Why you should turn your backyard into a permaculture edible garden

Why permaculture?

In an a world of rampant social injustices, wars for profit, corporate greed and climate collapse it often feels like there’s nothing we can do. Or at least I feel that way. We watched a life streamed genocide in Gaza. It never really ended. Democracy is under attack all over the world. Fascist policies are on the rise. Our art is stolen by AI, sites we used to love are not even written by real people anymore – but by the water ravaging, community destroying “chat” – and people seem to act like there’s nothing wrong with any of that. With more data centers there’s less water and more overheating of the planet, and then the war industrial complex and mass media are trying to convince us that bombs are actually bringing freedom to South Asia ( aka the Middle East). And everything is more expensive – from the growing prices of food ( since our groceries belong to a small group of billionaires who are never satisfied..) to the rising cost of gas. It’s A LOT. And there’s no opting out- our pension plans are deeply invested in armes making businesses, the food we buy is packed in several layers of plastic( and is full of microplastics) and as I write this, there’s a button that says “new/ ai content” that was added by wordpress and I can’t get rid of it even though I don’t want to have nothing to do with using AI..

The world feels broken. We where supposed to solve world hunger, get flying cars and live better than the generations before us. Instead we have dying, heating oceans, bombs that destroy entire apartment buildings in seconds while killing multiple families a day, and AI slop. And don’t even get me started on censorship that we experience on social media now! Some days it feels like there’s absolutely nothing we can do about any of it.

Except that we can do something. If you have a backyard you can restore biodiversity on your little swatch of land. You can invest in the healthy future of you and your family. You can help bees, birds, and toads and beetles. You can be the change you want to see in the world. You can see the difference in just one summer.

Plus, with the unstable world economics ( thanks to the never ending wars..) and trade passages being obstructed, I think it’s super important to learn how to grow food now- so we can rely more on our vegetable gardens in the future.

And with the permaculture approach YOU can heal the soil, broken by years of growing a mono crop of grass, back in to life giving biodiverse organism that will heal you in the process!

Also, working in soil has been proven to help us feel better- as soil contains Mycobacterium vaccae ( a bacteria that stimulates serotonin production) so working in the garden is literally healing !

But how to start?

Small. Start small. Your garden doesn’t need to look perfect, be large or yield kilograms of food right away. It doesn’t need to take a lot of your time and money. I’m still learning- let’s learn together.

So, what is permaculture?

Basically it’s an indigenous knowledge based gardening system, that is using the contemporary scientific discoveries as well as ancestral knowledge to heal the poor soil and transform it into an ever growing perpetual food system that feeds both the fauna, flora and you. Permaculture lets you work less, perpetually feeding both you and the ecosystem.

A permaculture garden mimics natural systems like food forests- where different plants grow together, creating interdependent food guilds that help each other repel pests, attract pollinators, nutrish the soil and yield more food with less work.

And since the ancestral indigenous ways of growing food has always centered the long term health and balance of the ecosystem, the permaculture gardening doesn’t rely on pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilisers – as using these in the long run kills the biodiversity of little creatures and apovrishes the soil. Instead a permaculture garden goal is a balanced, healthy ecosystem that will thrive for the generations to come.

So, let’s get started!

• Step one- start from the ground up – soil health first. Depending on your current state you might need to invest in good compost to start with or you might just need to let go of the chemical fertilisers. Here is a great article about soil health that I recommend you to read!.
• Step two- let’s build your first small guild! Here are my two ideas for small guilds you can plant in your backyard now:

1. Full sun small guild: plant a fruit shrub like a blueberry or a gooseberry as these grow well and without any fuss, add a pollinator friendly flower that will bring in the bees like Echinacea or malva to one side, and a pest repeller plant that’ll protect your shrub from unwanted guests to the other side – like sage, thyme or a yarrow. If you live in a warmer climate add herbs like lavender basil and rosemary too- they’ll come back every year. Then instead of mulching with wood chips add a nitrogen fixer and weed supresor two in one plant – clover ( this is a living mulch, and a plant extraordinaire in any permaculture garden!)
2. For a part shade guild- plant a fruit shrub that enjoys some shade like a currant ( red or black, they’re great eaten fresh on on jams or scones) a pollinator friendly flower- like echinacea or borage, a pest repeller like chives or onions and then add some clover instead of wood mulch!

And if you have a little bit more space then you can start with a fruit tree guild in full sun- plant a fruit tree like an apple tree or a dwarf cherry in the middle and then on the sunny side add your fruit shrub, then the repeller plant, the pollinator plant and of course the mulcher ( clover or mint).

How to plant a permaculture garden guild?

Plant your main plant – fruit tree or fruit shrub – in the middle of your designated area, and surround it with the other plants- close enough so they can communicate through roots but far enough so when grown fully they have a bit of space each. They will help eachother grow and support each other while leaving to you the job of watering them and maybe prunning from time to time.

I’ll share my garden layout, what type of garden beds I have, and other seasonal and perennial veggies and fruits and flowers I grow with you next time- stay tuned! This is a photo from last year- my year one of permaculture gardening- Ican’ twaith to show you what I added this year!

So for now, go get yourself some plants and plant a guild- it will grow bigger and better every year, and it’ll feed you and your garden biodiversity – which means more birds, more bees and especially more joy!

And while starting a permaculture garden and planting a guild won’t help with getting rid of billionaires ( and their never ending wars, their data centers, their ai slop, their lobbying of politicians, their price gagging and their manipulations and propaganda designed for us to fight each other instead of seeing the big picture..) IT WILL HELP with boosting your local biodiversity, it will help your health and the bees! And that’s a good start.