate, water, access, structures, fencing, flora, fauna, business, technology and soil. There's another helpful chart. Use a pattern found in nature to gather, store, organize and retrieve your info, based on these categories. This functions to help create an ordered workflow (order of operations) for design and implementation.
Diagnosis has two stages, firstly making observations about your resources using the four variables of patterns (form, timing, placement, scale). There's a chart about this, with descriptors that fit each mode. Secondly SWOT analysis, where you make value-based judgements about each resource. Strengths and weaknesses are attributes within your project. Opportunities and threats are outside your project but close enough to have an impact. There is a big chart with examples for each of the 11 categories.
Be warned that every property seems to have a hidden piece of information that, if discovered, can change everything for the better. Takota Coen describes discovering he had (at big expense) had a pond dug in the wrong place. He thought he knew the land so well he didn't need to put his design on paper. After learning to use Google Earth Pro (it's free!), he discovered a much better pond site. The website has tools to help you make effective use of GIS programs.
Step 3: Design Your Resources to Meet Your Vision and Values. When you draw out a design in detail on paper, you gain insights into how to create it in real life and reduce silly mistakes. There are three misconceptions about what design is. Designs are not fixed in stone – if you become aware of ways to improve your design, you do it! Design is not just aesthetics, but is structural, functional, and also beautiful. The best way to improve something is not always to add to it -- many improvements come with removing something, or taking a very different approach.
Regularly ask yourself what you are aiming to achieve, and what other options would also provide the same outcome. Don't decide you need a swale, or a solar greenhouse until you identify a goal and weigh up the options for reaching the goal, and come out with the answer that best satisfies the goal.
Two useful method of design that can be tweaked for this job are the needs and yields analysis and the sector analysis. Both are carefully explained. They examine if every need of every element is fully met within your system; if every yield is fully used; if every element serves multiple functions; if every function is served by multiple elements; and if all is functioning ethically.
Consider each of the energy sources and sinks on your farm, whether you want that energy and how you will make best use of it if you do want it. There are suggestions of what sources and sinks to consider, as well as ways to reduce losses. There's an engaging list of tips, including "When you are working, work; when you are chilling, chill. Make it a binary." Also, reduce clutter, distractions (social media), and set up a ritual for starting deep work on your design. Use your accountability partner. Gather all your worksheets in one place.
Step 4: Implement the Right Design That Will Most Improve Your Weakest Resource, opens with a note that "the dirty little secret of permaculture is that design is the easy part, it is the implementation that kills you." When one of your resources fails, it will no longer be helping you thrive, it will start to cannibalize the farm. This can happen if you made a poor decision earlier. This chapter helps you organize workflow, make weekly plans, make good decisions, and not rush to get to your goal in what looks like the fastest way.
Problems can arise if you tackle tasks in a poor order. Go back to the 11 categories of resources. Geography comes first, because once chosen, it cannot be changed easily or quickly. The categories that are listed higher impact all those below them. Don't abandon the list because soil is last! Soil is very important, of course, but there is no value in getting into the detail of the best cover crops, if you have not dealt with water supply and drainage to prevent runoff, or dealt with wind erosion.
Look for weakest links (biggest gaps between vision and resources), turn this gap into a Wildly Important Goal (achievable and exciting), and focus with the formula "from X to Y by when?". Each week commit to one or more actions that will lead in the right direction, schedule them weekly, and check them off when done. The book has an extensive chart of examples.
Revisit Step 3 (Design) with its description of good, bad and ugly designs, and transfer the descriptions to decisions. What is your process for making good decisions? Many people are not consciously aware of how they make decisions. Intuition alone is not enough. Use the Good Decision Worksheet.
After writing down your decision, check its alignment with your values; any possibly ruinous outcome; whether it actually addresses the problem; whether it's your best use of your resources; the risk/reward ratio; then sleep on it and repeat the process; pass the idea by your accountability partner; flip a coin to check if your emotions align with your decision; write down what needs to be done, and early indications of whether you have made the best decision.
Step 5: Monitor Your Resources for Indicators of Well-being or Suffering. You can only manage what you measure (but you can measure more things than you can manage!) Precision is not the same as accuracy! Knowing exactly how many beetles are on your plants does not provide the whole answer on what to do. Rather than focus entirely on numbers, monitor for suffering and well-being. "The one thing never found in a healthy ecosystem is excessive suffering." There will always be some suffering – it is feedback on the situation and the design that led to it. Determine what actions you can take to improve things.
There are two categories of resources, personal resources and the 11 categories of property resources. Look at your Vision and Values Sheet and use your Indicators of early signs of success or failure to see if you are heading towards well-being or suffering. Takota tells the story of figuring out when and why his cows got mastitis, and making a small change he had resisted, increasing well-being, and preventing mastitis from then on.
Increase awareness of your own state of being: if you feel patient, grateful, relaxed and enthusiastic, you are in a state of well-being. If you are sleepy, angry, resentful, jealous and prone to procrastination, you are suffering. Do you hum as you work, or curse? Your coworkers will know your signs of distress, if you can't tell for yourself.
