Without Land

Attention all ye humbly housed: 

I seek your knowledge. I request your help! I solicit your sites, and blogs, and pins, and posts and maybe even products. 

A mere 40m² holds me, my stuff, my special friend, and my dreams. It gets crowded but has yet to smother my appetite for farming and a good seasonal whisper. Trouble is, I don't know much about these lands. 

Please post your favorite small space, apartment, balcony, etc., gardening/farming resources, experiences, hints and warnings. You can also email them to jhakimarie AT gmail.com (subject line: Farm Whisperer).  I'll get back to ya'll with my TOP TEN just as soon as I am sufficiently bathed in ideas. 

The Swedish darkness is just around the corner. No time to waste! Send!

Copyright © 2014 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

Everyday Permaculture

In addition to my apprenticeship, I am also researching for my thesis, engaging in family time, and working part-time. My off-farm time allows me to digest my permaculture experiences. It also has me constantly searching for connections between my many worlds.

As someone without an agricultural or botanical background, I long for an inner or 'natural' understanding of the land and permaculture. It's been interesting to use metaphor, from my other lives, to make permaculture familiar. I understand through what is 'natural' to me. In this exploration, I find that the comparisons are dangerously easy. They almost make themselves--maybe I understand permaculture after all...

You don't have to be a farmer or a permaculturist to use, or at least consider the principles and ethics in daily life.  In Bill Mollison's Introduction to Permaculture, he almost immediately lists the Permaculture ethics and suggests how to implement those ethics. I've chosen one with which to relate1:

"Think about the long-term consequences of your actions. Plan for sustainability"

On the farm we think of chemical use and crop choice. In my learning approach, it is the immediate treatment of those around you. "Don't burn bridges", if you will. Mistreat the land, it fails to feed; mistreat a friend and lose the warm and fuzzies of friendship.

David Holmgren's design principles in Permaculture Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability provides a few more possible life comparisons2 :

Observe and Interact

In permaculture, we watch systems and see where they go and how they grow before committing to any one method of interaction. Live in an apartment? You may observe how the sun hits the wall in choosing decor or how the counter slopes before drying dishes upon it. Outside the apartment, among a new group of people, you observe the group's behavior and choose actions and reactions based on those observations, whether for self-preservation, blending, or career purposes. If you want to keep a [certain] job, you observe the dress code and wear a pinstripe 3-piece suit, like your co-workers, instead of a 2-piece polka dot swimming suit.

Use Small and Slow Solutions

On the farm we plant onions amidst more vulnerable vegetables, using the onions' aroma to confuse passing pests before hastily prescribing chemical warfare. Where there are weeds, we start small. Again, we do not jump to chemical means. And even before pulling the weeds' roots, we simply chop and drop. Chopping and Dropping leaves the soil undisturbed . The fallen leaves trap moisture, curb future weeds, and offer nutrients to the soil. So, Chop & Drop! 

I'm just having a little trouble with Chop and Drop's metaphor....

References
1. Mollison, B., and D. Holmgren. 1978. Permaculture one. Morebank, NSW Australia: Transworld Publications.
2. Holmgren, D. 2002. Permaculture: principles & pathways beyond sustainability: Chelsea Green Pub Co.

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

The No Shame Summer of Skilling-up

Like most summers, mine has gotten away from me.
Nostalgically, I sifted through my journal to relive farm days of the past.
I was struck by the number of entries containing, titled, or themed skilling up. 
Skilling up means something different for everyone and depends on one's currents skills and their desired skills to up. Skilling up is relative. Skilling up, to me, means learning to work with the land as well as obtaining exposure to common sense skills. By living in-town with able and willing parents, machines, gadgets, and electronics, I somehow missed many basic skills. A 20-some year skill hiccup.

