Perma 05d: The permaculture orchard of Mr. Graham Bell (Southern Scotland)

<Abundant wildlife is the first sign of a healthy planet. For far too long (like since the birth of chemical agriculture in the late nineteenth century) we have thought humans can control Planet Earth. Previous retrograde steps would be the enclosures of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For Scotland, the Highland clearances spring to mind.

Any intelligent management of the land and our ability to live from it recognises the need for Earth Care. The Earth will care for us if we care for it. We are people and therefore need People Care. But we do not care for ourselves by a misguided belief that we can dominate the rest of nature and win.

Here’s a small example. Aphids are widely regarded as ‘a problem’. They are vectors (carriers) of various diseases e.g. Virus Yellows. Aphids are prolific insects if uncontrolled. But we don’t need to control them. All we need to do is encourage their natural predators. For example, blue tits, ladybirds, lacewings. These native species are a delight to see and eliminate the need for chemical sprays if we have them in profusion. So all we need to do is create the right habitat and leave the natural cycle of life to deal with itself. Aphids aren’t the problem. Keeping nature in balance is the challenge. Wide field margins that attract invertebrates and songbirds assist.

[Agriculture and forestry are one unit - the 5 dimensions of nature: space with trees, time, relationships (interactions)]

The idea that agriculture and forestry are separate activities is the next mistake we have made. Nature operates in five dimensions. Over, under, sideways, down in the words of the old pop song. The three dimensions of physical space. Our farmers do a fantastic job on the two dimensions of flat space. But the third dimension of vertical space requires two things: creating living organic soils (impossible with chemical farming which destroys life in the soil) and trees. Trees offer us the best chance of permanent habitation. They ameliorate climate, build soils, offer useful products and create habitat for wildlife.

The fourth dimension is time. Under the supermarket culture we have lost our respect for seasonality, expecting abundant harvests of everything we consume every day of the year. Our commitment to uniformity is destroying our understanding of the value of diversity. Different things happen at different times of the day, and of the year. If we respect this then we need to work much less and make less inputs. True yield is outputs minus inputs, not tonnages achieved. Let nature take its course and we’ll progress further for less work and cost.

Monocropping does not favour wildlife. Managing our salmon rivers to extinguish coarse fish is not going to increase our national wealth, just the wealth of a few. Mono – anything is anathema.

[Appreciate scavengers - remove invasive exotic species]

Everything in nature has a right to life. If you don’t like a particular (native) plant, invertebrate, animal or bird, just consider what its role is in the system. Without detritus eaters (slugs, snails, rats etc.) we’d be feet deep in rotting vegetation. I exempt invasive exotics (Giant Hogweed, Japanese Knotweed, Himalayan Balsam, New Zealand Flatworm, Mink) because they were never part of our natural environment and they don’t, therefore, have natural predators.

[Birds of prey and badgers]

But I despair to see people who want to eliminate raptors and badgers. They are part of the beauty of our natural world. If we abandon nature we abandon life. Badgers are ‘bad’ because they give bovine tuberculosis to cattle. The Government’s own research shows that 80% of the time it’s the other way round. Makes sense if you think about it. Badgers trundling around pass through cattle at ground level (cowpat territory). Cattle don’t spend time hobnobbing with badgers.

[Wasps pollinate, break down dead wood, eat snails]

Many people are intolerant of wasps. But they serve lots of useful functions – pollinating, breaking down dead wood, infesting slugs and keeping their populations under control.

[Thistles and nettles]

Thistles and nettles are pioneer plants repairing our damaged soils and great food plants for a wide range of butterflies and moths. And for us if we know how to use them.

This is the fifth dimension. Relationships and cross effects. In this zone we find the true foundation of natural abundance. How does all creation work together to provide our needs? As you enjoy our countryside ask yourself whenever you look at a plant, and insect, or an animal or bird – “How is it helping me.”

[Earthworms are the floor care workers]

Without earthworms we couldn’t live. Fantastic soil creators.

[Mushrooms and their meaning]

Fungi serve us massively in ways we are barely beginning to understand.

[There are no weeds - weeds create new soil]

Weeds? Well they create new soil and all our food crops were weeds once.

Every tree on planet earth, capturing carbon dioxide and giving us back oxygen is a gift to our ability to live on planet Earth. A life we would not have without abundant wildlife.

[Bare moors in Scotland were caused by incorrect farming]

The great ecologist Frank Fraser Darling described Scotland’s bare moorlands as ‘a wet desert’. He wasn’t wrong. Let’s stop our lowland agriculture going the same way, and regenerate woodlands on our uplands. The inevitability of carbon descent (oil running out) means we’ll have to get much better at managing our land and using organic production to produce the food we need.>

[Well: Oil is NEVER running out because the deposits are always filling again].

