hello this is angela with parkrose permaculture it is a gorgeous spring day here in portland oregon
in my permaculture food forest zone 8b today i wanted to talk about the permaculture concept of
abundance now i'm going to show you around a little bit of my garden here and
i want to talk about how there's kind of an erroneous notion in a lot of gardening groups that
there is only so much you can grow that there is a limit to the abundance that nature can produce
now there are factors that can limit abundance such as soil fertility sunlight erosion
other climatic factors like disturbance of uh fires and wind and things like that
there are limits on too much or too little water
but in terms of if the system is designed for abundance there is no limit to what you can grow
now you'll have to grow things that are appropriate for your climate and
that properly utilize your space but this is when we talk about permaculture as a design system to
help us grow and live abundantly we have been sold a bill of goods when it comes to gardening and
human influence on the landscape and abundance we have been taught i mean i know i have been taught
in school in studying agriculture in the common cultural uh concept of gardening and growing food
and interacting with wild spaces that there is a limit to abundance
permaculture would say we don't know what the upper limit of abundance is we don't top out the
reason that we top out in our agricultural systems now is because they are extractive
they are depleting landscapes they are reducing fertility but if we change the way that we
interact with the landscape so that our goals are increasing fertility our goals are not um
taking what we can get out of a system in the short term and not thinking about
putting into it if we change that outlook to a permaculture one that says i want to plan for
longevity i want to plan for increasing abundance i'm not thinking about what i can get right now i
am thinking about what will push my system toward diversity toward bounty toward a mix of species in
the landscape toward good design that promotes a mix of species in the landscape and not only a mix
of species but each of those individual species being the most healthy and abundant they can be
that's what permaculture says and that is not what we have been taught we've been taught
there are a finite number of plants you can grow in a space there is a finite amount of
people that we can have on this planet i will be making a video on that subject i
know it's going to be contentious and i know people are going to argue with me because
i've been unfriended and blocked by people in the past about that subject and
as long as i'm rolling with videos lately about omnivores and vegans and things like
that i might as well tackle some of those other other harder concepts of permaculture
including population but i digress so we've been told that there is an upper limit to abundance and
permaculture would say in a system where you have poor design where you are wrestling with
factors you have not resolved yet where humans are not a positive force on the landscape to
create uh good earth works with good consistent water supplies and having
promoting the correct input of sun and protection from wind and building fertility in the soil
where we have situations where humans are not doing that there absolutely is a limit to
abundance in a situation where we are constantly building fertility we are constantly observing
interacting we are designing from patterns to details we are working to increase our yields
there is no upper limit so keep in mind when i bought this quarter acre garden
more than 12 years ago it was not a garden it was weeds it was poorly installed sod with
plastic backing that has been a nightmare for me to deal with for 12 years and through slow
small changes that i made to the yard i have increased the species diversity from
about five species of plants to literally hundreds and hundreds of kinds of plants growing that
produce food that produce habitat for wildlife my garden is bursting with insects arachnids
birds
frogs we have a lot of pacific tree frogs right now in the garden
the soil health has gone from completely depleted to teeming with fungi and microorganisms that help
feed my plants and at the same time i'm able to have an annual veggie garden as you see here a
perennial orchard with more than 40 fruit and nut trees and i don't know how many berry bushes
i'm able to have flowers and a cutting garden mixed in all on a landscape that couldn't even
support grass 12 years ago a bacterially dominated soil that if you looked at it you would have
thought there's no possibility for abundance here there's no possibility for fertility well that's
because there was no fertility then but now being patient working slowly with nature taking my time
doing what felt approachable and achievable for me within the context of my real life
this is what i've been able to produce again this is just the backyard i also have side yard gardens
and a front yard little food forest garden
making changes of creating places for water to go like this rain garden
creating swales to catch and store water in my annual veggie beds improving vertical space
to make the most out of my small garden i have dramatically increased abundance here
so i hope that is an encouragement to you that you can do a lot with a small space
don't listen to those naysayers who say there's only so much you can grow
we grow thousands of pounds of food a year here endless amounts of flowers for my enjoyment for
pollinators we have bees and ducks and chickens there's so much you can do with a small space
if you use permaculture design so my encouragement to you is do not feel hindered or hampered do not
feel like there is an upper limit to what you can accomplish in your garden don't listen to people
who tell you you can't grow any more plants in this space you can't improve your design
in order to have more in order to improve your yields and improve your enjoyment of the garden
and to provide more habitat for wildlife don't listen to that know that the sky is the limit and
as long as you keep an open mind and keep the goal focused on building fertility you'll be surprised
at how much you can do even in small spaces even in spaces that initially seem like they're really
depleted and struggling at the get-go when you focus on building fertility those can become
sites that produce so much more than you ever imagined so if you enjoyed this video please
give it a thumbs up please consider checking out my patreon which is in the description
and subscribing to my channel i am trying to produce more and more content for my patrons
including folks who sponsor at the highest level i mainly use some sweet little gifts in the mail so
um and if there are subjects that you would like me to tackle related to permaculture
let me know and i will try to get to them in the future thank you