11 GGI No 31 Summer 2013

By Nicole Vosper
Nicole writes from her vegan-organic
permaculture project
This spring, like most growers in the
country, I watched snow fall on the
kitchen garden beds where the year
before I had been basking in the sun
transplanting seedlings. Somehow my intuition was right not
to start things off too early and so I have fortunately not lost
too many little bursts of life from a freezing March.
Resilience
However, this diversity in weather does bring to life the con-
cept of resilience. The ability to withstand shocks, the unex-
pected, to fare as best you can in a variety of situations. Now
more than ever with climate change, extreme weather and the
unpredictable nature of crisis capitalism, will food producers
have to be increasingly resilient. This is where vegan organic,
small scale, intensive systems start to shine a light amongst
global, monoculture crop failures and corporate food chains.
At Brook End, the 4-acre smallholding I manage with my
family, we are trying to integrate resilience into all our thinking
as we slowly design and develop the land for increasing abun-
dance and biodiversity. With my Mum retiring from Mental
Health Nursing, the land will start to receive more and more
attention as our thoughts turn to small-scale livelihoods and
how we can feed and support our community.
Generating ideas
All manner of ideas have surfaced - a plant nursery propa-
gating perennials for permaculture systems locally; organic
salads in our polytunnel; fruit and their produce from their
processing; a medicinal plant nursery ensuring our favourite
healing allies are kept alive; a community-supported medi-
cine project linking up with local herbalists to grow medicine
for local people that is local, vibrant, veganically grown and
affordable; as well as making Brook End a centre for eco-
logical education with permaculture, ecology, earth-centred
spirituality, vegan gardening courses and more. We are in
this dream-like state where all options are options. The
question is, where do you start? Can we grow on a scale to
support some modest livelihoods? Is there a market locally
for our produce? What are the limits of the land? What are
our hearts singing for and how do we choose?
Fortunately, permaculture design creates a framework
for these kinds of decision-making processes. A little left-
brain analysis can counter a right brain rave of ideas and
feelings. The place to begin is nearly always with the survey
- observation, observation, observation! Therefore our next
steps are to answer the above questions with some solid ob-
servations, market research and self exploration. This means
for every hour doing the practical design implementation
on the land, whether thats laying paths or sowing seeds,
more hours are spent inside, on the computer, undertaking
research, talking to people and accessing resources to aid
these huge decisions.
Patient progress
This is perhaps the difference between industrial agriculture
and permaculture - thoughtful interaction. Every decision we
make we test with our ethics, with our 'permaculture compass'
as to whether its an ecologically sound choice to make or viable
with the capacity of our land, and right now we are certainly
in the ocean of options. I'm looking forward to writing this
column when we've reached that light bulb moment after
processing all of these options and nally taking a rm step
in the path that lies ahead.
www.wildheartpermaculture.co.uk
Brook End
Nestled amongst the lush growth
Photo by Nicole Vosper/Wildheart Permaculture
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