Permaculture for the Homestead

By Josh Thomas
Homesteading Family

Welcome to Permaculture for the Homestead!

Would you like to grow more food while improving the health of your soil?
Would you like to improve the sustainability of your land but don’t know where to
start?

It might sound like a contradiction to grow your own food while improving
your soil and doing it in less time with less energy. Instead of working with nature
to harvest nature’s abundance, we have tried to dominate using our modern
technology. But nature wants to thrive, and your self-sufficient garden dreams
can become a reality. It is totally possible to bring back a healthy, productive
balance.

By the end of our crash course, you’ll have practical tips to get you started
on your own land. It doesn’t matter where you are: if you have some sunlight,
some water, and a little soil, then you too can learn about permaculture.

Josh
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Permaculture Basics

What is Permaculture?

Permaculture is a way of working with nature rather than against it.

Permaculture looks at the way nature is made, exists, and functions and applies
those systems to our own spaces and environments. Using permaculture, we
benefit not only ourselves but also nature itself, which makes for a productive,
healthy system. When we work with the created order, we thrive and nature
thrives.

Permaculture Ethics

Before we can move on to the actions you can take on your own property,
we have to establish a system of thoughts and guidelines. Permaculture has a set
of ethics to guide us so we can ethically take care of our responsibilities. There is
also a set of twelve design principals to help us as we design our landscapes and
make practical decisions. The three main ethics are:

1. Care for people

2. Take care of natural resources
3. Create a surplus

Ultimately, we are trying to provide for ourselves by growing our own food.
We are providing for our families and loved ones, but we should also be helping
our communities. Caring for others is ethic number one.

Ethic number two is take care of natural resources. This is being responsible
to take care of the resources on the land that we have. We cannot properly fulfill
this ethic without stewarding the land, thinking about the choices we make, and
seeing if what we’re doing is sustainable.
2
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Our third ethic involves caring for others: pull not only a yield, but a
surplus. To care for our families, we need to pull a yield from the earth. To care
for others and the land itself, we need to pull more than a yield: we need a
surplus. All three ethics work together beautifully. To care for people, we have to
steward the land properly. As we’re stewarding the land, we need to get not only
a yield, but a surplus.

Just getting a yield is not enough. A yield is pulling enough from the garden
to feed your own family or fill your own freezer. Plenty of people think, “My
garden feeds my family and me, so that’s enough, right?” Actually, we have to do
more than that if we want to be sustainable, to grow more food, and to
experience abundance. Having a surplus is like getting interest on a bank account.
It gives us extra that we can put back into the earth (think compost). Nature has
no waste. If we are pulling from the land without returning to the land, then we
are degrading the landscape.

Also, if we are caring for people, we should be growing a surplus for the
community. This could be something like a market garden, or just growing extra
food for people in need. When we do it right, it is so cool to see what happens.
Not only is there plenty of yield to care for ourselves and our families, there is a
surplus for selling, helping others, and giving back to the land.

3
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

12 Permaculture Design Principals

There are twelve basic design principals in permaculture to help us take the
three main ethics and apply them to everyday life.

1) Observe and interact

The first permaculture design principal is to observe and interact. This is just a
fancy way of saying take thoughtful action. Take time to observe your
environment and what’s happening around you. Take time to observe nature.
Don’t just till the ground, plant the seeds, water the plants, and wait for the
yield. There is so much more going on.

2) Catch and store energy

Principal number two is catch and store energy. Most of us are aware that
water is energy and that plants use photosynthesis to store energy. Fewer
people know that those plants are assimilating nutrients. While they are
getting nutrients and energy from the soil, they are also returning and building
energy into the soil. This is one of the major ways that we catch and store
energy. This is what forests and prairies do.
Built right into this second principle is an important point: don’t leave bare
ground exposed. It can’t turn the sun into nutrients or hold water, so it is
neither catching nor storing energy. It’s a waste of valuable space that you
could be using.

3) Obtain yield and surplus

Now for the third principle: obtain and yield surplus. This fits right in with the
second ethic we discussed. Think of your land as a bank account. It only has so
much energy and so many nutrients. You can take from them and you can
draw down, but if you’re not adding to it, you will slowly drain that account
and take that yield. Eventually, there will be nothing to take if we don’t have
that essential surplus to put back into the landscape.

4) Self-regulate
The fourth principle is to self-regulate. What are we under or over working and
where do we need to pull back? A classic example is animals on the pasture.
We grow all of our own meat, and over the years, as we’ve moved to different
properties and learned how to manage livestock, we’ve noticed a pattern. It’s
4
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

a tendency of most people we’ve observed to just get as many animals on the
land as possible. That way, there will be a bigger harvest.
But the problem is that we may be taxing the land without giving enough
thought to that important question: what are we working and where do we
need to pull back? Always be looking to ALWAYS be improving your fertility
for the long run. Never sacrifice long term fertility for short term production.
We all need to regulate ourselves and say, “You know what? We just can’t
produce this much on this space until we improve the pasture.”.

