The world is made up of patterns. Every aspect of the earth, from the smallest animal to the largest mountain, contains patterns. Even the passage of time, divided into seasons and years, forms patterns. Many patterns are repeated in different forms, both living and non-living.

Patterns in nature are beautiful and functional. Natural patterns in design create beauty and function. Permaculture strategies are based on natural science and existing natural patterns. If you understand the patterns, you can work with them to design and create strong, resilient, diverse, and energy efficient systems.

Contents include:

• Natural patterns
• Patterns and design
• Natural patterns in practice

To design is to create, plan, invent and arrange. It is how permaculture takes different elements and brings them together as an integrated, whole system, the same as a natural ecosystem.

Permaculture design looks at ideas and methods for creating long-term, sustainable, self-maintaining systems for agricultural land, animal systems, houses, projects and communities.

Different design approaches included here are needs and products analysis, site analysis, zones and data collection as well as in-depth information about key techniques such as water and wind management, micro-climates, multifunctional approaches, and designing with time.

Contents include:

• Permaculture design
• Design techniques
• Analysis of elements
• Zones
• Observation and data collection
• Design techniques
  – Multifunction
  – Microclimates
  – Imitating natural ecosystems
  – Catching water: swale and terrace systems
  – Windbreaks
• Designing steps and stages

The Permaculture trainers’ guide chapter is for people who want to teach permaculture courses. It provides insights into the barriers and issues that limit attendance and participation, especially for women, and suggests solutions to work with. Community assessments, course planning, preparation and post-course follow up are just as important as the course itself. Learn more tools for these tasks and then delve into the many different approaches for delivering a high quality, fun and interactive course that caters for a wide range of learning styles and situations.

Contents include:

• Permaculture trainers’ guide
• A permaculture course
• Permaculture course planning
• Delivering the training
  – Trainers
  – Classroom techniques
  – Training feedback and monitoring

Houses, water and energy are connected to each other and to the broader environment. It is important to understand the connection when building houses, suburbs, villages or towns and for improving existing areas. Always consider the natural environment, including the water and energy sources when you are planning to build or improving your existing house. You can work with the environment to your future benefit, or ignore it to your future disadvantage. This principle is true for every part of the house and living area, including the kitchen, washroom and toilet — each section is part of the surrounding land.

This chapter explains how this works and gives plenty of techniques and strategies for creating energy efficient and comfortable houses, securing a clean and sustainable water supply and using renewable energy sources.

Contents include:

• How do you create a healthy house?
• Building a house
• Improvement techniques for houses
• Outside improvements
• Kitchens
• Washrooms
• Compost toilets
• Water supply and storage
• Renewable energy

A family garden provides many benefits for many people and is at the heart of family life. A healthy and productive family garden provides:

• Tasty and nutritious non-staple foods all year round
• Extra food to make sauces, pickles, jams, etc
• Medicines, cooking herbs, and spices
• Income from the sale of surplus family garden produce
• Vegetable seedlings, as well as fruit trees, native trees, and other crops when the garden includes a small nursery

This chapter explains:

• Garden site analysis
• Integrated garden designs
• Garden bed designs, including ‘gardens with compost’ techniques
• Reducing garden maintenance
• Planting times and methods
• Integrating animals, paddies, and fish ponds with your garden

Contents include:

• Step by step garden site analysis
• Integrated garden design
  – Water flow and water management
  – Garden access and paths
  – Garden beds
  – Fences
  – Garden structures
  – Compost and compost resources storage
  – Small nurseries
  – Trees, shrubs, and flowers
  – Ponds
• Garden bed designs
  – Raised beds
  – No-dig garden beds
  – Wicking garden beds
  – Spiral gardens
  – Sloping land garden beds
  – Garden and compost integration
  – Garden beds with fish ponds and paddies
• Garden maintenance
• Planting methods and planting times

Saving and using local seeds is one of the most important methods for strengthening agriculture, increasing the variety of plants, and achieving food sovereignty.

