Written by Natasha Zuhur | 24 February 2012

"An Introduction to Urban Permaculture" this past Sunday blew me away. Given my involvement on the farm two days a week or more, I have a pretty good handle on how things work, the challenges we face in surviving and stewarding the land and how we're succeeding at the farm in overcoming these challenges, but an invigorating, enlightening lesson gave me renewed energy, enthusiasm and new ideas.

We had a great turnout – about 15 students in all – some from around the corner, others from across the bridge, one from Arizona! Each had a good handle on why permaculture is so germane, although their backgrounds and experience with urban agriculture/gardening varied greatly. In an energetic class led by Jay Rosenberg, we explored the foundations of permaculture, potential goals common to us all in our education and practice of permaculture and looked for examples of these tenets at the farm. In between the first and second parts of class, we refueled with a fantastic potluck lunch of salad, pasta, freshly baked bread, cheese, cherry pie and an beautifully crafted "rejected pesto" by Meredith (I'll post the recipe soon, so you can try it at home). Turning the compost together became an investigation of the senses, engaging observation and interaction, as we perused the health of our pile and shared a community ritual to bring us together as a class. The sun shone down as we moved from site to site on the farm and newcomers couldn't help but wander off in the abundance, munching on lettuce and mustard green leaves as we continued our conversation about what it's going to take to turn our communities into rich, thriving food corridors.

I hope you enjoy looking through my lens of the first day of class in the Flickr slideshow available through the photo above and consider signing up for a class or two. "What exactly is permaculture?" may be a question on your mind at this point, a query I frequently field from both friends and passersby. Akin to asking someone who's been traveling for a few years how their trip was, the answer is not communicable through words alone as the experience of learning and practicing permaculture is inherent to understanding it. However, I will say that fundamentally – for me, at least – permaculture is a smarter way to live, as echoed by this quote from the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia's website: "Permaculture design is a system of assembling conceptual, material, and strategic components in a pattern which functions to benefit life in all its forms." Beneficial to all forms of life – not a phrase we hear often, right? It has a nice ring to it.

Created in response to a lack of resources, a desire to create a culture of mindfulness and reduced waste through smarter agricultural practices, "permaculture" was coined by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s. "The Designer's Manual", written by Bill Mollison in the 80s, is a very practical permaculture handbook, which we will study throughout our permaculture series at the farm. But as we learned in class, parts of this handbook have yet to be written for the modern urban landscape, which is where Hayes Valley Farm comes in. As the first demonstration site of its kind in one of the coolest cities in the world, the farm embodies the principles of permaculture, but adapts them for the urban environment, which makes for a utile guide for urban permaculture designers everywhere – in this course and beyond.

The foreign jargon need not be intimidating. Permaculture is a great deal of common sense. Take compost for example. Food decomposes into rich material that can nourish young plants. Given that we all produce food scraps – from trimmings to coffee grounds, this is an easy natural system to facilitate. It's free, it's resourceful and it’s effective. Another system that we will learn about later in this series of permaculture classes at the farm is water systems, like catchments, that allow us to store the water produced by rain and reuse it. Common sense, right? Yet composting and rainwater catchment are strangely foreign concepts to some people, often accompanied by misconceptions that the systems are complicated or costly. No longer outside mainstream awareness nor competence, these systems are at the core of permaculture, which enables us to do more with less and you can learn how with us here at Hayes Valley Farm. It costs more to not put these systems in place (see: New York City), which we discussed in some detail on Sunday. A couple of statistics resonated with me that I'll share a few with you here:

1) San Francisco's green bin composting facility is 56 miles away, in Vacaville, CA. We have one of the most revolutionary composting systems in the country, managed by Recology. It aimed to reduce solid waste by 75% by 2010, which we surpassed with the green bin system by diverting 77% of landfill waste into compost. This reusable material then goes to farmers and vineyards near the composting facility to contribute to more food production. While our municipal residential composting system is fantastic and helping us to divert much waste from the landfill, 56 miles is a ways, isn't it? Especially with heavy cargo. We can reduce our carbon footprint significantly by composting closer to home and contributing to food production locally. Composting doesn't take much – the right food scraps, water, brown material – basta! This is where permaculture comes in. By starting your own compost pile or finding a neighbor, a community garden or group nearby to donate your compost to, you can build community, help combat climate change and engage in your local food production.

Here's another kick in the pants:

2) 4% of US electricity use is spent on moving and treating water and wastewater and 80% of municipal water costs (processing and distributing) are for electricity. Seems like another area for improvement, no? We are spending a tremendous amount of electricity just moving and treating water. Grey water systems, which reuse the water from domestic activities like laundry, dishwashing and showering, are increasing in popularity in both interior architectural design and landscape design. Facing the facts of water consumption is downright depressing, so we don't do it all that often. But if you use water, you might be interested to learn how to be more efficient and to learn about systems that help you safely and effectively reuse water. A brilliant solution to heating water that Jay encountered while studying at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia, he shared with us, was running copper tubing through a hot compost pile outside to heat showers. Aloha, PG&E;! This system powered hot showers for 10 weeks – and probably still does.

To learn more about smart living, effective design and what options are out there for you to live more sustainably and resiliently, join one of our Urban Permaculture classes. The next class is Sunday, February 26^th. Hope to see you there!

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Resources

http://frontporchforum.com/
http://recologysf.com/residentialCompost.htm
http://compostaroundthecountry.weebly.com/san-francisco-ca.html
http://css.snre.umich.edu/css_doc/CSS05-17.pdf
http://www.nrdc.org/water/conservation/edrain/edrain.pdf
http://permaculture.org.au/2010/01/11/free-hot-water-from-compost-wheelie-bin/