Designing Sustainable Small Farms

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Hedges, green manure crops, flowers, shade trees, and ground covers can all provide nectar and pollen for honeybees as well as serve their primary functions. Basswoods, for instance, are the equal of the oaks as shade trees but are far superior as a source of nectar and pollen. Another example is buckwheat, an excellent green manure crop for poor soils and a plant that's actively worked by honeybees. And in lightly traveled areas, the creeping thymes (Photo 5) are low maintenance, nectar-producing alternatives to lawns.

Farm ponds, too, can serve many functions. They can be used for irrigation, fish farming, aquatic crops, or watering livestock. In winter, the reflection from a pond will increase the light levels in a greenhouse located north of the water ... and (as mentioned before) a pond can play an integral role in a fire-protection scheme. Canal-like ponds can even act as barriers to livestock movement, limiting the range of sheep and chickens, for instance, while allowing ducks and geese to roam freely (Photo 6).

MULTIPLE ELEMENTS FOR SINGLE FUNCTIONS

As well as encouraging landscape elements to perform multiple functions, good design ensures that basic needs-such as water collection, fire protection, and food supply-are met in several ways. It's an agricultural insurance policy, if you like. If a gardener or farmer is dependent on a single crop for livestock feed, income, or whatever, and that crop fails, the whole enterprise is endangered ... whereas on a multifaceted homestead, that loss could be made up by another means.

Preparing for drought offers a good example. Livestock farmers often depend on pasture for both summer grazing and winter stores of hay or silage. When a drought occurs, however, the number of livestock that can be sustained on the pasture is decreased. Simultaneously, the cost of alternative feeds is driven up while the price of livestock plummets. A prudent design plans for drought by including fodder trees as a backup food source. These plantings, in turn, should be located so that they deliver other functions as well, such as summer shade, erosion control, and windbreaks. Photo 7 illustrates how poplars (the leaves and shoots of this tree are palatable to livestock) and pasture can provide a secure sheep feed, with the trees also assisting in controlling soil loss on the sloping site.

BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES

Another characteristic of permaculture systems is that, whenever possible, production and management inputs are derived from biological resources. In my opinion, this concept is the key to sustainable agriculture.

During the design process, consider plants and animals that can provide such functions as energy conservation; insect, disease, and weed control; nutrient recycling-, fertilization; and tillage. In other words, let the work of farming be performed by the nonhuman elements in the system. For example, weeding geese (Photo 8) can be regarded as grazers, consumers of windfall fruits (thus aiding in disease and pest control), and sources of fertilizer . . . in addition to providing eggs, goose down, and Thanksgiving dinners. There are numerous possibilities for using biological resources: I've listed a small sampling of these in the accompanying sidebar.

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