Sat, 25/04/2009 – Michel Fanton
The Seed Savers’ Network has its roots firmly planted in the Permaculture movement. Its founders, Michel and Jude Fanton, were practising Permaculture from the late 1970s and Permaculture founder, Bill Mollison, mentored its inception in 1986.
If you are one of the lucky people who have been brought up on home-grown food, you have already experienced one of the Permaculture maxims:’Go back to the garden and half of the world’s environmental problems will be solved!’ But if you are detached from the earthly delights of home-grown fruits and vegetables, then Permaculture will hold even more surprises. You will feed yourself with the best tastiest organic food knowing that what you eat has not literally cost the earth to get to your table.
What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is a system that produces more energy than it consumes. It is a design concept based on the observation of nature, ancestral wisdom, modern scientific and technological know-how and not just an esoteric bit of consumerism which fits well into environmental consciousness.
Permaculture Virtual Reality
For people with ample land their Virtual Permaculture Reality is to grow their breakfast fruit salad and eat it in the gazebo covered with grapes, passionfruit, Chinese gooseberry vines and sheltered from the winds by icecream bean trees, cherimoyas, red pawpaws, pommelos and black sapotes (which also happens to be called chocolate pudding fruit).
For City Dwellers
If you are one of the 86 per cent of Australians who live in a city, by careful planning and a little maintenance you can produce quite a portion of your needs. Permaculture plantings provide a home-grown noise pollution screen. You can retrofit your house to be more energy-efficient, talk with like-minded neighbours to open backyards for recreation or for creating fruit-forests for children. The vitamins in salad greens oxidise within a few minutes of harvest, so they are the priority to grow in whatever soil you can muster. You can even save seeds in a small garden, even on a balcony. Herbs and salads are easiest and you can even make your own curry powder based on the seeds of coriander, mustard and fennel, with a little chilli, ginger and garlic from your garden pots or boxes.