Glacial Lakes Permaculture recently offered a Permaculture Weekend. I was aware of the skilling up I needed, but it was at the weekend workshop that I truly experienced my skill inadequacies.  Permaculture is really for the well-rounded. It involves math, mapping (I was humbled by the amount of time it took me to draw a plot to scale), botany, seasonal foresight, critical thinking (both theoretical and practical), carpentry, gardening, livestock sensibilities, etc. A [talented] permaculturist is truly a 'Jack of All Trades'.  This is not to say that those of us suffering from a life of hiccups should leave permaculture to someone else. Instead of learning from lifestyle, we'll learn from immediate experience.

Luckily, my mentor is a patient and generous teacher. I've been lucky enough to: participate in the carpentry of a new shed; imagine, contour measure, and dig a pond; create and apply alternative mulching; build an espalier; and even learn and practice the simplest of gardening actions.

Masking skill-hiccups does no favors.
The key is: Ask Questions. Listen Carefully. Try it. No Shame.

okay, maybe a little shame..

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

For strawberry ponds, that's why.

As I hurriedly gather practical experience. I distract myself from what I lack in horticulture, schnazzy design skills, and land by fixating on the comfortable--the abstract.  At this point, Permaculture comes to me through its ethics and design principles which will continue to serve as guides and reminders when I have the time, money, experience and means to exercise the practical.

In Permaculture's youth it was described as an, "integrated evolving system of perennial or self perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man."1. This definition is very applied, very agricultural. Which is fine, though I am relieved to live and learn the more holistic & human Permaculture of today.  The Permaculture beyond its first, basic definition is a resilient philosophy and lifestyle. Components of this lifestyle encourage and depend on each other. It is with these lifestyle ethics that I am currently engrossed.

Earlier I used the word fixate, I did so based on a particular frenzied
slobbery chomp upon a few words in David Holmgren's summary of the 12 design principles of Permaculture.
In Principle 3: Obtain a Yield "You can't work on an empty stomach", Holmgren reminds us that designs should, "provide for self-reliance at all levels [including the personal]..."2.
I read 'personal' so I dug a strawberry.

It's easy to get caught up in doom and launch into 'flight or farm' mode (choosing farm of course). It is while fearing the possibilities of eerie and urgent future happenings one [I] wonder, why? Why follow these design principles? Why till and toil? Why preach permaculture? Why boast of a sustainable [& smug?] system? My answer to these questions is conditional. If there isn't happiness, individually and among the community [at all levels] there is no reason to assemble a water catchment system.  If there isn't humor, there is no reason to build a composting toilet. If there isn't one person with enough joy to dig-draw a strawberry then there is no reason to dig a pond.

I am not suggesting hedonism. There is good, healthy pain in Permaculture. I am suggesting that despite dire days,  in a truly sustainable system there is room for fun and a need for non-judgmental kindness and guidance. Because I don't expect communities to respond well to pushes or pretentiousness. And because I can't work on an empty [for lack of a better term] soul.

At Glacial Lakes Permaculture, we are applying Permaculture practically by making use of the previously disappointing, currently soggy pasture by digging a pond. I apply Permaculture, personally, by first digging a strawberry.

Never dig alone

I like Permaculture berry much

Creative energy is not misspent. It is stored to fuel the mind & soul for future digs.

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.


References
1. Mollison, B., and D. Holmgren. 1978. Permaculture one. Morebank, NSW Australia: Transworld Publications.
2. Holmgren, D. 2002. Permaculture: principles & pathways beyond sustainability: Chelsea Green Pub Co.

Stumped?

