Permaculture is an approach to land management and agriculture that focuses on utilizing land in a sustainable and productive way, matching flourishing natural ecosystems. When designing a homestead, using permaculture techniques and principles helps you achieve the best possible outcomes.

An Introduction to Permaculture

Sustainability is a cornerstone of permaculture homesteading, with the primary goal of growing and raising as much of what you need to survive on a plot of land without adding more resources or producing waste.

Sustainability is also a key concept in permaculture. Using permaculture design principles and tools will help you improve your land.

Bill Mollison and David Holmgren coined the term permaculture, which combines the words “permanent” and “agriculture,” in 1978.

As Bill Mollison wrote, 

“Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.

As a design strategy, permaculture is a top homesteading solution. In this chapter, I’ll go over the fundamentals of permaculture, including a step-by-step guide on how to apply it to your homestead planning.

 

The 12 Principles of Permaculture 

The co-founder of permaculture, David Holmgren, wrote the 12 principles as thinking tools to help people develop closed-loop systems similar to healthy and balanced ecosystems. A successful permaculture homestead is an ecosystem; the more you can close the loop, the more sustainable it is.

Permaculture is a whole-systems approach to designing everything from towns to small community gardens. Instead of looking at the individual components of a homestead, such as chicken coops, gardens, and orchards, you consider them as a whole and develop systems that allow the individual components to work with each other as nature intended.

The permaculture principles can be implemented at any scale, so whether you have a one-room apartment with a balcony or a hundred-acre farm, these concepts can be applied.

1. Observe and Interact

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

To develop a permaculture homestead design, you must observe and interact with nature. Many people advocate spending at least a year observing your land before you start planning and designing your homestead.

There isn’t a standardized approach that can be applied to every homesteading site. Successful permaculture requires observation of natural patterns, processes, and relationships between the components of your homestead, and you can only find the best design solutions by observing and engaging with nature.

2. Catch and store energy

“Make hay while the sun shines.”

There are many examples of capturing and storing energy in the natural world. A carrot plant captures the energy from the sun and stores it in its roots. A bee captures pollen and stores it as honey. 

Permaculture is about developing systems to collect resources when they are abundant so they can be used during times of scarcity.

3. Obtain a yield

“You can’t work on an empty stomach.”

How do you measure success on a homestead? For many, the most important metric of success is whether your homestead feeds you or not.

The type of food you grow on your homestead will depend on your site and factors like climate, water resources, and soil conditions. Putting your energy into raising livestock and growing food to obtain the highest possible yields will ensure your success.

4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback

“The sins of the father are visited on the children unto the seventh generation.”

Adaptation is a trait that organisms inherit to be able to respond when their environment changes. Functioning ecosystems self-regulate naturally, making the necessary changes to adapt to the world around them.

On the homestead, feedback comes in many forms. If your chicken coop floods in the spring, that’s feedback, and if you accept it, then you naturally move your chicken coop. 

Applying self-regulation and accepting feedback reduces inappropriate activity. This principle can be applied to any area of your life or homestead.

Related: 10 Steps to Creating a Feedback Loop for Your Homestead

5. Use and value renewable resources and services

“Let nature take its course.”

A successful permaculture homestead design includes renewable resources like sun, wind, water, and shade. Putting these resources to use means you need fewer outside resources coming into your homestead, thereby getting you closer to a closed-loop system.

For example:

 

• • Let the sun dry your clothes

• • Install a solar water heater

• • Use wind power to generate electricity

• • Create a shady outdoor retreat for hot summer afternoons

• • Harvest rainwater for your backyard pond

6. Produce no waste

“A stitch in time saves nine.”

“Waste not, want not.”

Modern American culture is a throw-away society, contrary to this permaculture principle of producing no waste. Our landfills are filling up, and getting rid of your garbage costs more and more. 

At the same time, we spend money shopping on Amazon or buying clothes we don’t need at Walmart. Transitioning to a zero-waste lifestyle isn’t easy, but you can do many simple things to reduce waste, like composting organic waste and shopping at second-hand stores.

7. Design from patterns to details

“Can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Everywhere you look in nature, there are patterns. For example, the fractals in the branching pattern are a fundamental organizing principle in nature, and they can be seen in rivers, on trees, in your lungs, in the veins of a leaf, and even in your brain’s neural network.

Learning how to work with the patterns in nature is a key principle in permaculture. Start with the overall design, then work on the details by creating and implementing designs matching nature’s patterns.

Use the first principle of observation and interaction to learn to recognize patterns and find the ones that work best for you. Whether it’s a branching design for your garden or a spiral design for your chicken run, it’s a fun and exciting approach to homesteading.

Learn more: Eight Types of Natural Patterns for Permaculture Design

8. Integrate rather than segregate

“Many hands make light work.”

Ecology is the study of how everything is related in nature, and in this delicate balance, everything works to support something else.

The same principle applies to homesteading with permaculture. When you focus on integration and how everything on your homestead interacts with everything else, you can use this knowledge to build supportive relationships.

9. Use small and slow solutions

“The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

“Slow and steady wins the race.”

Your homestead doesn’t have to be enormous to be productive. We’ve all seen examples of well-designed homesteads that produce abundant food supplies on less than an acre. 

Once your homestead achieves a balance, it’s like an ecosystem. Making large changes upsets the balance of a delicate ecosystem. You can achieve and maintain balance by making small changes and observing and accepting feedback.

10. Use and value diversity

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Biodiversity is a sign of a healthy ecosystem. By valuing diversity on your homestead, you will enjoy its many benefits. 

In nature, an example of how biodiversity creates new relationships is Monotropa uniflora, or ghost pipe, a plant that doesn’t produce energy with chlorophyll. Instead, it gets nutrients from a process called myco-heterotrophy. Ghost pipe absorbs nutrients from a host fungus that feeds off a tree.

As you continue to increase the diverse nature of your homestead, it becomes more resilient and produces more resources. It’s able to fight disease and produce better yields.

11. Use edges and value the marginal

“Don’t think you’re on the right track just because it’s a well-beaten path.”

Nature doesn’t waste anything, including the edges. The edges of an ecosystem are teeming with life. Look at the edges of a forest, ocean, or river; you’ll find that this is where many relationships happen. In these marginal areas, two ecosystems meet, and a third is created.

On a homestead, using edges and valuing the marginal means taking those underused areas and making them useful. For example, I use the space right outside my deer-proof garden fence to grow herbs and plants that deer don’t eat. It’s the perfect place to grow basil, which also discourages other pests like gophers.

12. Creatively use and respond to change

“Vision is not seeing things as they are but as they will be.”

Change creates opportunities, and while most humans struggle with change, it’s a critical aspect of homesteading. You will find the best homesteading solutions for your site by embracing change and responding creatively.

Most people interested in homesteading are dynamic individuals who can visualize the possibilities from a vacant plot of land. However, even small changes present opportunities, and when you practice this principle, you cultivate the character traits that allow you to take advantage of change opportunities.

Homestead Planning With The 12 Permaculture Principles

Ready to start planning your homestead using the 12 Permaculture Principles? Our free Vision & Values Homestead Planner has tools and exercises to help you explore various ways to use these guiding principles on your site, plus everything you need to design, organize, and plan your homesteading life.