Permaculture in Vendée
- Moulin des Etrebières
- 10 April 2024
- 9h31
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The Moulin des Etrebières hopes to become a permaculture farm in Vendée, in the heart of the bocage with its hedges and rolling hills, springs and streams, wooded pastures and ancient trees.
What is permaculture?
Permaculture is the idea of 'permanent cultivation' or in other words, 'sustainable agriculture'. It takes its inspiration from nature and cultivates the land using the power of living organisms rather than working against them. The aim is to maximise harvests while minimising human intervention and, above all, avoiding inputs (i.e. external products such as chemical fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides that alter the equilibrium of the soil).
A permaculture farm aims to create a circular economy within the agrosystem, reusing waste from one workshop as raw material for another. For example, manure from the animals (chickens, horses, cows, pigs, etc.) is used as fertiliser for the crops, insect pests and crop residues (wilted leaves, vegetable scraps) are used as food for the chickens, hay cut from the meadow is used to cover the crop beds to prevent water loss, fruit trees provide shade and coolness for the ruminants, who in turn maintain the land by grazing, etc.
Main principles of permaculture
1- Diversify crops to maximise biodiversity.
We know that monocultures are not very resilient: the slightest pest finds no obstacle to its development and can easily wipe out a large part of the harvest, whereas a diversified crop will make it possible to combine the strengths of the different plants and not offer a uniform terrain to pests. This is the principle of "not putting all your eggs in one basket".
In permaculture, we use crop combinations to create this biodiversity. Tomatoes, basil and lettuce, for example, are grown on the same bed. The different species complement each other, help each other out and occupy different strats of the same surface area.
2- Feed the soil rather than the plant
A living soil is the guarantee of a healthy soil and therefore of good crop nutrition. There is still much progress to be made in our understanding of soil life. However, we do know that earthworms play a key role in airing the soil ; micro-organisms transform organic matter to make it available to plants ; bacteria participate in the nitrogen cycle, the basis of plant nutrition ; and mycorrhizal fungi create an immense communication network in the soil.
To protect this soil life, permaculture recommends no tilling, in particular no ploughing, to avoid disturbing the soil fauna and mixing the different strata of a healthy soil.
3- Protecting water reserves
In permaculture, rainwater is used to irrigate crops. We also try to slow down run-off water so that it has time to penetrate the soil. For example, hedges perpendicular to the slope promotes water infiltration. Similarly, in permaculture, soil is never left bare. It is either covered by a crop, or by plant cover (green manure), or by mulch (hay, straw, leaves, fragmented wood, etc.). This prevents the evaporation of the soil water.
In nature, the ground is always covered, either with a variety of grasses in a meadow, or with leaf litter in a forest. Covered soil dries out less quickly than bare soil, because mulching or plant cover limits evapotranspiration by plants and preserves soil moisture, which is essential for soil fauna. The cover also prevents weeds from growing by blocking out the light and, as it decomposes, nourishes the soil with organic matter, which in turn nourishes the plants. What's not to like?
What is permaculture design?
Good permaculture design means less work. When you start up a farm, you need to think about where the different elements are located (crops, but also greenhouses, tool sheds, storage, etc.) to limit the amount of moving around. Permaculture therefore provides for 'zoning' in concentric circles according to the need for intervention:
- Zone 0 is the house in the centre of the farm.
- Zone 1 contains the greenhouse and vegetable garden, which need daily supervision,
- Zone 2 is dedicated to farmyards and orchards,
- In zone 3, we find arable and pasture land with only a few interventions per year
- Zone 4 is a semi-wild area with hedge fences where firewood is harvested.
- Zone 5 is in its wild state, with no human intervention to provide food and habitat for wider biodiversity.
Principles applied to a permaculture farm in Vendée
At Moulin des Etrebières, a budding permaculture farm in Vendée, the design is a work in progress. A biodiversity pond was dug at the top of the hill to capture spring water and irrigate the orchards, before returning the water to the stream below in the wet meadow. The pond is shallow to maximise biodiversity.
The orchard was planted along contour lines to slow down the flow of water, and the trees were mulched at the base to prevent weed growth and preserve moisture. The rest of the row was sown with clover, a legume that fixes atmospheric nitrogen in the soil via rhizobium bacteria.
The vegetable garden (zone 1) is very close to the farm building (zone 0), where crop combinations will be planted to maximise biodiversity and enable a variety of crops to be harvested from the same area.
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