The three principles of permaculture are Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. These permaculture ethics sit above the rest. They even sit above the famous twelve design principles. They are the moral base for every choice you make in the garden. That covers where you plant a tree and what you do with extra tomatoes.
Think of the ethics as the why. The design principles are the how. Earth Care People Care Fair Share gives you a quick test for any plan. If a plan fails one of the three, you change the plan. That keeps your garden honest. It stops you from chasing yield at the cost of the soil or your neighbors.
Earth Care comes first because nothing else works without healthy land. The goal is to rebuild natural systems instead of stripping them. In practice this looks like composting kitchen scraps back into the beds. It also means using no-dig methods that leave soil life intact. You feed the ground, the ground feeds the plants, and the cycle holds together season after season. Every worm and root fungus you protect is doing free work for you. Break the soil with a tiller and you set that work back months.
People Care means the garden has to meet real human needs, and meet them fairly. A design that no one can use is a failed design. This shows up as accessible garden design, like raised beds at waist height, wide paths a wheelbarrow can roll down, and shady spots to rest. The harvest should land on real plates, not just look good in photos. People Care reaches past your own fence too. It covers the gardeners and growers whose work puts food on the table, so fair labor and fair trade count as part of the ethic.
Fair Share is the one most people skip, and it ties the other two together. It asks you to return your surplus and set a limit on what you take. When a bed gives you more than you can eat, you pass the extra along. That means sharing seeds with a neighbor, dropping spare produce at a food bank, or giving cuttings to a friend starting out. You take enough and no more. Surplus also feeds the land back, so spare leaves and trimmings go on the compost pile rather than the trash. Nothing useful leaves the system for good.
The strong move is to apply all three at once, even in a tiny plot. Say you have a single 4 by 8 foot raised bed on a balcony. You can honor Earth Care by mulching it and skipping the tiller. You meet People Care by growing the greens your household eats most. And you hit Fair Share by saving seed from your best plant and handing the packet to someone next door. One small bed can carry all three ethics at once. You do not need an acre to start, and you do not need to get it perfect on the first try.
Keep the three in plain sight while you plan. Write Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share at the top of your garden notebook and check each idea against the list. A choice that builds soil, feeds people, and gives back its extra is a choice that fits permaculture. The three ethics were set out by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren when they founded the system in the 1970s, and they have held up ever since. Start small, hit all three on one bed, and grow the habit from there.
Read the full article: Permaculture Garden: A Complete Guide
