What is Permaculture...the experts will disagree about the wording, the techniques, and the processes to achieve a Permaculture. From my perspective, a Permaculture is a forest of food producing plants that are perennially producing food for you. A forest can be a permaculture for gathering food, a pond can be a permaculture for fish as long as all the fish are not fished out, a hen house can provide a permaculture of eggs and food chickens, and Purslane can provide a important part of your overall diet.
It is not the scope of this website to define permaculture and debate with the experts. I am a novice and enjoy what I am doing, which is growing a resilient vegetable that is tasty, perennial, regenerative, nutritious, not sold in stores, used by native cultures, and fantastic raw and cooked. Why is this the ultimate permaculture? It is no more ultimate than an olive tree, a fig tree, or a mulberry tree; but it is not a tree. The plant will die sometimes due to environmental issues (think winter), habitat destruction (think a digging dog), or other issues (think no more water). BUT, the plant is regenerative and will spontaneously come back through old seeds germinating, bits of the plant being dropped within the soil, or a variety of other means whether intentional or not.
I love Purslane because it is hearty, native, grows fast, forgotten as a super food, and outlasted everything I have except for the hot pepper plants...and it would have survived the brutal Arizona summer and regrown in the fall if I had not built shade structures, which the hot peppers were unlikely to do without the extra care. Purslane, it is the focus of my garden in Arizona; I will continue to propagate it, transplant it, and intersperse spicy pepper plants within the purslane growth.
The tallest plant on the left is a serano chili plant. The small pepper plant in the foreground is a jalapeno grown from seed; there is a thai chili plant mass in the background and bunches or purslane throughout. There are other thai chili plants, jalapenos, and serano chili plants also growing. Not shown are the habanero plants growing from seed in the pots.
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