9. Use Small and Slow Solutions
- By : Sarah
- Category : Food Forest, Gardening, Planning and Goals
- Tags: permaculture
Slow Down!….is permaculture principle number 9. Everything going on in the world seems to have to be so big and so fast. I moved out of town to slow down, why not apply that to my homestead building?
My biggest example of small and slow solutions are my hugelkultur beds. The first year we were here I started piling up sticks in places I thought might be good for garden beds. I eventually had a couple of beds and the first year, nothing really grew. It takes time for the hugel beds to start rotting down so that they are rich soil for the plants to grow in. Mine took even longer to be productive because I just threw the first couple beds together. This year, I have 15 beds established, half of which are in their very first year, and half of which have been rotting away for a few years and I expect them to (hopefully) be fairly rich and productive this year. This is my fifth year on the property and it took this long to get the beds really in gear.
Another example that I really love is fermented foods. Not only do we patiently wait for our garden veggies to be ripe enough to pick, then we have to wait 3 more days for them to be fermented to perfection. Waiting the extra time makes them taste amazing and increases the health benefit by adding probiotics to your already awesome veggies. I also love sourdough bread, another wait patiently kind of fermented food.
There are a ton of examples we could discuss, but the most important part of small and slow solutions is how wonderful it is for your health. If everything around you is moving so slow, you can’t help but slow own yourself. Relax, you know that you have to wait anyway, take some time to de-stress. Relaxing has amazing health benefits. If you don’t think you have take to relax, here is an excuse to use: you go back to permaculture principle number one. Observation. I like to think of this as the hammock principle. Relax.
You can learn more about the other permaculture principles here.
And here are some links:
