When we moved to our off grid home in Canada's subarctic, we had no idea how difficult it would be to start a vegetable garden. Poor soil conditions, tons of bedrock, and a uniquely compressed garden season were, well, challenging. That's why I started looking into permaculture design principles.
It was tough to find information on permaculture back then. However, that's changed in the past year. Permaculture ideas are popping up everywhere as more families turn to growing their own food.
When I first wrote this post, few gardening websites covered permaculture. Now, permaculture sites and low-maintenance garden sites have popped up everywhere!
If you struggle to grow vegetables in a traditional backyard garden, consider learning about permaculture design principles and basics. Then, visit these permaculture sites for beginners.
Jump to:
- What is Permaculture?
- What is a Microclimate?
- Permaculture is a Long-Term Commitment
- Permaculture Design Principles: Best Blogs for Beginners
- Permaculture Design — The Urban Farmer
- Permaculture Principles
- Difference Between Organic Gardening and Permaculture
- Permaculture Design
- Deep Green Permaculture: How to Start Your Permaculture Garden
- Temperate Climate Permaculture: Permaculture Design Projects
- Dr. Axe Permaculture: The Many Benefits of Permaculture (And Why We Need it to Feed the World)
- Natural Living Ideas: What Is Urban Permaculture? How & Why You Should Adopt These Principles
- Permaculture magazine
- Oregon State Free Permaculture PDF Book: Introduction to Permaculture
- The Permaculture Apprentice: Tons of Resources!
- Permaculture Research Institute
- Permaresilience: Permaculture Homesteading Crash Course
What is Permaculture?
Permaculture is an ethical gardening method that copies patterns found in nature. This is called biomimicry.
People who follow permaculture basics also try to limit how much they disrupt or harm the earth. So if it's doable, permaculture activities should actually improve the earth. This idea supports the basic permaculture ideals of earth care, people care, and fair share.
What is a Microclimate?
Permaculture design principles depend heavily on using microclimates, which is pretty different from the idea of carefully planned and landscaped kitchen gardens.
A microclimate creates pockets of weather conditions not typical of your area. These microclimates let you grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs that might not usually do well in your gardening zone- and they might surprise you.
For example, we live very far north.
This means we face the unique challenges of northern gardening. Our gardening zone is 0A. Yes, there really is a "zero" gardening zone. (FYI, we are at about 62 degrees north in Canada's Northwest Territories.)
We have one acre of land overlooking a lake. Our property is a mixture of bedrock, clay, and sandy soil. Yet, with our ongoing family composting efforts, we've improved the soil quality over the years. We've even had topsoil trucked into our off-grid garden for an added boost.
We're experimenting with several microclimates on the property. Large bedrock and almost 24-hour sunlight in June and July make "hot spots" for typical warm-weather crops like watermelons. Birch trees offer shade for veggies like chard and potatoes.
Permaculture is a Long-Term Commitment
Today, there's growing interest in low-maintenance backyard gardens, and more people want to learn how to start homesteading.
This offers an excellent opportunity to practice permaculture. However, be warned. Permaculture takes years to really work well.
Prepare to make some planting errors and vegetable garden harvesting mistakes. So you need to commit to your gardening activities - and your property. Apply permaculture design principles with your long-term goals in mind.
And then you'll get the chance to enjoy a high-yield, low-maintenance vegetable garden.
Permaculture Design Principles: Best Blogs for Beginners
If you'd like to learn more about permaculture, visit these 13 sites. Some offer an introduction to permaculture basics. Others include diagrams of possible garden layouts. Others offer tips and tricks for permaculture success.
Permaculture Design — The Urban Farmer
The Urban Farmer page offers a simple permaculture overview. It also discusses the history and development of permaculture design principles for beginners.
Permaculture Principles
At Permaculture Principles you can see a video with David Holmgren, one of the founders of permaculture. And the site also includes ideas on how to use permaculture design principles to your suburban home and yard.
Difference Between Organic Gardening and Permaculture
Confused about the difference between permaculture and organic gardening? The Permaculture Visions site includes an informative article that highlights the characteristics of a permaculture garden. It isn't the same as organic gardening. It also offers a free Permaculture Ethics Course.
Permaculture Design
One of the rules of permaculture design is to mimic natural growth patterns in your part of the world. At Neverending Food, learn how permaculture design principles inform gardening efforts in the dry and difficult environment of Malawi in southeast Africa.
