Farming With Nature

A Case Study Of Successful Temperate Permaculture

Sepp Holzer created an edible landscape on 1500m above sea level.  Between the pinetree monocultures of Austria, he built the biggest functioning permaculture landscape of Europe.

The site contains a beautiful fishpond system with its own water power station, 9000 fruit trees, and many other plants that support each other.  30 different types of potatoes, many different grains, fruits, vegetables, herbs and wildflowers are growing just about everywhere:  in the forest, on extremely steep hills, on rocky soil, on pathways, around ponds, as well as raised beds.  All of this he grows without the use of any pesticides, herbicides, fertilizer.

Instead of using chemicals he simply observes nature and finds out which plants support each other.  In autumn he collects many seeds and stores them, and whenever he can, he throws this seed mixture on his ground.  There is no square meter of ground with only one type of plant.

Diversity is a key word for Holzer, not only on the level of plants, but also on the economic level.  Holzer has a lot of different sources of income: he sells fruit trees, fruits, grains, vegetables, fish, mushrooms, all guaranteed biological.  Further, he sells seeds of many of these plants including very rare ones.