5) Recycle everything
Design principle five is recycle everything. Permaculture seeks to work with
nature, not against it. What does nature do? It doesn’t produce any waste but
recycles everything. When creatively problem solved, most items have multip
possible uses... find another use for something that could be considered
“waste”.

6) Produce no waste
Priciple five fits right in with principle six, produce no waste. It seems
redundant, but the emphasis is to recycle what we have. My “waste” refers to
things that have to go offsite because they are unusable. Again, nature does
not produce waste, so we want to reduce ours as much as possible but even
better than that is to not produce anything that cannot be recycled.

7) Observe patterns to design details

Though it may sound complex, principle seven is just encouraging us to pay
attention: observe patterns to design details. Sometimes we just jump right in
and start designing without looking at the different patterns. “Road here,
chicken coop there, garden over here”. But observing makes all the difference.
Maybe the sun travels across a certain section of the property and it will really
affect the garden or green house. Maybe the duck house is nowhere near the
pond. Observe the patterns in your landscape. DON’t forget to observe the
way you move across your property, too. Patterns drastically affect us and our
land design.

8) Stack functions
Design principle eight is one of my favorites: stack functions. Even in the
garden, each vegetable has its own place and its own role. How do these roles
5
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

benefit each other and where can we stack functions? Where can we put two
elements that benefit each other?
Chickens are a classic example of this. Not only do they lay eggs and
provide meat, they also produce manure, which improves soil fertility.
Chickens also eat bugs, which are found in abundance in the garden and cow
pasture. While the chickens are providing meat and eggs, there’s a lot of work
we can have them do. This is an example of stacking functions.

9) Use small, slow systems

Principle nine will help you keep control of things. I encourage you to use slow,
small systems. This just means to slow down and create small, manageable
systems that aren’t so large they get out of control. That way, you can observe,
shape, and react to what’s happening on your homestead. Start with a small
garden, instead of a huge one – it is likely to be more successful and
productive.

10) Value diversity

Value diversity is principle ten, and this principle can be one of the most fun
and exciting to play with. Nature does not do monocrops. Rather, it is our large
industrial agricultural system that wants to separate everything out and put
the cows over here, the tomatoes over there, and the chickens in the factory.
This isn’t what nature does. When we look at nature, we see all sorts of
different plants and animals all together, and that’s the way it should be.

11) Use edges

Design principle eleven is use edges. Now, edges mean where two different
landscapes meet – a forest and a grassland, your house and the neighbor’s
fence, the garden and the lawn. Anywhere that two edges meet, you will find
the most diversity, the most activity, and the most abundance, so use edges
wisely when designing.

12) Creatively respond to change

Finally, design principle twelve: creatively respond to change. Don’t fight it,
don’t squash it, don’t try to control it; instead, observe what’s changing and
learn how to work with the flow. In a natural environment, things are always
changing, which is always going to present a problem needing a creative
answer.
6
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Permaculture For Your Homestead

Action 1: Catch and Control Water

Water is one of our key resources. No matter where you’re at, you get
some amount of water – depending on where you are, maybe you get too much!
Most places also have a dry season, even if they get plenty of water the rest of
the year. We need to learn how to control the water and how to get rid of excess
to prevent erosion. Look at your landscape and think about what’s happening
with the water.

What we want to do is catch water, slow it down as it’s running through our
land, let it sink in, and get rid of excess without erosion. What can you do to help
water sink into your land where it’s needed?
Most of us have roads. If your road has a hard surface, look at the water it
sheds. Where does it go? Is it taking some of your precious soil with it? An easy
way to get that water to sink into your landscape without doing damage is digging
a few ditches by hand to spread the water out to different areas.
Another crucial area that needs water is your garden. Not everyone has flat
ground, and even if they do, some of the water will still run off. How can you
catch the water and keep the soil? Again, simple hand-dug ditches will often do
the trick, though sometimes machinery is needed. The goal is to divert excess
water to gently spread out over an area. When you cover your soil, as we will talk
about in just a minute, it helps with water absorption and keeps the ground from
eroding.

7
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Action 2: Cover Your Soil

If you have any bare dirt on your property, you are losing an opportunity to
create abundance. Bare dirt is also a problem because it gets washed away when
it rains. You need to get that area covered up.

There are a couple of different things you can use to cover bare dirt. One is
mulch, which is just carbonaceous material, but you have to be very, very careful
about pesticides and sprays. Always know your source.
A great option for a lot of people is tree chips. Tree companies trim trees
and then chip up the branches, so this material is all ready to go. This is an
excellent way to cover your soil, slow down erosion, and help water absorption.
Eventually, your mulch and chips will break down, and then you’ll be able to plant
a cover crop.