Let's face it: In gardening/farming there are ups (tasty produce) and there are downs (cabbage worms, cropland turned marshland). It's difficult to stay positive while water fills your boots in a field once envisioned as a major crop or while digging up a row of pest abused cabbage. All the while, it's best to keep a permaculture attitude--'the problem is the solution.'
At Glacial Lakes Permaculture, we won't battle the marshland, forcing it to be a field, as it screams of its dream to be a duck pond. Instead, we'll dig.
Hefty stump in your front yard? Instead of paying hundreds of dollars for a stump removal service, my mentor covered it with all sorts of organic matter (maybe that 'failed' cabbage?) Until it decomposed enough to harbor Queensland Blue Squash. A problem turned solution. I think the squash agrees:

Dear Stump, 

                                     Thank you for your decomposition

     Sincerely, Squash

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

Let them perch

If it creeps, crawls, or flaps tiny membrane wings, our first instinct may be to shoo [or spray]. This summer, I've learned to think before I shoo [and not even think to spray!]. Some insects are not only innocent, they are beneficial.

Beginners? Not sure whether to shoo or woo?  Start by identifying the insect. Play detective, & do a little research. After all, permaculture is information intensive. As a fellow beginner, I still depend on outside sources rather than inside instincts.  

You can try to identify your guests, or at least narrow the search, here: http://www.discoverlife.org/. Click on the IDNature Guides tab at the top of the page. 

The exquisite dragonfly (Anisoptera) has been granted shoo-immunity and is my current insect hero. A predator insect, dragonflies, prey upon many types of pests, such as mosquitoes and aphids. They also make great photo subjects. At Glacial Lakes Permaculture, we appreciate their appetite.  We want them to call GLP 'home'. Our invitation: many perching points, for our predators to scan below for the pests we curse, and they crave. Perching points can be natural: virtually any stem, stick or branch with a dragonfly sized landing strip; or man made: such as fence posts, tree supports, or an espalier* wire. In permaculture we consider the functions of all components of our system. Perching, can be taken into consideration as a valuable function when determining where and what to plant.

"Location, Location, Location"

"Dragonfly sized landing strip"

*more on Glacial Lakes Permaculture's very own espalier to come.

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

Theory and then some

Most of my master's studies have been theoretical.
A year of theory left me starving for practical application.
Cue Glacial Lakes Permaculture.
The work in the dirt has been a physical & meditative blessing,
though I haven't sworn off theory entirely.
I'm amazed at the theoretical connections I stumble upon
during my hours in the sun.

Throughout my farm hours, my mentor shares practical insight about the projects at hand.
I hear about permaculture ethics, principles, and design tricks as they are implemented.

Please take a look at: http://permacultureprinciples.com/, contents inspired by David Holmgren, and note the Ethics & Principles:


Permaculture Ethics:
Care for the Earth
Care for People
Fair Share

Permaculture Principles:
1.Observe & Interact
2.Catch & Store Energy
3.Obtain a Yield
4.Apply self regulation and accept feedback
5.Use and value renewable resources and services
6.Produce no waste
7.Design from patterns to details
8.Integrate rather than segregate
9.Use small and slow solutions
10.Use and value diversity
11.Use edges and value the marginal
12.Creatively use and respond to change

The aforementioned ethics and principles are no doubt respected and present at Glacial Lakes Permaculure.
Over the course of the summer, I'll share my encounters with permaculture in consideration of these ethics and principles, which I have come to exercise as philosophy and design ambitions, respectively.

[Delicious] Fair Share

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

Me, Where, & Why

In my restlessness, I excitedly skipped over any sort of proper bio [or even indication] of myself, my sponsoring organization, or my location. So, before I jump into lessons of ethics and principles--Me, Where, & Why:

Me:

For a more professional, yet quick blurb about me, by someone else: click here.

More personally:

I am a self-labeled young lady working on a master's degree, Human Ecology: Culture, Power, & Sustainability. This program is through Lund University, in Sweden, where, until now, I've spent the majority of my study time.

I like to move around. I think. Well, whether or not I like it, I somehow can't stop.

Despite the hair loss, I love grandiose & frenzied writing/art projects, which rarely see [other] humans or the light of day.

My hobbies sometimes hinder my studies; sometimes they help; but mostly they encourage overall sanity.

My latest endeavor, permaculture, has an advantageous position. It is a hobby, study, and hopefully, life philosophy.

