The resilient farm and homestead

Contents

Chapter One: CreAtIng A posItIve legACY WhIle AdAptIng to rApId ChAnge Regeneration: Enhancing Life Systems Resiliency: Becoming an Adaptive Animal Using This Book Permaculture Zones and Their Definitions Who Are “We?” WSRF Site Specifics Site History Site Future: What’s Possible?

Fleeing Dwelling Energy Cycling Reinvestment The Green Distraction and the Political Black Hole Exodus from Consumer Society Becoming Useful in the Transition When Systems Fail: Emergencies and Resiliency

Chapter Two: the desIgn proCess And sIte estABlIshMent Planning and Design: Observation before Action The Designer’s Set and Setting Site Establishment Leverage Points Ecosystem Management: Steering Succession Resiliency and Regeneration Principles Understanding Your Site and Finding the Synergies Goals Identification and Requirements of the Design Assessing the Site

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1 3 4 6 7 8 9 9 12 12 13 14 15 17 17 18 19 21

Land Analysis Design Criteria Imagination: Limiting Factor to Design Schematic Design: Sorting Through Multiple Development Options Adapting Land to Rapid Change Diversity and Connectivity Working Plans and Implementation Documents

Chapter Three: WAter And eArthWorKs Brittleness and the Quest for Resiliency Gravity-Feed Systems Locating Water Slowing and Infiltrating Water An Agriculture as Diverse as the Landscape Water Ridges with Valleys: Keyline Agriculture Ponds

Chapter Four: FertIlItY hArvestIng And CYClIng 24 24 25 27 27 31 45 48 49

Compost, Urine, Humanure, and Biochar Fungi: Quiet Ally to the Whole System Remineralization Cover Cropping and Winter Cover Tall-Grass Grazing Pasture Reclamation: Why Not to Let Your Field “Go” The Benefits of Mowing Scything: The Most Resilient (Mechanical) Biomass Harvesting Method Ducks, Chickens, Dogs, and Sheep Grazing and Perennial Food Crop Integration

50 61 61 65 68 71 72

7 79 83 84 86 88 96 96

10 105 110 114 115 119 123 126 128 130 142

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Keyline Agriculture and Fertigation 147 Leach Field Cropping: Making the Most of a Faulty System 148

Chapter Seven: Resilience and Regeneration for the Long Haul

Chapter Five: Food Crops

Enhancing Vitality in a Time of Biospheric Toxicity 247 Growing Health and Body-Mind Resilience, Not Just Calories 250 Money: One (Important) Means to Get Work Done 253 Staying 257

152

Perennial Plants and Resiliency 153 Staple Crops: Paddy Rice, Meat, Eggs, Fruits, and Nuts 160 Annual Vegetables 176 Growing Food as a Response to Toxicity 182 Food Processing and Storage: Spreading Abundance across the Entire Year 200

Chapter Six: Adaptive Fuel and Shelter

207

Using Wood for Your Main Heat Source 208 Adaptive Shelter 222 Mechanical Systems 235 Water: Passive Supply for the Resilient Home 240

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244

Acknowledgments 261 Appendix A: Assessing Resiliency Aptitude Quiz 263 Appendix B: A Resilient Home Curriculum Outline 267 Appendix C: Crucial Skill List for Emergencies 268 Appendix D: Tools and Materials 271 Appendix E: Homestead Vulnerability Checklist and Strategy Summary to Reduce Vulnerability in Acute Events 274 Appendix F: Vocabulary and Concepts 277 Appendix G: Resources 285 Index 287

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Creating a Positive Legacy while Adapting to Rapid Change

depth of injustice will at some point, as it always has historically, overwhelm the system’s capacity to contain its own fallout. What if the same cultural process that stimulated the social-justice and green causes coalesced into a massive force and began to replace consumer society itself with a society of producers based in decentralized, egalitarian, human-scaled, smaller units of organization? What if crises stimulated this process out of necessity? This shift is beginning to happen, especially at the home scale.

Ask yourself what actions you can take to harness this transition away from a consumer society that belittles your own humanity to an organizing force that fosters individual empowerment—a liberating and enlightening cultural revival that replaces consumers with producers, hyperdependency with self-reliance.