Cover Crops
There are different plants and different strategies used in cover cropping.
Actually, you can strategically use weeds to cover crop. As soon as you get some
moisture in a bare place, there is something that wants to come up – oftentimes
something we don’t want. But you can take those weeds, let them grow, and then
chop them down before they start to seed. That is better than bare ground.
Absolutely do not spray those weeds, and don’t try to kill them. Let them grow
just to the point of seeding so you get a lot of bio mass and then cut them down.
Mow them and leave them.

Growing weeds is much better than having bare ground. After you’ve used
the weeds to keep an area covered, cut them down and mulch the area. You can
let the weeds keep growing or you can buy a cover crop seed mix that’s
appropriate for your area. Just doing this will slow down erosion, catch water, and
start biological activity in your soil.

There is Always Opportunity

As we move into plant diversity, I want to encourage you to look at all the
bare spaces on your property. Have an abundant mindset. There is always
opportunity! Get your soil covered and then start thinking about what you could
do with it. What would do well in that environment and provide something for
8
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

you? Even beautiful flowers and bushes contribute something. However you go
about it, start thinking about covering your soil.

Action 3: Plant Diversity

Let’s step back for a moment and look at the first two actions. By catching
water and covering soil, you are starting to create a process of life. As you do
these things, you’re also setting the stage to be able to grow more. Now, let’s
turn our attention to plant diversity. After you’ve gone to the work of catching
water and covering your soil, you don’t want to just put in a lawn. Even the cover
crop we talked about is just a start.

In permaculture, we have what are called food forests and gilds. They start
to put different elements together. Instead of just planting an orchard, we would
first plant trees. We might want to plant large trees to shade the fruit trees. Then,
underneath the fruit trees we might put berry bushes, and underneath those
vines or small bushes. We don’t have time to get into all of that, but I want you to
think about planting diversity and getting more onto your property.
Think about different heights and different plants. Look for diversity. If all
you can do is buy a tree and a berry bush, then do it! If you have an area that
you’ve cover cropped, don’t just turn it into lawn. Get some ground cover on it
and plant fruit bushes. Do something that creates productivity. Over time, you
can add more elements and build over the ones that you already have.
At this point, you can experiment and have fun. Don’t be afraid of failure. It
gets so exciting when you start thinking about all the different things you can
plant. Not only will you start to have a yield, you’ll have a natural surplus that is
going to give back. It will give you material to put back into your soil, which will
help catch water, which in turn will create a biologically active system to help you
grow more. You are starting to put nature to work for you.

9
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Action 4: Stack Functions

There is one more action item that you can start thinking about, and this is
stacking functions. Now, you’re already building a system like we’ve talked about,
but how can you add other elements of your homestead and make things work
together? We’re going to use the chicken example again.

Let’s say that you’ve got some chickens. Maybe you have an area that
needs to be rehabilitated so you can put some of those ideas we’ve talked about
into practice. You might be thinking, “Man, it’s just so weedy, I don’t think I can
get anything to grow there. How do I get control exactly?”
This is where stacking functions comes in. You can get some chickens and
stick them in that area! Whether they’re layers or meat birds, you can put up
temporary fencing and start stacking functions. Not only will the chickens eat the
weeds and help clear out that area, they are also providing manure to help break
things down. Plus, you won’t need to give them as much feed.

That was just a small example. Let’s move to something bigger. An example
of using chickens in a large context would be allowing them to go where the cows
have been. Chickens actually break up the cow patties and manure as they spread
it out to look for fly larvae. Not only are they putting down manure, they are also
spreading manure and eating bugs.

A final example is fruit trees. Instead of keeping your chickens, ducks,

geese, and rabbits in a building all day long, grow some fruit trees as shade for
them. Not only will the animals benefit from the shade, you’ll benefit from the
extra fruit.

There is an unlimited number of ways to put systems together to work for

you. Once you have a system, you won’t have to do as much to take care of
things, and you’ll get even more. Finally, let’s turn our attention to an important
area: permaculture in the garden.

10
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Permaculture in Your Garden

Start with the Garden

Everything that we’ve talked about is completely applicable to your garden,

but maybe you don’t have that piece of ground yet. Maybe right now you’re just
trying to focus on an abundant garden. I hope that you’ll apply what you’ve
learned to all of your land, but I know it can be a big leap. Focusing on your
garden is a great foundation, and things might seem more attainable in there.
You’ll also see faster results, get to experiment, and start integrating the
principles you’ve learned. So, what can you do in the garden right now to start
applying permaculture and creating abundance?

