[morog]

Permaculture is a balm to the soul for techno-jaded coders. Having visited locations in N California, UK, Spain & South Africa there is clearly a strong appeal of natural systems design for technological systems designers.

In a sense, designing a living environment is like coding. Maybe you're a full-stack developer and you want to terraform your land - run the digger routine to build some swales and ponds. Sprinkle in some pioneer species functions to structure the sub-soil and add nitrogen and provide shade. Run the groundcover script to stop evaporation and erosion and plant a few fruit trees.

Then add whatever framework of your choosing for creepers, vines and berries.

Start some background processes of mulching and compost turning (this is a sweaty function), maybe add a worm bin for your kitchen and food waste.

Then just watch your biological programme running, the plants, birds & bugs and it is good.

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Maybe permaculture isn't going to feed the world, but there are some important takeaways:

1. Focus on perennial plants. If you have a garden or land and you don't have lots of time or energy, don't waste your time with annual vegetables instead plant perennial food plants and trees...too many to mention but good, hardy, high producing options are granadilla (passion fruit), mulberry, pecan (and other nuts depending on your location), rhubarb, kale, spinach, ginger, figs, lemons and other citrus.

2. Never leave soil bare. "Nature abhors a vacuum" so weeds will grow, mulch any exposed dirt or plant a groundcover.

3. Observe the edges between everything, that's where the magic happens. Create more 'edge', in other words instead of a perfectly round pond, make an irregular pond with protected areas for critters to breed in. Instead of a straight path, have some curves.

4. "The problem is the solution" probably the most popular permaculture saying there is, but a useful concept. If you have slugs and snails in your garden you don't have a snail problem, you have a duck deficiency. Got ducks to eat the snails? but pong their pond smells...this is a problem, but its also the best fertiliser water you can get to put on fast growing plants so its the solution to your fertiliser needs.