This Simple Permaculture Principle Tripled My Harvest 🌿

If you told me when I started my gardening journey that my beds would look like this, simple rows, all the same size, organized by crop, I would have thought it was too conventional. Hello you all, I'm sitting here at the kitchen table taking some notes about what happened in the garden this year. This is something I always do in the autumn, just to reflect a bit on what has worked and what not. And something came to mind to me that I wanted to share with you, because it could be valuable to you as well on your gardening journey. So when I just started my garden in Belgium, I had this idea about what a permaculture garden should look like. I had all those curved beds and spiraling forms in my gardens and all the beds had different shapes and sizes to them. And I was planting herbs and cabbages and potatoes and everything all together in one bed, because that was my idea of a polyculture. And I was trying to figure out which species should grow together to make a more productive garden. And although that garden was really beautiful and it was really interesting to look at all the different colors and shapes, it didn't really feed us, because I think I was focusing on the wrong things. And I came across something that changed the way I looked at this, and it's called the 80-20 principle, also known as the burrito principle. And this principle tells us that 20% of our efforts bring 80% of the results. So I realized a little while back, now that we are in the season of little ones, that we really needed to figure out how to grow more food with minimal effort and really focus on the 20% that gives us the 80%. So I simplified my garden drastically over the years, but I also I think I tripled my harvest compared to those first years, where we barely could feed ourselves, like really, from the garden. These are my 20% crops, the ones that give us 80% of our food, the ones that I grow in what I call micro monocultures, one crop per bed for easy harvesting and maintenance. We use the root stout method, lay them on the ground, cover with a thick organic mulch, no tilling, weeding or watering. Straight rows in our own bed, easy to harvest efficiently. They go straight into the root cellar where they keep all winter, and they ferment beautifully. Plant once, harvest abundantly. They start for months without any processing. Pure, reliable calories for my family. The onions. Beds full of just onions makes harvest days simple. They cure and last for winter. The foundation of almost every meal I cook. Tomatoes. Just one or two reliable varieties now, in dedicated beds, in quantities that matter. Up the climbing racks for vertical beauty and production. We can them and sauce them for winter meals my family loves. The green beans. Up the vertical structures, easy to harvest because they're all in one place. Quick to grow, abundant and they preserve well. It's Ileana's favorite food now. The cabbages. This is where fermentation becomes magic. We make sauerkraut, kimchi and fermented vegetables in every form. Having them all together makes processing efficient. Stored in jars, they give us probiotics and nourishment all winter, when fresh food is scarce. So this week I have been processing a row of cabbages into different types of sauerkraut. With onions, garlic and carrots mixed in there as well. And in a few batches I add a dill and lemon juice. A new recipe I'm trying out. Of course I have my little helper at my side. So how do you find your 20 percent? Especially if, like me, you're juggling parenthood and limited time. Start by asking, what do I actually feed my family? Not what looks interesting in a seed catalog. Not what you saw on someone's Instagram page. For us, that's the root vegetables. Cabbages, tomatoes and beans. For you, it might be different. Then ask, what stores well in my climate, with my infrastructure? We have a root cellar, so root crops make sense. And we do a lot of fermentation, so cabbages and carrots are perfect. But if you have different storage methods, your 20 percent will look different. And finally, what grows well here without constant intervention? What can I maintain even on the hard days when the kids need me more than the garden does? Let go of the crops that demand constant attention for minimal return. And let go of 20 varieties when two would do. Let go of the idea that a productive garden has to be complicated. Yeah. I have been carving a new small print this week. It shows a mother kneeling in the vegetable garden, holding a toddler in one arm and a cabbage in the other. The little one is playing with a carrot, discovering the world through the garden. I've named this print, The Tending. Also, the Midnight Wonders print I showed last week, of the two little girls sitting underneath a blanket, soaking up the magic of the nighttime garden, has been received well. Thank you for that. My printmaking is currently happening at our kitchen table, inside our one-room small house. And my bigger size printmaking supplies, like the papers, are stored behind the sofa, because of lack of space. I need to move the whole thing to be able to get to it. Things like this make me look forward to my own studio space. Jonas has been putting quite a lot of effort towards the build of the new studio, where I will finally have some space and proper storage units in the future. It's been rainy weather here though lately, so that has been delaying the finishing up of the roof quite a bit. And living on a homestead, there is always something else that needs to be done. That being said, he's doing the last bits and pieces of the roof now, before the winter settles in. Here's what the 80-20 principle gave me. My time back, without sacrificing beauty. I still have my perennial borders with comfrey and flowers, to support the pollinators and add fertility. But now, I keep the annual vegetables separate from the perennial ones, for the most part. You just have to find your 20% and give yourself permission to let go of the rest. That being said, I wouldn't say that gardening doesn't come with its own challenges every year. For example, the slug population seemed to have exploded this autumn, because of the rainy wet summer. This is something I have not had to deal with before in the garden. So let's hope for some cold temperatures this winter, that might be helpful in this case. Now it's time to put the garden to rest and say goodbye for the coming months. I'm protecting my garden beds with a thick layer of organic mulch, to keep the soil life going strong. Thank you so much for watching. You can find my handmade woodcut prints by clicking on the link in the description. Thanks so much for being here, and I see you all next time.