Perrine & Charles HERVÉ-GRUYER
MANUEL DES JARDINIERS-MARAÎCHERSP E R M A C U L T U R E - É C O C U L T U R E - M I C R O F E R M E S
ACTES SUD | FERME DU BEC HELLOUIN
THE FOUNDING WORK OF ECOCULTURE
ECOCULTURE: A RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGES OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
How are we to feed the generations of tomorrow? The world’s population is increa-sing and our resources in arable land, soft water and natural fertilizers have dimi-nished alarmingly. Oil will inevitably rarify and become more expensive. Climate change is intensifying and extreme weather events are becoming more frequent. According to some studies, the number of climate refugees could reach 2 billion people by the year 2100. It is clear that our current fossil fuel-dependent, green-house-gas emitting agricultural model not only destroys land and the biodiversity but will also be incapable of feeding generations to come.
The Ferme du Bec Hellouin farm has been experimenting with new forms of agri-culture that are radically different to current models, based on the imitation of natural ecosystems. This ecoculture is life-enhancing rather than annihilating. The farm seeks to create a complex agro-ecosystem, with a high diversity of terrains and plant and animal species in order to encourage the best performance from their different ecosystems. Ecoculture is highly adapted for food-production and raising animals. Small surfaces undergo intense cultivation essentially by hand. Its methods draw on age-old farming techniques of the South and North as well as on the latest contemporary scientific discoveries. The approach fosters farmers’ autonomy and the food security of local communities. Microfarms can be created with low capital investment and are not dependent on sophisticated technologies. They are hence highly adapted to the needs of billions of farmers around the globe with limited land resources and without machinery. It is worth remembering that 80% of farms around the world cover less than 2 hectares.
Format 24 × 32 cm3 hardback volumes -
304, 448 and 296 pages, Boxset
3 million characters100 chapters
1271 photos437 illustrations
205 tables and info sections116 mind maps and
diagrams6 years of work
79 eurosPublication date, May 2019
Editorial DirectorAnne-Sylvie Bameule
[email protected]: 00 33 (0)4 90 49 56 85
Foreign RightsIsabelle Alliel
[email protected]: 00 33 (0)4 90 49 56 69
EventsMuriel Fischer
[email protected]: 00 33 (0)7 62 71 30 47
PRESS RELEASE | 3
AN INNOVATIVE APPROACH VALIDATED BY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
Scientific studies carried out at our farm by the INRA, AgroParisTech, the University of Gembloux (Belgium) and other organizations have validated the exceptional and sustainable productivity of the farm. In 2015, 1,000 square meters of farm land at the Bec Hellouin yielded products with a market value of €55,000 (the average in production in France is €30,000 per hectare).
This exceptional productivity has been accompanied by a remarkable improvement in the quality of the soil, the organic carbon contents of which have increased up to 10% per year on some plots. The impact of biodiversity has also been very positive: the farm is home to more birds, including rare species, insects and earthworms than neighboring farms.
A microfarm designed in such a way can thus produce an abundance of quality food for human consumption while also forming a valuable source of carbon and an oasis of biodiversity.
SWARMING THE WORLD
The “miniaturization” of agricultural scales advocated by the Bec Hellouin method means that microfarms can be created anywhere, even in urban environments, encouraging job creation and more resilient soils.
Bec Hellouin’s research has already inspired farmers around the globe as well as politicians, heads of regional authorities, agricultural teaching and national edu-cation ministries.
Our previous work Permaculture – guérir la Terre, nourrir les hommes, (“Permaculture, healing the land to feed people”) has become a bestseller in France, and has already been translated into eight languages, including English, Chinese, Spanish, Italian, and Greek.
4 | VIVRE AVEC LA TERRE THE FOUNDING WORK OF ECOCULTURE
A MANUAL FOR AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONALS ALIKE
The fruit of six years work, Vivre avec la Terre (“Living with the Earth”) is an ex-ceptional literary and scientific project which gives readers the resources needed to commit to an organically-inspired approach. By learning to understand how natural environments work, readers will discover a number of simple and effec-tive applications enabling them to create their own high-performance, ecological garden, allotment or farm. The manual recounts Bec Hellouin’s unique experience but also offers a whole host of recent information about nature and food-growing provided by the permanent scientific and technical monitoring of the farm in the last 15 years. It offers readers a simple and structured synthesis of our most recent data, as well as relatively inaccessible data only available in international science reviews.