Deep Green Permaculture: How to Start Your Permaculture Garden
This site includes a ton of information for budding permaculturists. Look through Deep Green Permaculture for detailed DIY posts on plant stacking, edge effects, and water gardens for beginners.
Temperate Climate Permaculture: Permaculture Design Projects
Interested in getting your Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC)? If so, you'll need to complete a design project. Browse through the Temperate Climate Permaculture site design diagrams for inspiration. Currently, I see eight projects in PDF form suitable for 1 acre to 6 acre lots.
Dr. Axe Permaculture: The Many Benefits of Permaculture (And Why We Need it to Feed the World)
Use the Dr. Axe Permaculture site to explain permaculture to your kids. They'll enjoy the simple explanations, colorful diagrams, and basic projects. And this could be a good time to also take a look at our Composting With Kids, Easiest Vegetables for Kids to Grow, and How to Use Foraging to Teach Your Kids posts as well.
Natural Living Ideas: What Is Urban Permaculture? How & Why You Should Adopt These Principles
Many people become interested in permaculture while living in cities. The Natural Living Ideas site shares many urban permaculture ideas. Find advice on container gardening, vertical planting and balcony gardens.
Permaculture magazine
Think of this UK-based site as a news site with the latest trends. This is the site for the print and digital magazine Permaculture. It lets visitors subscribe to the magazine format of their choice, or buy back issues. It also has a handy article on hugelkultur. Hugelkultur is the art of gardening in a specially crafted "no-dig" raised bed.
Oregon State Free Permaculture PDF Book: Introduction to Permaculture
Are you looking for some textbook-style information on permaculture? Visit the Oregon State Open Text Books site. It includes a free downloadable PDF version of Andrew Millson's 28 chapter Introduction to Permaculture textbook. And it even links to a couple of permaculture YouTube videos
The Permaculture Apprentice: Tons of Resources!
William Horvath's The Permaculture Apprentice site is chock full of useful information for permaculture newbies. Check out the resources page. It's a gold mine of valuable ebooks, print book listings, videos, and online permaculture courses.
Permaculture Research Institute
This is the site of Australia's Permaculture Research Institute. It's an excellent source of current news and events in the global permaculture world. Look for updates on the latest workshops, courses, and worldwide permaculture research.
Permaresilience: Permaculture Homesteading Crash Course
Looking for a free online course on Permaculture for Beginners? The folks over at Permaresilience (formerly High Sierra Permaculture) offer just what you need. And if you want to go further, they also offer accredited Permaculture Training
You might also like...
- 5 Vegetable Garden Harvesting Mistakes & How to Fix Them
- Deer Proof Garden: How to Protect Your Garden From Deer
- How Much to Plant to Feed Your Family
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Wow! I never heard of permaculture and I'm glad I came across this. We always try to do the best thing possible for our soil whenever we garden, but we don't get to see the long term effects of it because we move a lot. I can't wait to learn more! Thanks for this list of resources!
You are so welcome, Amy! I'll be updating it again this weekend with a few new cool resources I just discovered. So check back again on Monday!
I am so interested in permaculture and this is such a great resource! I'm going to bookmark this page so I can come back and go through it again 🙂
Thanks for such a comprehensive list.
We will check it out - thanks for the info!
My favourite site is permies.com. I'm surprised it didn't make the list, lol
I've heard this word for a while now, but never actually looked up the definition, so I've learned a lot today. I want to check out some of those site you listed.... wonder if they have a way to make a cooler microclimate here in Alabama...
🙂 gwingal
Learning more about permaculture has been on my to-do list for longer than I care to admit, but it can be overwhelming to try to find info on the web as there is just SO MUCH! When I actually have time to start researching, I'll definitely revisit and start here. Hugelkultur also intrigues me, although I haven't tried that yet either. Hoping to do so sometime in the future as well.
This is awesome! Learning more about permaculture has been on my to-do list for longer than I care to admit, but it can be overwhelming to try to find info on the web as there is just SO MUCH! When I actually have time to start researching, I'll definitely revisit and start here. Hugelkultur also intrigues me, although I haven't tried that yet either. Hoping to do so sometime in the future as well.
What a great resource article.. So much information available.
I am very interested in putting into place the permaculture design principles for my front yard in order to have it be a more functional space. Thanks for this information, found you on the hop!