Keeping a journal can help monitor your well-being. Write down the answers to 3 questions in the morning. What are you most excited about today? What are you most grateful for? What is one thing you could do to make today great? In the evening, ask: What is the most amazing thing that happened today? What could I have done better? What was my biggest insight today?
At the end of each month, review your weekly planner sheets, and your daily reflections. Answer questions on a range of 0-10, and compare your answers the previous month. How clear are you on what your weakest link is? How confident are you that what you are doing is addressing this weakest link and moving you towards your goal? Have you seen signs that you are increasing well-being (or suffering)? What has been this month's most valuable insight?
Monitor your 11 property resources yearly, looking for signs of increased well-being. There is a template! Shockingly, cropland globally is often bare for 30-50% of the year, wasting the potential photosynthesis, and degrading the soil. Soil carbon can (on average) hold four times its weight in water. Another source of potential wastage or potential improvement. When the solar cycle, the water cycle and the soil nutrient cycle interact well, the flora and fauna spiral towards the climax ecosystem for that region.
Monitor, reflect, record, compare results with your vision and values statement, monitor your ecosystems. Make a paper planner and use it for a full year before reviewing. There are templates and suggestions for designing your own planner.
A lot of the ideas in this book make a great deal of sense even for those of us who don't identify as permaculturists! Careful design and planning, checklists, worksheets – these can save all of us wasted effort or heartache. This thoughtful book can be useful to every farmer or landowner. As I've often noted, any gardener or farmer paying close attention and recording their results, has something valuable to teach us, whatever they call the style of their farming.
...more
May 11, 2021 Dan Telfer rated it it was amazing
Don't let the title and sub-title of this book fool you. This book is about much more than building your permaculture property and a five-step process to design and develop land. The process described in the book can be used as a tool to design and develop your whole life! I wish that I had had this book 50 years ago when I was bouncing around trying to figure out life.
The authors provide a process (not a prescription) on five of the struggles of life:
1. I don't know what I should do.
2. I don't Don't let the title and sub-title of this book fool you. This book is about much more than building your permaculture property and a five-step process to design and develop land. The process described in the book can be used as a tool to design and develop your whole life! I wish that I had had this book 50 years ago when I was bouncing around trying to figure out life.
The authors provide a process (not a prescription) on five of the struggles of life:
1. I don't know what I should do.
2. I don't know where to look.
3. I don't know how it fits.
4. I don't know where to start or what's next.
5. I don't know when it will end.
I am now busy applying their problem-solving methodology of clarifying, diagnosing, designing, implementing and monitoring by using a humble posture of learning. Wish me luck as I tackle the above listed struggles.
Thank you for the great book! ...more
The authors provide a process (not a prescription) on five of the struggles of life:
1. I don't know what I should do.
2. I don't Don't let the title and sub-title of this book fool you. This book is about much more than building your permaculture property and a five-step process to design and develop land. The process described in the book can be used as a tool to design and develop your whole life! I wish that I had had this book 50 years ago when I was bouncing around trying to figure out life.
The authors provide a process (not a prescription) on five of the struggles of life:
1. I don't know what I should do.
2. I don't know where to look.
3. I don't know how it fits.
4. I don't know where to start or what's next.
5. I don't know when it will end.
I am now busy applying their problem-solving methodology of clarifying, diagnosing, designing, implementing and monitoring by using a humble posture of learning. Wish me luck as I tackle the above listed struggles.
Thank you for the great book! ...more
Jul 29, 2021 Fatma rated it it was amazing
In 2019, I changed my lifestyle by moving the village where I live now. As a beginner, I learned gardening and planting by trial error method. When I stuck somewhere, other locals and neighbors helped me. However, something was missing. I thought that there must be better ways to do. I did some searches by using variety of sources so that I come up with Permaculture. It seems to me that the permaculture is what I need exactly. However, I have new issues about it. Such as Who can teach it? Where In 2019, I changed my lifestyle by moving the village where I live now. As a beginner, I learned gardening and planting by trial error method. When I stuck somewhere, other locals and neighbors helped me. However, something was missing. I thought that there must be better ways to do. I did some searches by using variety of sources so that I come up with Permaculture. It seems to me that the permaculture is what I need exactly. However, I have new issues about it. Such as Who can teach it? Where can I learn it? One day I saw an event of Verge Permaculture about their new book promotion on Instagram and I attended the event. Later I ordered the book. It was very right decision. I have just finished to read it and now I know what to do and how to do. It is obvious that when I apply a five-step process, I will learn to live differently on the land.
