Sepp Holzer permaculture and hugelkultur

[castanea]

We have never had a thread on this gentleman and he deserves one. I'm sure many here already know of him but for those who don't, you are in for a treat. Holzer took poor mountain side land in Austria and turned it into an agricultural showplace using his own methods which include such things as terraces, ponds, hugelkultur, and Holzer Permaculture. His practice is to understand nature rather than fighting it. He detests monocultures.

This video is a good introduction:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw7mQZHfFVE

Another good video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzRzJRiUylg

Some of the practices he uses:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holzer_Permaculture

"It is difficult to make out differences between the methods and practices of Sepp Holzer in contrast to the more scientific and theoretical permacultural mainstream.

One aspect is the bold abandonment of horticultural principles like intercropping plants with very high and very low ph requirements (Rhododendron with roses).

One aspect is his specialisation to the local climate of his farm in an area with 4°C on the average and -20°C in the winter. His designs are mostly aiming at raising temperatures and creating micro-climates with rocks, ponds and living wind barriers.

Another aspect was the necessity of creating terraces on his farm`s hillside leading him to the use of heavy machinery.

He also maintains a great ratio of human to animal labor. Working his farm with only two people and deploying animals to do excessive parts of the common labor. As an example: He uses swine to plow his fields for sowing.

Interesting is his extreme use of the intercropping method. He mixes 30 or more different types of seeds in a bucket and tosses the mix richly onto a larger area."

There are many other links on the internet:

www.richsoil.com/sepp-holzer/sepp-holzer-permaculture.jsp

www.krameterhof.at/en/index.php?id=holzersche_permakultur

[ottawagardener]

Thank you for these links. I've either not heard of him in any great detail or just skipped across the surface of one or two of his articles. I'll will read with interest.

[castanea]

There are so many different things he does that are interesting, from the ponds, to the hogs, to the large biodiversity, to the use of rocks to store heat, to the winter rye and on and on and on.

[synergy]

I have to admit I have seen a lot of talk of him over at the permies forum as Paul Wheaton is a fan of his. I take it he has been to Austria and seen the Sepp Holzer ideas in place. I have a much smaller parcel of land so I do not have a lot of room to do masses of interlinking ponds of substantial size the way he does , I may have to settle for some useful swales . I do have masses of willow branches down right now thanks to a tree being blown over that I can use in a hugelkulture berm so I need to determine where that could be effective and place the branches , then if I get the chance to get some digging done, if I have pond sites identified, I might get a few small catchment ponds over the years and soil to add to the berm . I better do some studying !

[keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.)]

learned about him just the other day when i was looking on youtube about permaculture. Very interesting ideas.

[castanea]

He has a new book out, just released in the last month. It's awesome -

Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: A Practical Guide to Small-Scale, Integrative Farming and Gardening

[synergy]

It is nice to see someone think outside the box. The video of him showing the monoculture pine forests and his comments about the costs and lack of return make a world of sense . Getting animals to do the work for you using their instinctive behaviours does too and learning to optimize the interactions of life when you have biodiversity , all really interesting to me.

[castanea]

I really like the idea of using pigs for some of the work like he does, but it looks like pig fencing can be expensive.

[steev]

I really like his general approach. People mostly seem to think they can separate the parts of the environment that interest them from the parts that don't. Flies in the face of everything having evolved in intimate contact with everything else. Down the road a bit, I've long intended to integrate poultry and pigs into my farm for weeding, cultivating, and protein concentration.

I think I've figured out how to confine the poultry with reconfigurable runs of prefab sections of pvc and chickenwire.

The pigs I think are more a matter of electric fence training.

I like to think outside the box because I'm agoraphilic.

[castanea]

Apr 25, 2011 13:50:53 GMT -5 steev said:

The pigs I think are more a matter of electric fence training.

I like to think outside the box because I'm agoraphilic.

There's a lot of that going around. Except in Japan....

[synergy]

I have started a system of hand dug 10 foot posts spaced so I can reconfigure 50 x 60 foot paddock blocks to various sizes and shapes using hot wire for horses, sheep, goats, pigs, geese, poultry etc. with grid chargers and a portable solar charger. I have been using it with hot ropes with my horses and need to purchase the grid fencing for smaller stock. I made it to adapt different portions of my small acreage for different uses and rotation throughout the year . The rotation concept is Joel Salatin inspired.

This is an example of the electrified netting that can be utilized between the posts.