Despite getting carried away and finishing up Mollison's book before moving on with Will Hooker's video course, I didn't completely give up on the latter.  Over the last few weeks, I've worked my way through lectures 6, 7, and 8, along with the corresponding reading material about permaculture as a design process, about patterns, and about starting a vegetable garden.

All three lectures were pretty basic, and lecture 7, especially didn't contain much of value.  (I felt Will Hooker got a bit caught up in what I consider New Age math.)  On the other hand, gems jumped out at me from the other two videos.

In addition to the sun angle information that I'm going to devote a later post to, my favorite part of lecture 6 was the notion of beginning the design process with a sector analysis.  The image at the top of this post charts where forces of nature (and other elements beyond our control) enter the farm.  Although we already know our farm well enough that we didn't receive any new information from the sector analysis, those of you new an area might use the information in a sector analysis to conclude you shouldn't plant your fruit trees where they'll block the winter sun, that you should plant a dense barrier where the wind comes gusting in off the prairie, and that you might consider either making an edible garden where the neighbor's children encroach, or keeping them out with thorny bushes (depending on how you feel about the kids in question).

Shifting gears, Lecture 8 contained a good introduction to permaculture gardening techniques --- I recommend that video for beginners.  I enjoyed Hooker's reiteration of the admonition to start gardening wherever you are, even if you're renting; your first garden will be far from perfect, so you might as well begin the trial and error process now rather than putting it off until you have the perfect plot.  He also scavenges biomass just like I do, and has an excellent piece of advice there --- steer clear of bags of clippings and leaves from beautiful lawns, since those are more likely to be dosed in herbicides.

As usual, I had mixed feelings about the reading in Gaia's Garden.  Even though I tried out keyhole beds when I was new to permaculture, I believe both keyhole beds and herb spirals are trendy techniques that create much more work than old-school straight lines and rectangles.  On the other hand, I do like the concept of designing from patterns to details, looking at the flows and patterns already present in your landscape, and optimizing them.  For example, Hemenway explains that a tree's branch design is a useful pattern to mimic in drip irrigation systems, and that people tend to flow like water.

I've got a bit more to say about this trio of lectures in later posts, but for now, here's the reading material for the next set of lectures:

• Chapters 2 and 4 in Building Soils for Better Crops.  (Free download.)
  
• NRCS Soil Biology Primer.  (Read for free online.)
  
• Cornell Soil Health Assessment Manual.  (Free download.)
  
• Gaia's Garden chapter 4 (soil)
  
• Introduction to Permaculture chapter 5 (home garden)

If you've been watching along with me, I'd be curious to hear if different parts of these lectures caught your interest than caught mine.