The manual is targeted at everyone who wants to “live with the Earth”: the 19 million French people with their own garden, but also agriculture professionals, researchers and everybody who dreams of starting their own microfarm. In France in 2017, 80% of creation projects for organic food-producing farm professed to follow the permacultural microfarm model developed at Bec Hellouin.
Vivre avec la Terre has a wider-reaching scope than simple technological and scien-tific knowledge: it features inspirational quotations from a wide variety of sources, expressing a quest for harmony and a poetic tribute to the beauty of the world.
THE ECOLOGICAL EXAMPLE
We are eager to reduce the carbon footprint of this unusual manual: paper and its manufacturing processes are today readily sustainable. So for each book purchased, we undertake to plant a tree.
PRESS RELEASE | 5
VOLUME I
PERMACULTURE, ECOCULTURE: NATURE INSPIRES USINTRODUCTION : LIVING WITH THE EARTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
I. FEEDING PEOPLE, HEALING THE EARTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
1. FROM AGRICULTURE TO ECOCULTURE
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2. THE FOUNDING PRINCIPLES OF
ECOCULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
3. ECOCULTURE: A NEW PARADIGM . . . . . . . 43
4. HUNTER, GATHERER, FARMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5. LE BEC HELLOUIN: A BIOLOGICAL FARM
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
6. LE BEC HELLOUIN: RESEARCH
PROGRAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
II. AT THE SCHOOL OF NATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
7. THE MURMUR OF LIFE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
8. THE SUN, WIND AND RAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
9. THE SOIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
10. FROM ECOSYSTEM TO
AGRO-ECOSYSTEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
11. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
12. BIODIVERSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 13
13. PLANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 17
III. DRAW ME A FARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
14. INTRODUCTION TO PERMACULTURE 131
15. THE CONCEPTS OF PERMACULTURAL
DESIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
16. THE PERMACULTURAL DESIGN SPIRIT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
17. THE DESIGN PROCESS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
18. BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD . . . . . 189
19. LE BEC HELLOUIN FARM DESIGNS . . . 195
IV. A NATURAL APPROACH TO THE SOIL AND FERTILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
20. SOIL AND FARMERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
21. THE ORGANIC STRATEGY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
22. MULCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
23. COMPOSTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
24. GREEN FERTILIZERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
25. FERTILIZERS AND SOIL ENRICHMENT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257
26. USEFUL MICRO-ORGANISMS, BOKASHI
AND BIOCHAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
27. MICROFARM AND FERTILITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
28. MICROFARMS, CARBON, CLIMATE . . 279
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
ANNEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
VOLUME II
FOOD PRODUCING CULTURES AND FOREST GARDENSV. METHODS OF CULTURE . . . . . . 313
29. PERMACULTURE SWALES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
30. RAISED MOUNDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
31. FLAT SWALES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
32. OTHER TYPES OF PERMACULTURE
SWALES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
33. INTRODUCTION TO FOOD PRODUCING
CULTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
34. STARTING CULTURES: SEEDS OR
TRANSPLANTS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353
35. PREPARING THE SOIL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .357
36. NO-TILL SOWING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
37. PLANTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
38. TRANSPLANTING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .377
39. WATERING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383
40. WEEDING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
41. HARVESTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
VI. DENSIFICATION AND ASSOCIATING CULTURES . . . . . . . . 41 1
42. DENSIFYING CULTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
43. ASSOCIATING CULTURES: PRINCIPLES
AND LOCATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
44. ASSOCIATING CULTURES:
35 EXAMPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453
VII. CULTIVATION THROUGHOUT THE YEAR . . . . . . 495
45. VEGETABLES FOR ALL SEASONS . . . 497
46. SHELTERED CULTIVATION: SIMPLE
STRUCTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505
47. SHELTERED CULTIVATION:
GREENHOUSES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509
48. WARM LAYERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 519
49. ORGANIZING PRODUCTION WITHIN
THE GARDEN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .527
50. CONSERVABLE FRUITS AND
VEGETABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533
VIII. VEGETABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545
51. THE MAIN VEGETABLES CULTURES . 547
IX. SPECIFIC CULTURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
52. PERENNIAL VEGETABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595
53. MINI-VEGETABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
54. SALADS ALL-YEAR ROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 605
55. SALAD LEAVES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
56. YOUNG SHOOTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
57. ASIAN VEGETABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621
58. EDIBLE FLOWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
59. AROMATIC PLANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631
60. MEDICINAL PLANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
61. WILD EDIBLE PLANTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 641
62. MUSHROOMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 645
X. TREES, BUSHES, FOREST-GARDENS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
63. TOWARDS A TREE CIVILIZATION . . . . 655
64. AGROFORESTRY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663
65. HEDGES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669
66. ORCHARDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675
67. ORCHARDS FOR FRUIT PRODUCTION
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679
68. SMALL FRUITS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
69. FOREST-GARDENS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689
70. DESIGNING A FOREST GARDEN . . . . . . . 701
71. WORKING FOREST-GARDENS . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 13
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720
ANNEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .723
VOLUME III
CREATING A MICROFARMXI. MULTIPLYING VEGETABLES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 761
72. THE REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS . . . 763
73. PRODUCING SEEDS FOR KITCHEN
GARDENS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .767
74. PLANT REPRODUCTION: CUTTINGS,
GRAFTS, DIVISIONS, LAYERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 779
XII. GARDEN HEALTH AND BIODIVERSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 787
75. HEALTH AND GARDEN VITALITY . . . . . 789
76. WELCOMING BIODIVERSITY . . . . . . . . . . . . . 799
XIII. ANIMALS AND ANIMAL TRACTION . . . . . . . . . . 81 1
77. ANIMALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 813
78. ANIMAL TRACTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823
XIV. HAY AND CEREALS . . . . . . . . . . 837
79. HAY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 839
80. OIL-FREE CEREALS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 845
XV. TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 859
81. TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 861
82. MAINTAINING AND SHARPENING
TOOLS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879
XVI. CREATING A MICROFARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 887
83. BECOMING A FARMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 889
84. IN SEARCH OF A FARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 895
85. URBAN AND SUBURBAN FARMING . . 901
86. THE POSSIBILITIES FOR MICROFARMS
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907
87. THE FARM AND ITS ENVIRONMENT
.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 1
88. THE “HUMAN DRIVING FORCE” OF THE
FARM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 915
89. TRANSFORMED PRODUCTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . 923
90. SELLING PRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 929
91. MICROFARM ECONOMY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 939
92. BUILDINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 943
93. MICROFARMS, AND MICROFARM
ECOSYSTEMS, MUTUAL AGRARIAN
SYSTEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951
94. ORGANIZING IN-FARM TRAINING . . . 955
95. KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . 963
96. MODELIZING MICROFARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 967
97. ADVISE FOR FUTURE GARDEN-
FARMERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 981
98. DEVELOPING ECOCULTURE
EVERYWHERE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985
99. TAKING CARE OF THE GARDENER . 993
100. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GARDEN IN
THE WORLD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1001
NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1004
ANNEXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1007
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1026
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1035
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Since we started work on his manual, we have seen the world undergo deep transformation. Climatic change is accelerating and becoming more evident with each year that passes; we ourselves at the farm have noted its effects. Humankind however is not taking the ecologically urgent measures required. The imminent cataclysm offers a unique opportunity to build a better world in new unprecedented ways. Transition can be a choice not a sufferance; it can be desirable and festive. Instead of waiting until it is too late, let us reconnect to the infinitely varied and generous wonder of nature and adopt simple, sustainable lifestyles. We may not have as many gadgets but we will be rich in everything that makes life calm and beautiful.