Applying Permaculture Principles to Gardening

Permaculture Designer and Teacher Loren Luyendyk talks about the Permaculture principles of Relative Location and Efficient Energy Planning – Zone Planning as it relates to your home garden. Permaculture is a design system of tools and techniques that can be used to create long-term, regenerative human settlements. Permaculture can be applied to any field, including architecture, agriculture, psychology, building, and business. Permaculture offers us ethics (Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share) and principles that teach us how to work with nature and not against it.

Make your life easier and your garden healthier by good design. Planting your garden in Zone 1, close to your house, will contribute to your garden’s success. Many people make the mistake of planting their gardens in Zones 2, 3, or 4 which are much farther from the daily paths they take. Here’s a short summary of Zones. A good rule is that the more you use or visit something, the closer it should be to your home. Zone 0 is your house. Zone 1 is very close to your home. Your garden, clothesline, chickens, compost pile, worm bin, and greenhouse can all go here. Frequent visits to these areas necessitate their location in Zone 1, unless you want to do a lot of walking! Other zones include Zone 2, which is not as close to the house, but still intensively maintained. This is a great place to put perennial plantings, shrubs, small orchard, and animals that need daily attention. Zone 3 might contain larger orchards, pastures, self-fed animals, and main crops. Zone 4 is semi-wild and only somewhat managed; this is the zone for wild food collecting and timber production. Zone 5 is wilderness- where we go to learn from nature.

In this series of short videos, Sustainable World Media meets with Permaculture Designers and Teachers to ask them how they use Permaculture in their work. Loren Luyendyk is the owner of Santa Barbara Organics, a Sustainable Landscape and Agriculture Design and Consultation Service. Loren has over 12 years of experience in environmentally sensitive green design. Loren is also a certified arborist and teaches Permaculture Courses around the world. To see a tour of one of Loren’s Permaculture designs, click here.
Stay tuned for more videos about applying Permaculture principles to your garden!