Table 1.1 highlights the relationship between typical consumer-based actions and solutions that address

problems (classified as “Issues”) at a deeper, more systemic level. The categories are not mutually exclusive: Actions defined as “Less Bad” often support the regenerative “Producer” action but by themselves usually will not result in meaningful, long-term change at the societal level or empowerment at the individual level.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Starting down this road opens the door to scores of other possibilities. The lifestyle of the producer can actually be far more stimulating, complex, and interesting than a consumptionoriented way of living.

Becoming Useful in the Transition I am often asked at the end of presentations a question that goes something like this: “I have limited time, money, and skill. What would be the most important things to focus on in becoming more adaptive to the

HOMESTEAD ENERGY FLOW

gardens FARM AND HOMESTEAD an integrated assemblage of living and built systems

money

sun

skill & experience

precipitation INPUTS

food orchards

soil, carbon storage

shelter fuel

YIELDS

materials

labor & wisdom

time

electricity

CULTURE

community timber

rock & earth

medicine & health

s o il

information

clean water, groundwater, flood control

habitat

knowledge

biodiversity

The overall flow of energy and materials through a regenerative and resilient homestead and farm is complex but designed and managed to continually generate value on- and off-site, while requiring fewer off-site inputs over time. A functional society of free people is necessarily built upon a foundation of such productive systems.

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The Design Process and Site Establishment

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Designing and constructing elements in a human habitat is the easy part; integrating them to optimize the function of the whole system and doing so in a manageable, not overwhelming manner is the real challenge. Photograph courtesy of Whole Systems Design, LLC

“We don’t have to decide that now” is one of the wisest things people can say.

62. Partnering with Vigor One of the regenerative designer-doer’s primary tasks is to facilitate vigor and vitality in the ecosystem she is partnering with, identify that vigor, bolster vitality in areas where vigor is low.

need to prune back plants becomes significant, both to continue allowing sunlight penetration and for optimal soil building. We need to plant systems very densely to do the rapid soil/water/site enhancement necessary and to promote maximum yields. Root dieback events caused by pruning/coppicing/grazing are crucial in this regard. Grazing can provide this service in the understory, but to cut back plants too significant to graze, we need to prune/pollard/coppice. Developing a landscape as a three-dimensional sculpture of sorts becomes a clear need as the system moves into “the pruning phase.” We primarily prune black locust, alder, willow, and seaberry in this capacity. In the tropics there are dozens of species—mostly N-fixers—used in this way.

63. Sculptable Landscape As an edible, multifunctional ecosystem matures into a multilayered annual, perennial, and grazed system, the

64. Native to When When using the term “native,” what year do we use to determine whether a plant is “from here” or “alien”? If

61. Ecosystem Partnering, Not Stewardship Stewardship implies dominion, whereas partnership implies coevolution; mutual respect; whole-archy, not hierarchy. A partner is sometimes a guide, always a facilitator, always a coworker.

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The Resilient Farm and Homestead

LAND TRANSFORMATION LAND WITH TRANSFORMATION SWALE BUILDING WITH SWALE BUILDING

EXISTING SUBOPTIMAL FOREST 1. EXISTING SUBOPTIMAL1. FOREST • 4th growth forest • 4th growth forest • much surface water moves across slope • much surface water moves across slope • soil is built very slowly ~1" every 100 •years soil is built very slowly ~1" every 100 years

2. FOREST CLEARING 2. FOREST CLEARING • logs are removed and milled or otherwise • logsused are removed and milled or otherwise used • slash and stump are left on-site • slash and stump are left on-site • stumps may be ground flush but not ripped • stumps out may be ground flush but not ripped out

5. SWALE INFILTRAT • water collects in swales a • soil formation begins to s

3. WOODY DEBRIS ORGANIZED 4. SWALES CUT AND SHAPED 3. WOODY DEBRIS ORGANIZED 4. SWALES CUT AND SHAPED 7. PERENNIAL PLAN • existing ground cut and filled, then roughly graded • plants become establishe • existing ground cut and filled, then roughly graded • swales are sited and laid out along contour • swales are sited and laid out along contour • soil formation increases m • slash and small debris laid out along swale • slashline andorsmall just below debris laid out along swale line or just belowon top of and slightly above debris gradeon top of and slightly above debris grade nutrients to surface layer • swales are shaped using hand tools • swales are shaped using hand tools • bare soil is seeded and heavily mulched • bare soil is seeded and heavily mulched

Forest or field to perennial crop succession is accelerated through the use of small earthworks, planting, and grazing during both implementation and establishment phases.

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