Stay ConnectedDaily farm and garden talk. All about growing vegetables profitably and efficiently on small farms and in gardens.
Each episode focuses on one specific topic – growing practices, how-to, farming challenges and struggles, sales and marketing, soil preparation, weed management, farm startup, market selection, and work-life balance.
Hosted and produced by Diego Footer’s Modern Grower Podcast Network.
Copyright: © Modern Grower
This book is about designing sustainable human settlements, an preserving and extending natural systems. It covers aspects of designing and maintaining a cultivated ecology in any climate: the principles of design; design methods; understanding patterns in nature; climatic factor; water; soils; earthworks; techniques and strategies in the difference climatic types; aquaculture; and the social, legal, and economic design of human settlement.
It calls into question not only the current methods of agriculture, but also the very need for a formal food agriculture if wastelands and the excessive lawn culture within towns and cities are devoted to food production and small livestock suited to local needs.
This book is Permaculture, A Designers’ Manual.
And this show is Geoff Lawton covering the whole Permaculture Designers’ Manual in about an hour at PV1 in March 2014.
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/75
Given the amount of confusion that I see on a day to day basis, and the fact that there seems to be a lot of unknowns out there about PDCs, I created this episode to try to answer a lot of the questions that I was getting regarding PDCs.
Now, I am not a PDC instructor and I have only taken one PDC, so I turned to eight well respected PDC instructors (names below) to get their thoughts on ‘What’s a PDC?‘
Combined these eight instructors have taught hundreds and hundreds of PDCs over the last 30 years and each brings their own twist to the PDC. I asked them all the same questions and compiled their thoughts into two easily digestible episodes.
At the end of each episode Byron Joel, a PDC instructor himself, joins me and we recap and discuss what we heard, and give our thoughts on PDCs based on our experiences with them.
To keep things interesting the subject matter was broken up into two pieces…
In Part 1, episode 073, we take on the task of answering, What is a PDC? and What isn’t a PDC? In the next episode,
Part 2 we will answer the questions, What is the value of taking a PDC? and How do I choose and evaluate which PDC is right for me?
Hopefully this show will help answer some of the questions that you had about PDCs, and indirectly give you a better idea of what permaculture is all about..
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/74
Given the amount of confusion that I see on a day to day basis, and the fact that there seems to be a lot of unknowns out there about PDCs, I created this episode to try to answer a lot of the questions that I was getting regarding PDCs.
Now, I am not a PDC instructor and I have only taken one PDC, so I turned to eight well respected PDC instructors (and former PDC students themselves) to get their thoughts on 'What's a PDC.'
Combined these eight instructors have taught hundreds and hundreds of PDCs over the last 30 years and each brings their own twist to the PDC. I asked them all the same questions, and compiled their thoughts into two easily digestible episodes.
At the end of each episode Byron Joel, a PDC instructor himself, and I recap and discuss what we heard, and give our thoughts on PDCs based on our experiences.
To keep things interesting the subject matter was broken up into two pieces...
In Part 1, this episode, we take on the task of answering, What is a PDC? and What isn't a PDC?
In the next episode, Part 2 will answer the questions, What is the value of taking a PDC? and How do I choose and evaluate which PDC is right for me?
Hopefully this show will help answer some questions that you had about PDCs, and indirectly give you a better idea of what permaculture is all about..
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/73
This is the real world view of an organic farmer who is serving a community by producing food on scale, farming organic or better, for over 30 years. It hasn’t always been easy, and every day isn’t a tea party, but it has been enjoyable and resulted in a lot of great friendships and memories. This is the story of Nigel Walker and Eatwell Farm.
"Communication is the key, and it is the number one priority for the whole farm for me every week."
"Make your best educated guess, then see what happens and have a contingency."
Key Points brought up by Nigel: Money is the energy to do things. Realize the importance of understanding money. Run the numbers and use the numbers to help think of things on the farm and make priorities. When buying land think of the water situation. Is there a stable water source? Keep all of the water on the farm. Harvest every drop that falls from the sky. Always be looking for new business opportunities and value adds. There are big benefits to shelf stable products. You can sell those products over time. Listen to what customers are asking for and them make that. Easier to make more for existing customers than acquiring new customers. Talk to customers and find out what they want. Consider all of the businesses based on the land-base even if some are small, they all add to the farm income.
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/72
As my guest today David Pagan Butler of OrganicPools.co.uk says, "If you want really healthy water, you want it full of life; not devoid of life."
That is what today's show is about. Creating the conditions for life to happen within the water in natural swimming pools. Natural swimming pools unlike their chemical counterparts use no chemicals. The pool water is cleaned biologically by plants and organisms within the water. No smells, no chemicals, no pathogens, biology creating water so clean you can drink it.
