We’re honored to bring you this guest blog from Tiny SMART House owner and founder – the man, the myth, the legend, Nathan Watson.
iNTRO TO pERMACULTURE
Everyone has heard the term “Permaculture.” But what is it? The short answer is that it is the utilization of local resources to benefit the local community. Semantics aside, it’s the philosophy of making do with what you have on hand. When there is a surplus, it is redistributed for the greatest benefit to the land and people. Everything has connections that can be utilized. For me permaculture is the process of finding better ways to live. Ingenuity is the corner stone.
With the resurgence of sustainable living, there seems, to me, to be too much information out there. There are certificate courses available if you are so inclined, but personally I have a more casual outlook on permaculture itself. How do we start the transition to sustainable living? What are some of the things I, as an individual, can do with limited resources? Let’s jump into a few ideas that will reduce negative input and/or create positive output, preferably, both. Once you embark on the road to sustainability, your life will become your project. More than that though, “You” become the project. After all, you are the most important member of the system you live in. You can have a good impact, simply by moving away from conventional ideas.
Composting
This is more than using your food scraps or composting toilet to make fertilizer. Compost can be used to build healthier soil, help water retention and even heat your home. Compost for me is anything organic that can’t be fed to animals. Chickens and pigs will eat just about everything. What’s left is basically, manure, eggshells, coffee grounds, branches and yard clippings and the like. These things need a little time to make them more useful. Healthy compost will have reached a temperature that kills any pathogens and breaks down complex compounds into simpler ones. Regardless what your thoughts are about humanure, there is a use for it everyone can live with. While it is safe, if composted correctly, it can be used to feed fruit trees and for horticulture projects. It can be used to grow plants that attract birds and bees. Compost has been used to heat homes. By using the heat generated from composting to heat air or water, the energy can then be pumped to heat living space. A pile of branches, manure and plant material on top of poly water lines can heat a home.
I like paper towels. For good or bad, that’s my reality. Those paper towels make great worm beds. Worms help make your plants healthier. Healthier plants produce more and resist pests. Happy plants taste better. Worms attract birds. Birds eat pests. And birds are cool. They are the sound most of us associate with nature. Connections. They are everywhere. Worm casting are key to a lush garden. Worms are pretty easy to grow. They pretty much run on autopilot and you can eat them if you get hungry enough. Or sell them.
As tiny house living goes, the hardest part has been accomplished. A small living space minimizes energy requirements and materials used to create it. When planning a life like this, outdoor spaces are utilized more and these spaces tend to get more attention. Sit outside, observe nature, plan around the findings from these observations. Make the area nearest your door the most intensive. Mid-size project should be integrated with nature outside that and the farther reaches are minimal care. Slowly adapt your space over time, leaving room for modifications and unforeseen projects. A well thought out project will integrate every resource in the system. A reasonable project will utilize the most plentiful resources first and with time adapt to integrate more and more of them. A simple project is dumping the composting toilet in to a rose garden or building a small wetland gray water system. Some projects will fail or become obsolete or too cumbersome, being replaced with new ones. Just try to help the system work better.
Any of these ideas can be found in books, articles and the internet. If you’re just curious, working on something or committed to the idea, permaculture is more than a science. It’s a way of living with the natural world. Some people find this idea appealing and some feel it is necessary for their happiness. I am a nomad. I don’t have a piece of property to cultivate. What I do is spread the ideas around and help people develop ideas and projects. All over the world people are moving toward a more sustainable life. There are countless demonstration retreats and farms in every country. If you look you can find one near you. Go look at what people are actually doing and you’ll see healthy people and plants living the way they are meant to. Every project is different and tends to take on the personality of the creator. A lot can be called life art and are some of the most beautiful places on this planet.