Garden Tip #1: Stop Tilling

Yes, you read that right. One of the very first things you can do is to reduce
or stop tilling the ground. Our modern concept is that tilling is productive. Well,
yes, it is, but only for a short term. In reality, it has long term consequences.
Tilling breaks up the natural layers in the ground, slowing down and eventually
destroying the essential soil biology necessary for growing healthy, nutritious
food.
There are times when tilling is appropriate. For instance, when you want to
loosen compact soil or when you want to turn sod into a garden plot. But tilling
isn’t something that needs to be or should be done every year because it actually
just compacts and damages the soil.

Another great benefit that happens when you stop tilling is that your weed
population will immediately decrease. Every time you till, you are bringing seeds
up to the surface and causing them to germinate. When you stop tilling, you only
have to pull the seeds on the surface. There’s a time-saver!
11
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Garden Tip #2: Prevent Erosion

If you’re going to a no-till system, you’re going to start creating permanent

gardens beds. And while some of you may have flat land and don’t deal with
erosion, a lot of us deal with erosion at different times of the year. Especially if
you have hard-packed soil, it may not take much to erode your soil, so we need to
catch water without letting it ruin your permanent beds.

You need to create a system that will catch water and give excess a way to
drain. If you’re on a slope, your garden beds need to follow the contour of the
slope and have a natural way to drain if you get excessive rain. Remember the
ditches that we talked about earlier. Look for ways to prevent erosion as you
create permanent gardens beds that are not dependent on tilling.

Garden Tip #3: Cover Your Soil at All Times

You want to work to keep your soil covered at all times, and we’re starting
to achieve that as we move to a no-tilling system. But, in an annual garden, there
will always be sections that will have to be exposed to plant certain crops (think of
beds with lettuces). Our goal is to minimize the time that the soil is exposed, and
there are several ways to do this.

One way is to cover the soil with mulch, mimicking what nature does in
forests and prairies. You can also do cover crops or green manure. Green manure
is a valuable, fast-growing, dense crop that isn’t generally for consumption,
although sometimes there’s an exception like peas. Green manure crops are good
for the soil, but they should be grown in areas that you’re not going to plant until
later in the season.

Now, I know that there are some beds you have to leave exposed (I’m
thinking of our succession lettuce beds). For those beds, I plant very densely. In
areas that I’m not going to use, I put a landscape cloth or tarp over the bare beds.

12
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Garden Tip #4: Plant Very Densely

This is a method I use for all of the garden. I try to plant everything very
densely so that the soil is covered as quickly as possible. You can always go back
and thin (the veggies you thin are yield,too!). There is a little extra work, yes, but
you’ll be getting a yield and a surplus to share with someone else. This method
also really discourages weeds. Remember, you need to keep your soil covered
one way or another, and this way generally yields the best results.

Garden Tip #5: Learn about Companion Planting

Nature does not do mono crops, and it certainly doesn’t do straight rows of
one variety. Rather, it is diverse and mixes things up. This is healthy and causes
the plants to play off each other. The plants benefit each other above soil, as they
shade each other, exchange nutrients, and bring in pollinators, but they also
benefit each other below ground. The more diversity of root structure, the more
diversity of biological life in the soil, which creates a healthier soil.

Three well-known companions are corn, squash, and beans. As the corn
grows, it creates a physical structure for the beans. The beans return nitrogen to
the soil while the squash spreads out and provides shade. In turn, the squash gets
shade from the other two. That’s just one example. Another good set of
companions is beans, cabbage, and broccoli.

I encourage you to study up on companion planting and think in diversity. If

I’m going to plant in rows, I try to get at least three different things in each row
and mix them all up. Start developing these healthy systems in your own garden.
This is where things flourish and start working for you. And as you’re planting
diversely, remember to plant densely as well, mixing things up as you go.

Garden Tip #6: Encourage Beneficial Species

13
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com
 Permaculture for the Homestead

Beneficial species aren’t necessarily things you consume. This can be birds
that prey on bugs giving you problems. I like to plant sunflowers to attract those
helpful birds. You might have a problem with wasps. But wasps actually come in
and eat little bugs and grasshoppers that could give you problems. Some wasps
are also pollinators. Also, plant flowers that bring in pollinators right in the middle
of your garden. Encourage beneficial species, whether birds, bugs, or flowers.

Conclusion

As we wrap up, there are a few key things to remember.

• Remember, permaculture is working with nature instead of against it.

• Learn about catching water, slowing it down, using it, and preventing
erosion.
• Always cover your ground in some way or another.
• Plant diversely and densely

Finally, have fun! You can’t harm or destroy anything as long as you are
encouraging nature. You’re learning about how nature works, how it was
created, and how you can mimic those systems to create more abundance.

Here’s to growing and living more abundantly!

14
©2019 Homesteading Family
www.homesteadingfamily.com