Backyard Permaculture Timelapse

Timelapse of backyard work shot over 6 weeks of Sundays.

The first part shows yard preparation for a green manure crop - added gypsum clay breaker and some sand, used a rotary hoe to break up heavy, compacted clay soil then sowed green manure crop and mulched with sugar cane mulch before watering in.

The second part shows our pond construction, mark II. The first pond I was a little too eager and didn't plan it very well. So, the pond "reboot" involved draining the old pond, getting the levels right, replacing the liner with something larger and thicker, creating a small waterfall and decorating with rocks and some initial plants.

More to come ... plants, fish, solar panel to power waterfall pump.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• gardening
• permaculture
• pond
• timelapse

[Pangolinx1]

If it had always taken this much work to grow veggies the human race would have died out long ago. Permaculture continues to be underwhelming.

[NoSmallDreamsNET]

@Pangolinx1 It's clear that most of the video depicts the creation of a pond, not growing veggies.

Regardless of the method chosen to grow food (industrial agriculture, organic gardening, permaculture etc), it takes a lot of effort, it's just that in most cases it's externalised effort i.e. you work your 9-5 job to pay others to expend the effort on your behalf so that packaged and processed food is readily available to you on the supermaket shelves.

[NoSmallDreamsNET]

@Pangolinx1 Even if you look closely at industrial agriculture, it's far from sustainable or efficient (in terms of effort/work) when you factor in all the externalised costs. Petrochemical fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides, transportation, long-term preservation/irradiation, storage, processing, packaging, waste, land/soil degradation etc.

[NoSmallDreamsNET]

@Pangolinx1 In our case yes we are putting a lot of effort into rejuvenating the soil before we plant. This is a better option than the "lazy" method of using petrochemical fertilizers. But in permuculture there are many ways to do the same thing, requiring more or less effort e.g. a "no-dig garden" is about as low effort as any gardening can get - just layer organic matter, compost and mulch on top of the ground. Another method is to plant "pioneer species" and let nature do the work.

[Pangolinx1]

@NoSmallDreamsNET I've dug raw gardens from fallow land with and without a tiller and believe me I'm not criticizing your use of the tiller. Or the pond. I'm just wary of "permaculture" recipes that start with......"first, truck in 5 tons of mulch" (yes, I know you didn't use that much). I wonder how a person would explain this technique as "sustainable" to a guy who has a donkey, a hoe, a shovel but no wheelbarrow.

When permies demonstrate they can operate w/o petrol then I'll be impressed.

[NoSmallDreamsNET]

@Pangolinx1 Agreed, trucking in any external resources is not ideal, but it's certainly better from a sustainability viewpoint than the "slow route" of planting pioneer species first (which permies HAVE demonstrated) and remaining part of an even more unsustainable industrial agriculture system while you wait for nature to do the hard work. Sustainability is not an all or nothing proposition. If organic, local waste resources were available, I doubt the subsistence farmer would turn it down.

[Xxfades321xX]

muted the audio, and watched with bouree by jetro tull, perfect time correlation and went with your movement pretty well actually

anyway i think you did a good job for a backyard though i believe there could've been cheaper methods employed that would have also been more natural, one being avoiding the use of a pond liner and though not as immediate i think it would have been better to simply mulch heavily rather than tilling and exposing the microbial's in the soil to the harsh sun

gj tho

[StrongArmZZ]

@NoSmallDreamsNET Agreed, we need to strategically use what we do have to organically, and biodynamically increase the entire planet's resources. A pond is a great example of an extremely productive and possibly unique microenvironment. Here in Arizona for instance a perennial water source for small and large animals alike is a rare thing, but we can easily use trash, or used materials to create them. We have plenty of water during monsoon season, and much of it is lost through drainage ditches.