permaculture is economically viable

What an excellent opportunity to learn about how permaculture techniques can create a sustainable ag system in a desert.

While it is true that in most desert areas, you are not allowed to capture the water that lands on your roof, you are allowed to plow your land however you like. And, you are allowed to plant whatever you like. And you are allowed to stack rocks - if that is what you want to do.

Keyline plowing does some truly amazing things.

And I recently watched a slide show where Sepp Holzer did some of his magic on 300 acres of desert in Spain. Sandy scrub completely dry six months out of the year - now it has several lakes thanks to Sepp. But Sepp does not beleive in irrigation - and yet they are now harvesting a variety of crops from that land that either were not grown before, or were irrigated before, but are not irrigated now.

Granted - it seems crazy, but the key is that it is not an obvious thing. There is a lot to it. And it is not something anybody is expected to fully understand in five minutes.

A quick cruise on youtube searching for "permaculture desert" shows dozens of examples of utter desert converted into an oasis.

The key is to do an analysis of a particular site. To come up with solutions for THAT site. There will never be just one solution for a site, usually you do 20 or 30 or more things for a site. And then add in time.

For a desert area where you are not allowed to store water: keyline plowing, swales, compressing the land in just the right spots and cratering might all be effective. Then, plant taprooted trees from seed near where you might have long term water from your land shaping. Lots of mulch!

The rock stacking trick is a good one: stack a pyramid of rocks near a tree. The rocks in the middle are coldest and collect the most condensation. Of course, this is not something that will take care of all of your water needs, but it does help.

The best part is that this isn't idle speculation. There are hundreds of examples of how well it works!

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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While building swales or other "earth moving" techniques may be legal. Your definitely in violation of the spirit of the law. Also by concentrating the water to one area to grow your non-native specie. You know the one that was never grown there before. How much native growth have you sacrificed? Is it OK to remove the water from 100 acres of sage bush so your 1/8 acre garden can grow? What about the wild life that depend on that native growth?


Can't you just learn to eat sage bush?

If you have desert land and you wish for it to remain a desert, you have that right.

If you wish to have a legal oasis rich with self sustaining food requiring no irrigation, fertilization or maintenance of any kind - that choice is also available.

Good luck on your path Stan!

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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The trouble is, Sepp Holzer and Monsanto are about equal. Opposite ends, but equal as to what they say & do.

I'm sure that will draw some gasps. I gotta go work on planting more corn.

--->Paul

The actual sending area of food products to New York City after the Civil War, was at least 100 mile radius, not just 7. I've read many old accounts of "truck" going by ship to New York Harbor. And by train. From New Jersey, Penn, and up-state NY, as well as farther away. An historical aside...ldc

How many people here talking about permaculture in the desert actually have tried it? As a fellow desert dweller I would love to hear from someone who has first-hand experience in an area that receives 7 inches of rainfall each year and where summer temps frequently exceed 115 degrees.

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Sorry, My area gets in excess of 50" and the mean temp is 41F. I live in the rain forest of the Northeast.

In the Canary Isles I visited Lanzarote (Spain and Africa- my only visits to them- in one go!). I think it is a dry Hawaii- volcanic earth but very little rain. All over they had long plumes of tear shaped sloped rock/dirt focusing at one grape vine. Also saw locals driving from vine to vine dispensing some water from a tank in their trunk.

Have heard of African women growing a line of trees just by laying down a line of rocks in the desert. And the man who planted trees- a story but why not turn the deserts which were once forests- back into forests? The cedars of Lebanon- we are not the first century or two to create more desert by man's activity.

My opinion, Paul, is that people have no concept of how productive sustainably managed acreage can be. Examples of farm production prior to the green revolution are sometimes brought up as being representative of what orgnaic farming could produce, but people lose sight of the fact that much non-chemical farming is far from being sustainable or organic, so the comparison (in terms of production) is ill founded.

Oh well. I guess it will take a famine or natural disaster brought on by monoculture before we see the light.

i do know one thing..if i was forced to live in the desert I wouldn't care what the darn law was..i would do everything in my power to grow some food !!

This kind of story reminds me of what happened to China during their so-called "Great Leap Forward" back in the 1950s. To look good in quarterly reports, the local bureaucrats started making gradiose claims as to how productive their new form of collective agriculture was, to the point that central officials decided to sell off the nation's extra rice to get earn hard currency. Once the mediocre harvests were in and reality could not longer be denied, twenty million Chinese people DIED OF STARVATION.

I myself am a permaculture practicitioner, I do utilze swales, depressions, and other water conservation practices, but there is not way that I can produce food at these levels sustainably. My advice to you is to do it yourself to find out just how hard it is to produce a single pound of food out of the ground before you believe the miracle claims that someone else is doing it!

Just because you are certain that you cannot do it, does not mean that others cannot do it.

Fukuoka and Sepp Holzer both set really excellent examples. And there are hundreds more examples.

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[raising chickens] [diatomaceous earth] [permaculture] [rocket mass heater] [lawn care]

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That's awfully simplistic. Irrigation does not necessarily ruin your soil, but it can. Rain is irrigation, just comes from the sky, not from the ground! If you collect that rainwater, and use it during dry times, there is no difference to the soil. The water washes the salts deeper into the soil strata.

If you can grow food in the Negev desert with 4 inches of rain/year, you can grow food anywhere that rain falls, without relying on aquifer water.

Read the example of the 1/3 acre garden that produced 24,000 lbs of food in one year, although I admit that that is probably the best you could ever get.

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