Where:

I am currently fulfilling university credits through an apprenticeship program at Glacial Lakes Permaculture in Estelline, South Dakota, USA.

Why:

I was born and raised in South Dakota and despite my travel bug, I love my family and long to be near them. So, I chose South Dakota.

I chose Glacial Lakes Permaculture because of a very influential former employer and teacher. First he taught me about travel, now he teaches me about life & land. He demonstrates, and teaches, a socially/resourcefully responsible lifestyle through permaculture.

You can read more about him here: About my mentor

Hobby Helping, more on Food Forests coming soon.

You can also find this information, permanently, under the pages tab on the right of the page. 

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.

Pretty & Smart: Organic mulch has it all.

I apologize for the [blog] delay. There's just been so mulch to do.

Mulching is not just a way to keep a garden/farm neat & tidy for the neighbors.
(I say neighbors because from what I'm learning so far, I believe a permaculturist, absent of neighbors, would delight in natural chaos).
As you probably know, and I am discovering, organic mulching serves as a weed barrier, a moisture trap, and a nutritional infusion. We have been mainly applying alfalfa.
There is something strangely peaceful about quietly smothering a weed, with a warm blanket of alfalfa, instead of blasting it, and everything around it, with chemicals.

When making farm & garden decisions it can be helpful to remember the 3 main Permaculture Ethics: Care for the Earth, Care for people, and Fair share.  Do pesticides care for the earth or people? Does hay/alfalfa mulch?
And in consideration of the 6th Permaculture Principle: Produce no waste, so...

Extra Hay? Mulch Away!

A few days before the alfalfa blanket, we chopped and dropped a thin, but nutrient packed, layer of comfrey, a sort of pre-mulch, to some of the plants.

Our comfrey [chopped, leaving about 6 inches of stalk growth intact] 

couldn't wait to replenish itself.  

On an organizational note:
Scheduling will have me immersed in permaculture the first half of every week, leaving the second half (Wed-Sunday) for blogging and meditation on my experiences.

Don't Forget to Click on the Links w/in the text. 

Look Forward to: My interpretation of an Intro to Permaculture ethics and principles.

Copyright Jacquelyn Marie Schneller 2011

Town Mouse

In case you were misled, I am not a farm girl.
I'm not a farm girl by birthplace or childhood chores.
I am a town mouse. In a state full of farm.
From a town surrounded by farm.
But, as my skills & immediate farm common sense confirm
I am still a town mouse.
I am, however, a farm girl hopeful.
Which is what this [summer & blog] is really about.
I assume there are other town mice longing for farm & country style.
We can learn together. No post too obvious. No [new] skill too petty.
Luckily, I have a brilliant guide.
Equipped with sophisticated  knowledge, yet humble enough
to exhaust time teaching a simple town mouse to dig a hole...

...and fill it with a transplanted pepper.

This particular patch is predominantly peppers.
Permaculture design generally discourages monoplanting while encouraging diversity.
But, as Permaculture ethics* dictate, waste should also be avoided.
So, If life gives you peppers, plant them.
And so I did. Eighteen inches apart. Which, we discovered, is a distance I cannot eyeball.


*to be discussed in the [very near] future

Copyright Jacquelyn Marie Schneller 2011

Dear Preface Readers,

This post is for you. It tells you why I'm farming.

It tells you why I'm whispering.  It tells you why I'm posting.

Why? 

I [learn to] farm because eating isn't cheap for anyone or anything. 

(Unless you fancy High Fructose Corn Syrup)

I'm whispering so I can hear the land. 

When I speak, I'll speak softly. 

I post so you'll farm. 

I post so you'll listen. 

I post so you'll whisper. 

I'm told I can be cryptic. 

In future posts, look forward to lucidity. 

Clear, descriptive, useful posts of my months 

of Permaculture discovery in South Dakota. 

This is just the Preface, after all....

And these are my favorite. Leeks. 

Copyright © 2011 Jacquelyn Marie Schneller.