Permaculture Principles: Produce No Waste

We keep a lean operational budget on the farm. It’s one way we’ve found to make it work over the years on this experimental farm in the absence of topsoil, existing infrastructure, or reliable market channels. We might say this attention to the bottom line is the primary motivation for saving seed, not heating the propagation house, or conducting every class for seven years around a single picnic table, but that would only be part of the story. The other half, always silently underscoring our decision making process, is the natural partner to “make do,” the permaculture principle: produce no waste.

Just as easily as we could tally all the ways we reduce waste on the farm, we could similarly tally all the ways we produce it. As with all permaculture principles, they are mutable invitations for engagement, rather than rigid dogma or punitive absolutism. When we look at the principles as invitations, we can evolve and respond to circumstance as it arises, rather than becoming paralyzed by perceived shortcoming or bound by habit.

I was only through one and half rows of layering currant shrubs when I ran out of metal ground stakes to bend and anchor stems. Looking around the farm, my eyes kept returning to a pile of branches from a downed bayberry I’d yet to process. With less than 15 minutes of work, I trimmed and fashioned wishbone stakes out of the bayberry, free, and fully compostable to finish the job. A sturdy stake to hold a currant branch in place to root, before gently decaying back into the earth. No ride to the store, no plastic packaging, no self aggrandizing, just a simple arising circumstance, and an invitation for principled engagement.