A trend that is growing along with organic gardening is permaculture.

What is permaculture? You’ll find as many definitions as you do practitioners, but the term, which combines the words “permanent” and “agriculture” was coined in 1975 by Australian Bill Mollison.

The basic idea is that of working with nature to create a sustainable system: “permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system.”

Permaculture is about the design of an ecologically sound way of living, both indoors and out, at home and at work.

Many of the principles of permaculture have been adopted around the world, especially in developing countries, where they are an extremely useful model.

Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept and Permaculture in a Nutshell , by David Whitehall, is a very inexpensive ($9) introduction to the subject. 

Tags: permaculture

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