I'd like to express my gratitude to everyone who put efforts to make the book reach to the readers like me. ...more
I'd like to express my gratitude to everyone who put efforts to make the book reach to the readers like me. ...more
May 27, 2021 Mahlon rated it it was amazing
It's not often lately that new works in the permaculture space add to and enhance the body of permaculture knowledge and wisdom. Building your Permaculture Property is a refreshing breath of pure air amid the predominant sustainable and degenerative mindsets rampant everywhere we look. This book provides a template and exercises to enable one to design, create, and maintain a life worth living. I was initially skeptical this book would add anything to permaculture. After reading this work severa It's not often lately that new works in the permaculture space add to and enhance the body of permaculture knowledge and wisdom. Building your Permaculture Property is a refreshing breath of pure air amid the predominant sustainable and degenerative mindsets rampant everywhere we look. This book provides a template and exercises to enable one to design, create, and maintain a life worth living. I was initially skeptical this book would add anything to permaculture. After reading this work several times, I can say with certainty that this will become required material for any who desire to put permaculture in to action. I have deep gratitude toward Takota, Michelle, and Rob for pouring their hearts in to this book. ...more
May 24, 2021 Lilian Wong rated it it was amazing
An easy read 5 step process to take the 'overwhelm" out of BUILDING YOUR PERMACULTURE PROPERTY. Concise, practical, innovative, an adaptive holistic Toolkit that is a must read for the priceless value of avoidance of $$$ pitfalls, misdirection of design and diagnostic of problem /solution.
The authors shares their proven, experiential expertise, life skills and focused knowledge, resting on the wisdom and teachings of the giants of Permaculture.
A book for the time and posterity to take positive An easy read 5 step process to take the 'overwhelm" out of BUILDING YOUR PERMACULTURE PROPERTY. Concise, practical, innovative, an adaptive holistic Toolkit that is a must read for the priceless value of avoidance of $$$ pitfalls, misdirection of design and diagnostic of problem /solution.
The authors shares their proven, experiential expertise, life skills and focused knowledge, resting on the wisdom and teachings of the giants of Permaculture.
A book for the time and posterity to take positive personal responsibility towards the Regenerative Paradigm.
A courageous labour of love. Thank-you Michelle, Rob, Takota. ...more
The authors shares their proven, experiential expertise, life skills and focused knowledge, resting on the wisdom and teachings of the giants of Permaculture.
A book for the time and posterity to take positive An easy read 5 step process to take the 'overwhelm" out of BUILDING YOUR PERMACULTURE PROPERTY. Concise, practical, innovative, an adaptive holistic Toolkit that is a must read for the priceless value of avoidance of $$$ pitfalls, misdirection of design and diagnostic of problem /solution.
The authors shares their proven, experiential expertise, life skills and focused knowledge, resting on the wisdom and teachings of the giants of Permaculture.
A book for the time and posterity to take positive personal responsibility towards the Regenerative Paradigm.
A courageous labour of love. Thank-you Michelle, Rob, Takota. ...more
This read was as good as the Verge Permaculture Summit book launch, which was excellent! The team at Verge Permaculture lays out an excellent framework for a thoughtful and pragmatic approach to the holistic decision making process. Keep up the good work Takota, Rob and Michelle: your work is important and inspiring, and I look forward to learning more from you folks.
May 20, 2021 Tammy rated it it was amazing
I have been waiting for this book for months and it did not disappoint! The information the book provides is so helpful! Designing a permaculture property is so design intensive, the book helps to break it down and help manage your design. The illustrations are fantastic too! I read this book and was so encouraged to continue with my design, very uplifting.
Jul 06, 2021 Toni rated it it was amazing
What a beautifully conceptualized and written book this is. Helps clear the mind from permaculture overload through clearly structured first hand knowledge. Helps me fast track my own plans and actions. Thanks Rob,Takota and Michelle!
May 22, 2021 M P rated it it was amazing
I haven't finished reading this book yet because reading this book means putting yourself through a process: thinking deeply about what you want, and why. So I have to stop every few pages to write and think, and write some more, and clarify my vision. I haven't finished reading this book yet because reading this book means putting yourself through a process: thinking deeply about what you want, and why. So I have to stop every few pages to write and think, and write some more, and clarify my vision. ...more
May 19, 2021 Julie Zink rated it it was amazing
This book surpasses my expectations! Very good book. Very well laid out and they give complete guidance on how to develop your land taking every aspect into consideratin!
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to develop any size of land. The information is invaluable.
Thank you!
I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to develop any size of land. The information is invaluable.
Thank you!
Oct 13, 2021 Clivemichael rated it it was amazing
Excellent guide, well constructed and presented. Unpacks the complexity of decision making
This book is a very informative, yet humorous, approach to working sustainably with your property & it's natural features. Lots of insight & valuable information packed into these 5 steps.
With over 15 years of combined experience in engineering, project management, ecological design and sustainable technologies, Rob co-owns Adaptive Habitat – a unique and leading edge property design and management company in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
As a skilled Professional Engineer, he offers a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined hea
With over 15 years of combined experience in engineering, project management, ecological design and sustainable technologies, Rob co-owns Adaptive Habitat – a unique and leading edge property design and management company in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.As a skilled Professional Engineer, he offers a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined heat & power), as well as rainwater harvesting, agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration and onsite wastewater treatment / septic design.
His extensive project management experience includes site analysis, technical design, cost estimating and scheduling, through to commissioning and construction.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta, interned at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark, and co-founded Verge Permaculture in 2008, now an internationally-recognized & award-winning regenerative design, consulting, and education centre.
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Mahogany L. Browne is the author of Chlorine Sky, Woke: A Young Poets Call to Justice, Woke Baby, and Black Girl Magic. She's also the...
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Verge Permaculture Free Download Design Tool
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