Sun, water, soil, air, plants, animals, people… all that’s left is to put them to work in harmony, cooperating.

The key in permaculture is synergy. Imitating nature. Let’s observe it. How does it create an abundant and balanced ecosystem in a small niche? By stacking over time and space.

In a natural system, life flourishes in every available space. Vegetation carpets the ground, birds nest in the trees, worms burrow underground, plants grow even in the cracks of stones, insects flutter among the trees reaching for the sky, and so on.

Nature also stacks its creatures over time, so at any given moment, some are just beginning, others are reaching maturity, and others are decomposing.

How to imitate nature? A system, whether natural or created, that takes advantage of all opportunities to stack over time and space can utilize an area to its maximum potential, yielding a multitude of useful products throughout the year.

We don’t need a large field; a small, well-designed space is enough. For example, we can create a food forest by mimicking natural woodland.

Stacking polycultures of useful plants, birds, and bees. Plants and trees can fix nitrogen from the air to nourish the soil, extract nutrients from the subsoil, provide mulch and organic matter to the soil, repel or attract insects with their fragrances, host beneficial insects and birds, provide shade to plants that need it, serve as support for climbing plants…

The total system can provide us with fruits, nuts, seeds, tubers and roots, leaves, stems and edible flowers, aromatic, culinary, and medicinal herbs, honey, fuels, fibers, etc.

MECHANISMS OF STABILITY IN CROPS

When designing the site, we can adopt some key strategies that replicate in the garden the mechanisms that contribute to the increase of biomass and the stability of natural systems.

In summary, here are some strategies to employ:

• Maintain the natural soil layers (no tilling).

• Use ground cover or protective layers for the surface soil as in the wild, which also provides organic matter that will slowly decompose on the surface.

• Employ organic shapes in the design that favor the movement of water, nutrients, wind, and those who work or enjoy the site (nature does not know the straight line).

• Integrate the greatest diversity of plants possible, multifunctional, adapted to the local microclimate and climatic variations, including native herbs.                      
• Spatially and temporally stratify, with staggered crops throughout the year at different heights and depths.

• Recycle products and waste from the system back into the system, avoiding, as much as possible, the introduction of external materials.
• Encourage the presence of abundant beneficial fauna by maintaining native grasses and shrubs, logs, stones, a small pond where rainwater or already filtered gray water can drain, sites for birds to nest, and plenty of flowers and seeds.
• Prioritize the use of native or well-naturalized plants, the perennial and self-perpetuating ones for their greater resilience, species that are easy to store and preserve, and those resistant to climatic changes (dryland or wetland).
• Densify crops and accumulate organic matter on the surface by cultivating plants with abundant biomass.
• Cultivate with minimal or no irrigation, managing water efficiently, harvesting, reusing, and recycling.
• Reduce needs (less water, fewer external inputs) and reduce interventions (trust and cultivate naturally).
• Preserve and use organic seeds that are adapted to the bioregion.
• Learn to connect the elements and observe the evolution of the system to introduce new strategies.