This is part one in a series of blogs in which Alex Heffron of Mountain Hall Farm looks at the fundamentals of permaculture, using David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability as a guide for discussion

There’s a bit of a trend amongst the old-guard of the organic movement to write off permaculture as some sort of modern, utopian fad — one author I greatly respect called it a ‘distraction’. Largely these criticisms are based on condemnation before examination, so in this series of posts I am going to explore the core of what permaculture is, from the standpoint of its ethics and principles, in a more philosophical manner.

As many of you know, permaculture will often have you disappear down a rabbit hole, if not an entire warren. Or, in permaculture-speak, will take you off the well-beaten track to explore those infamous edges.

The Hornshurst Forest Garden is one such edge. It is an acre site, deer and rabbit fenced, within a much larger 160 acre wood. I have been designing it for the wood owner, Doro Marden, for about 3 years.

Trying to grow fruit trees on a newly cut pine plantation (a.k.a - an ecological desert) was never going to be easy and we certainly have had challenges to overcome. I now have some things to report of interest.