I've been lurking here for quite a while, and thought I'd introduce myself
(though gardenlen will recognise me from aus.gardens). I live in the middle
of Sydney on an 822 sq m suburban block and have been heading vaguely in the
direction of pc for years. Given the recent burst of posts, I thought I'd try
to get a bit more discussion going, so here are a few questions for you all.

What aspect of permaculture first caught your interest?

For me it was the systematic way of thinking about your inputs and outputs --
it's really "gardening for engineers" in some ways!

What permaculture technique have you found most helpful?

The Zone concept has kept me planning my garden rationally/realistically
rather than on the basis of what's picturesque!

What is stopping you from being more "permacultural"?

My beloved husband has many good points, but a love of animal husbandry is not
among them. He isn't keen on having backyard fowl, which would add nutrition
to the soil, help me with weeding and snail control, and eat more scraps than
our two guinea pigs. The kikuyu lawn is also hard to control, so I use snail
bait and Roundup where needed.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Life is like a cigarette -- smoke it to the butt." -- Harvie Krumpet

g'day chookie,

can't say anyone thing led me into permaculture, although maybe my health
problems and working through organic gardening played a role. when the
council started charging for water we looked at ways of minimising water use
in the house and making greater use of used water. also looked at the habit
of over filling a large wheely bin each and every week. started recycling
lots of stuff into the gardens and through cmposting.

eventually paid out good money to go to a perma' 2 day introduction to pc
course just to find out we where doing most of that anyway, did learn about
working the contours thought. bought this rural block with the aim of
providing as much of our food as possible and also to try and stop the
decline of my health.

through using simple processes and working with our natural system we have
been able to head this block back to some form of drought resistancy, and
encouraged good mixed grasses to grow, now that the block carries good
moisture any trees we plant are more likely to survive.

with pc we reckon it all starts with a mind set, not exactly something that
will be sustainable and long lasting if it is done for a fad or fancy sort
of fashion thing. we don't concern too much about zones we simply set up our
food trees and gardens where they best suit our system.

don't see too many pc'ers using recycling in grey water, human waste ie.,.
composting toilets, or even designing or building eco' friendly housing, we
live in a 'warm-house'-'cool-house' designed home and we have never lived in
a home as comfortable that doesn't need heating or cooling, these are some
of the aspects that we see as being just as important if not more so than
man made pc design factors.

to trap water flow we used simple methods of ripping along the contours as
opposed to building a trench style swale and we use rows of mulch along our
contour planted fruit orchids to interupt the flow of water down hill this
gives us the same effect as and expensive trench type swale, to the degree
we pick juicy citrus & stone fruits and don't do any watering all the water
they get comes from natural rainfall that has been trapped and soaked
underground.

mulch is our greatest asset, it feeds our plants, keeps the soil moist and
acts as insulation in winter by keeping the root runs warmer and in summer
by doing the reverse and keeping the root runs cooler.

enjoy

len

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