• Everyone can collect and save seeds: it is cheap and easy to do.
• Saving and exchanging local seeds will increase the amount and variety of food that is grown.
• Local non-hybrid seeds generally have a higher nutritional content.
• Seeds are valuable and can be exchanged for other seeds or sold through a community seed bank.
• When good techniques are used for selecting and saving good seeds, the plant quality naturally improves each year.
• If there are no local seeds available, families and farmers have to buy seeds and are reliant on companies rather than on themselves. This decreases community resilience.
• A well-stocked seed bank containing proven local varieties is one of the best protections a community can have against the uncertainties brought by climate change.

Use this chapter to learn how to save and store high quality seed, both individually as as a community collective, and how to use a variety of propagating methods.

Contents include:

• Why save seeds?
• How to save seeds
  – Step 1: healthy strong plants
  – Step 2: choose the best plants
  – Step 3: how to collect the seeds
  – Step 4: cleaning the seeds
  – Step 5: drying the seeds
  – Step 6: storing the seeds
  – Step 7: using the seed and plant material
• Plant propagation techniques
• Community seed and plant group
• Responsible seed and plant use

Long-term pest and disease management solutions must bring back a natural balance between agriculture, gardens and the natural environment. Scientists have known for a long time that over 90% of insects are actually harmless or beneficial to crops and other plants. Now they realise that this is similar for bacteria and fungi. We need them in the garden and in the soil to maintain good production, so we must use natural growing techniques!

Every element of the environment – and that includes us – is connected to every other part. What happens to one element affects every other element of the system or environment. This is an important philosophy behind IPM and future sustainability.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) combines different natural strategies and techniques for pest management to:

• Reduce the chances of pest problems happening.
• Reduce the size of the pest problem if it does happen.
• Use natural treatments for problems that persist.

IPM applies to all levels of agriculture from small family gardens and market gardens to large areas of crops, rice production, fruit trees and all mixed systems.

Contents include:

• What is Integrated Pest Management?
• IPM strategies and techniques

1. Importance of healthy living soil
2. Best growing conditions
3. Natural pest predators
4. Healthy environment
5. Use non-hybrid, open pollinated seeds
6. Good crop management
7. Preventative measures
8. Using chickens and ducks for pest control
9. Natural pesticides
   – Natural fungicides

• Other pests

Forests are formed from individual trees and they are the earth’s lungs, giving life to every living thing. Forests provide us with clean air and oxygen as well as food, timber, fibre, oil, clothing, fuel wood and medicine. They provide homes and food for animals, birds, insects and countless other creatures, many of which are too small for us to see! Forests also preserve ground water, protect land from erosion, attract and improve rainfall, and are seed banks for the future.

Using permaculture design trees are grown to be part of a productive living system. This chapter explains how to achieve this with agro-forestry, food forest systems, annual-perennial food production systems and native regeneration. Also included is how to plant and manage trees organically for good production.

Contents include:

• Trees are life
• Healthy and sustainable forest systems
• Productive trees and permaculture tree systems
• Preparing the land
• Tree terrace systems
• Planting plans
• Fruit tree and tree crop maintenance
• Reforestation

Aquaculture is any type of water, pond or wetland environment which grows or farms aquatic animals (e.g. fish, eels, crayfish, prawns, etc.) and plants. An aquaculture system provides more produce for the same area of land than any animal farming method. It is the most efficient way to develop high quality meat with lots of protein, fats and oils. Even a small pond provides enough fish to improve diets and health significantly, especially for children.

This chapter explains how to design, build and manage an aquaculture system; how to use all the extra benefits and how to integrate it with other animal and plant production.

Contents include:

• Why is aquaculture important?
• Aquaculture and the environment
• Step-by-step aquaculture systems
• Fish production
• Types of fish
• Pond management
• Wet-season fishponds
• Fish integration with other systems
• Drying and storing fish