When I was a little girl I used to draw out plans for my ideal home. First I would draw a large plot of land with a small house in the middle. Then I'd make areas for various fruit trees and vegetable plants. Of course I made areas for wool-producing sheep and egg-laying chickens. It was my own little self-sufficient homestead.
Imagine my surprise when, as a grown up, I find that what I was planning way back when was a model for a biointensive, permaculture garden. While in the process of building my raised bed and sowing it with seeds, I came across these two different, but compatible, concepts. As far as I understand it, biointensive gardening (a la Square Food Gardening) simply means learning how to use space very efficiently to grow more food in less space. Permaculture seems to be a little more philosophical and stresses working with nature's processes to produce food. I'm currently working my way through Masanobu Fukyoa's The One-Straw Revolution.
While he writes a great deal on the specifics of farming in Japan, I find that his approach to working with the earth most compelling. The way he describes "do nothing" farming (which actually does involve a significant amount of work), I can't help but compare his vision of holistic food production with the Garden of Eden stories in Genesis. Food is plentiful and requires work but no struggle.
Hopefully the radishes I planted are permaculturists!
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