Check out for more content and please subscribe to the channel and share it with your community! In today's vlog, I start to explain backyard permaculture principles, specifically the principle of Observe and Interact.
Permaculture is a whole systems design methodology grounded by the three ethics of Earth Care, People Care, and Return of the Surplus. Coupled with these ethics, the twelve permaculture principles help guide permaculture designers in the process of understanding the land they are working on.
I'm taking those principles and trying to focus on how to interpret them for use in your own backyard. Often people get caught up or confused by these principles, so my aim is to guide you through the principles by showing you how I interpret them and use them in my day to day life.
I start every session in the backyard with observation. Before taking action on anything, I like to see what I can learn by taking the time to look around and just notice what's around. Don't try to assign meaning to anything- just observe. This is a great strategy to get connected to the land you're managing.
Start by observing the weather. Are there signs of precipitation? Does the garden need water? Where's the sun and what path does it follow? As you learn the specific details of your site you'll find that it's easier to make decisions that benefit both you and your garden.
Choose 2-3 (or more) other topics that you'll regularly check in on during this observational time and keep coming back to them. You'll be surprised at how quickly things that you've never thought of before become common knowledge.
Continuing with the backyard permaculture principles: Interact. Now that you've taken the time to notice what's happening around you, some tasks or to-dos will become apparent. Perhaps you've observed that some of the seedlings you transplanted just aren't growing well. Why do you think that is? What could cause that and what can you do to try to fix it?
Make a game plan to trial a few ideas. Maybe take 3 of the seedlings and try transplanting them in a few other places in your garden to see if you can determine what they need. Try moving one somewhere with more sun and another to an area with more shade. Pick theory and run with it. The garden is basically a living laboratory and you're the mad scientist!
After you've completed the task, add the result to your daily observations and watch it over time. What happens? Did it make it better or worse? Why do you think that is?
Another great way to flex the observe and interact muscles is by observing weeds, or plants that are growing where you don't want them to be growing. Often these plants are a signal that something is wrong and are simply trying to help you by protecting the soil or breaking up compactions layers. If something is growing where you don't want it, pause and observe. Where else is this "weed" growing? What's in common?
As an example, dandelions are often considered a weed. They spread out their leaves flat to the ground and produce a deep taproot. These types of plants (and growth type) typically indicate compaction layer within your soil. The deep taproot of the dandelion is trying to push through the compaction layer to open it up for you. If you don't want the dandelion to grow, you'll need to do the job of loosening up the soil and breaking through that compaction layer yourself.
If you can learn to observe without assigning meaning to your observation, you'll be able to interact in ways that you may not have thought of before. These observations may end up resulting in knowledge breakthroughs that you never would have imagined!
This is the first of many videos on backyard permaculture principles. I'll be covering all 12 of the principles and helping you understand how to use them in your every day thinking.
Thanks for watching!
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