[The Amazon jungle is a forest garden]

<Well in practice we find this to be a truth, not a theory. Over time our yields just keep growing. And we can always find more ways to get more out of the system. The native peoples have managed the Amazon Rainforest for 5,000 years since they first arrived there. Treading very lightly. But hey there’s always room for more tree houses. No?

[Graham Bell's small forest garden: 800 square meters - 16 tons per hectare per year - the principle of stacking]

Our very small back yard (800 sq metres) currently produces food at the rate of 16 tonnes / hectare. I don’t know any farmers round here who get that. It also produces half of our energy needs (firewood and electricity) 500 trees and 5000 plants a year for sale, a teaching space and a soft living room. And we are always trying to find what else we can stack in. Oh, stacking! Another key permaculture principle.

Of course the first thing that matters in any permaculture system is what you start out with. It helps to get really good at noticing stuff. Climate and weather (they’re not the same thing) have certainties and uncertainties. What applies where you are (or where you are working and designing for others?).

[Permaculture with soil science and tools - management of finances must work]

What are the soils like? How would you improve them? Mineral fraction, humic content, and most importantly, life in the soil. Do you know your species? The best willing workers on organic farms (WWOOFERS) are in the soil.

What tools do you have and what do you lack? Tools come in many forms: hand tools, mental tools, behavioural tools, big kit… Are they sharp and current, well lubricated? That applies literally to physical tools metaphorically to mental tools [further education!].

What financial resources do you have? It’s important to live within them. Or can you provoke new finance through borrowing, crowd funding, generosity? Maybe you will create profit from your surplus.

What will be the risks you face? Have you measured them and do you have a plan how to deal with them? Projects die from want of cash flow long before lack of profit. What about health risks? Who are the predators which threaten your system and how will you manage them?

Already we see that one of the key things that permaculture offers us is not answers, but the right questions to ask. Because the solutions are different in every place tailored to time, aspect, resources, skills and so on.

[Cold Southern Scotland - the harvest]

I’m writing this in my home in the South of Scotland. Same latitude as Alaska, Moscow, Northern China. If we were in the Antipodes we’d be McQuarrie Island, South Georgia…or thereby. I’ve spent most of the last month processing the food we have harvested. Bottling fruit and vegetables. Freezing soft fruit. Fermenting vegetables (to eat) and fruit (to drink). Drying onions and garlic, making kale crisps. Harvesting seeds to share with others.

I’m always thinking: “if only we had another pair of hands to help”. Then we could do so much more. The freezers are full. We have chutneys pickles and kimchi galore. Jars full of rumtopf, flavoured vinegars, salad dressing, pickled garlic, and we’ve run out of places to dry herbs.

Just imagine what you could do if you applied these principles in a warmer climate -where harvests can be heavy all year round.

[Food poverty in Scotland]

Our next project here in Scotland is to create sites like this all across our region to make a determined effort to eliminate food poverty. It seems criminal to me that there are people in a supposedly civilised country like the United Kingdom going hungry today. But there are.

[The poverty of ambition in the world]

It’s not just about food poverty, it’s about poverty of ambition (first noticed by Adam Smith the Scots father of economics), inadequate housing, and lack of feeling self-worth.

[Scotland with rarely over 20 degrees]

So whilst we are harvesting our bumper crops from our cool summer (rarely passing 20 degrees centigrade) I wonder ate the gift that permaculture insight offers to increase yield throughout the world.

We know how to create and maintain clean air, adequate water supplies, and sufficient quantity and quality of food for all. We know how to create dwellings and work spaces which offer, shelter, companionship and human dignity. We know how to turn wastes into resources to keep the cycle of productive yield growing year on year.

[The permaculture movement encompasses the whole world]

One of the great strengths of the permaculture movement is that it is truly international, does not measure any of the divisive issues that trouble our planet: skin colour, race, religion, class, property ownership, wealth or poverty. It is a truly egalitarian movement that recognises we all have a right to a decent standard of living and that we will best achieve that by sharing it with all living beings who actually are the source of earth’s natural abundance: be they other people, trees, songbirds, whales or microbial beings.

I feel privileged to be coming to share my surplus with whoever is up for it at the Permaculture Research Institute this October.

Graham Bell and his wife, Nancy Woodhead, welcome visitors to their forest garden by appointment. You can book on courses and open days, or make contact for other engagements via the website.