David has developed a system of building natural pools that is both cost effective and ecologically enhancing. Natural pools that utilize natural biological processes to keep the water clean. The classic case of nature doing something equal to or better than some chemical made in a factory - clean, pathogen free drinking water, in swimmable form.
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/71
I want to talk about something which I call the impossible task. It is something that each one of us struggles with. We all have something that that we really want to do yet we don't think it is possible, at least not easily possible, and we don't try it. I am here to tell you today, that it is possible and worth trying for.I want to start today talking about a woman name Bronnie Ware. You probably haven't heard about her, but she is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. As humans at the end of our lives we have very clear visions as we look back. Everything comes to the surface. Bronnie would ask them "do you have any regrets, would you do anything over?" One of the top five regrets was:I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/70
I think we are in the perfect storm right now for regenerative agriculture and permaculture. The economy isn't great. We have a huge number of people dissatisfied with their jobs who are looking for a fulfilling and creative outlet. People that want to work and make a difference. The environmental side of things is a mess. So much so that we have big scientific meetings in Beijing talking about it. We have a food and water crisis brewing that is legitimately viewed as a looming global problem. But all of these crisis's have created an opportunity. An opportunity for permaculture to step to the plate be the solution.
The tools are there.
And this is the hard part of the game now because it is early in the game, but it isn't as hard as it was 20 years ago or 10 years ago. Forward progress will be made, but I think it is going to take some balls and strategic planning. We need to realize that we are pioneers forging a new path and and we don't have a ton of models to refer to and to fall back on. But there are some - Mark Shepard, Darren Doherty's work, Peter Allen, Kevin Woltz at the University of Illinois, and of course Grant. It won't be easy, but the path is there. It is just a bit of a bumpy, winding dirt path right now, not a smooth asphalt road straight into the future that most of use are used to. For some of us it is time to adult unschool and put the boots on the dirt and hit the path. And it is on that path where we live between easy and dangerous where really feel alive and are at our best. So if you want to go for it, there is no better time. The perfect storm is here and like Grant says, "You do have to jump on it; you have to go now because tomorrow might be too late."
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/69
While many of us will never use permaculture outside of our own backyard or community, there is a whole world out there than can benefit from permaculture design. Places where small incremental changes that can have huge effects. Life is hard in places and Rosemary is someone who has lived her life helping hard places. She has dedicated her life to teaching and helping people. She is a true permaculture pioneer and an inspiration.People often ask, does permaculture work?From a western standpoint, the definition of work is usually form of ultimate abundance, some unrealistic expectation of what the land should be producing on a huge scale with little input; in other words, a miracle. When those results don't magically appear, people are disappointed and say, see it doesn't work.When I asked Rosemary if permaculture worked, she said absolutely, she has seen in. She has spent most of her time in the harshest places on the planet; places where the miracle isn't ultimate abundance. The miracle is merely having more today than you had yesterday and having reasonable assurance that it can continue for the foreseeable future. Places where a little more calories means the difference between starving or not. And in places like that, permaculture does work, it performs miracles.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/68
My guest Pete Kanaris is a serial entrepreneur. He has started a whole bunch of businesses, some have worked, some haven't. Despite the failures, he has always found a way to push on and try new things to ultimately get to where he wants to be.
That also references another unique point in Pete's story. One of Pete’s most successful businesses was a lawncare business. It was a business that Pete ran for over 10 years and it was really successful. But it wasn't something that Pete liked doing anymore. Along the way he became exposed to permaculture and it became clear that the pathway into the future didn't involve cutting grass, it involved permaculture. So he put it all on the line and started a permaculture design company, Green Dreams. It wasn't about the money; he wanted to do something that he loved doing and something that he believed in.
Given the risk and uncertainty involved in starting any new business it would have been easy to take the safe route and stick with what he had, a thriving lawncare business. But he didn't take the easy route, and he put in the hard work to make Green Dreams a reality. Pete's continued push to innovate and try new things has already paid off and Green Dreams is growing. His story is inspirational for anyone out there looking to take that hard first step. As he says, “start small and when the door opens, go big and never look back.”
Show Notes: permaculturevoices.com/67
"Instead of trying to support 1000's of people, let's get really good at supporting 150 people and we'll duplicate it."
Once we do that we will have models that we can refer back to. Models that can be used to train people to go start other small impact zones. Then we start getting more and more impact zones, and suddenly the picture looks a lot brighter. But that will take time, and it's early in the journey, but the conditions are ripe for change. We just need to kick start it, by incubating innovation.Creating the conditions for success and sustainability to happen, something that I learned from Larry.
In fact it's one of the many things that I have learned from Larry. Larry has a wealth of knowledge and the experience to back it up. He's a permaculture pioneer having involved with permaculture since the 80s. He has travelled with Bill Mollison. He's worked on countless projects in the country, the city, and other countries. He gets it. And in Southern California when you mention permaculture, there is one name that comes to mind.
Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/66
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