Permaculture for the Future

Episode Highlights:

• How Deanna started her career in studying indigenous cultures
• Traveling to Africa during Deanna's Prescott College days to research about chocolates
• Deanna's experiences with her business selling chocolates
• Business as opportunity to do good

About Deanna Moore:

Deanna Moore is committed to helping people spread their message and activate their vision toward a just, sacred and sustainable culture. She has a background in Permaculture, Ecology, Holistic Health & Education. She has an MA in Ecology & Education from Prescott College and is a published co-author of “The Green Intention”. She is a food entrepreneur and collaborator with values-based for profit and non-profit businesses alike. She loves surfing, primitive skills, mezcal and mushrooms! She is co-founder of Remarkable Wellness www.myremarkablewellness.com.

Show Links:

• Check out MyRemarkableWellness.com
• The Online Permaculture Design Course

Episode Highlights:

• Rob’s journey from being a pipeline engineer to permaculture
• How harvesting energy coincides with permaculture
• Difference between the rebuild and reset
• Why community groups are more important than gardening
• Why do we need to consider using alternative currencies
• How Rob is preparing for the big changes brought about by the pandemic
• Why podcasts are more important than the press
• A note by Katie LaMonte

About Rob Avis

With over 15 years of combined experience in engineering, project management, ecological design and sustainable technologies, Rob co-owns Adaptive Habitat – a unique and leading edge property design and management company in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

As a skilled Professional Engineer, he offers a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined heat & power), as well as rainwater harvesting, agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration and onsite wastewater treatment / septic design.

His extensive project management experience includes site analysis, technical design, cost estimating and scheduling, through to commissioning and construction.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta, interned at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark, and co-founded Verge Permaculture in 2008, now an internationally-recognized & award-winning regenerative design, consulting, and education centre. With over 15 years of combined experience in engineering, project management, ecological design and sustainable technologies, Rob co-owns Adaptive Habitat – a unique and leading edge property design and management company in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. 

As a skilled Professional Engineer, he offers a depth of practical expertise in building science and appropriate technology (solar, wind, combined heat & power), as well as rainwater harvesting, agro-ecology, ecosystem engineering, soil regeneration and onsite wastewater treatment / septic design.

His extensive project management experience includes site analysis, technical design, cost estimating and scheduling, through to commissioning and construction.

He holds a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from the University of Alberta, interned at the Folkecenter for Renewable Energy in Denmark, and co-founded Verge Permaculture in 2008, now an internationally-recognized & award-winning regenerative design, consulting, and education centre.

Online Permaculture Design Course with Josh Robinson
The Online Permaculture Design Course

Episode Highlights

• Advantage of raising quail over chicken
• Basic things to get that Franchesca recommends when raising quail for the first time
• The process of hatching, breeding, and maintaining quail
• Process of raising quails for eggs and meat
• Personality and emotions of quails that you have to take note

About Franchesca Duval

Franchesca Duval is the Head Chicken Wrangler at Alchemist Farm in Sebastopol California. She is always tinkering with chicken genetics and pushes the edges of what is possible in the world of egg color and texture. She believes that beautifully colored eggs capture the imagination of humans and gently invites them to ask where their food comes from. 

Alchemist Farm is a humane chicken and quail hatchery that is pioneering a marriage of humane treatment of poultry with regenerative agriculture. 

Franchesca's farm demonstrates that a family business can thrive while doing right ecologically with a little creativity and a lot of heart.

They are the only chicken hatchery in the United States that:

*Runs on 100% clean renewable energy.

*Is 100% zero waste and has all plastic free shipments.

*Does not kill its male chicks upon hatch, they are donated to local impoverished families who raise them for food. 

*Keeps all of its breeding groups out on pasture and not in breeding cages. 

*Breeds for temperament. They have 35 roosters on our farm and their young children can walk right up to any of them and interact. No aggressive birds stay in their breeding program.

* Chooses one organization to donate a portion of their proceeds to every year. In 2019 it was End68HoursofHunger in 2020 it is The Children’s Eternal Rainforest. They are proud participants of the 1%for the planet foundation. 

 For the latest updates from the farm they can be followed on Instagram as well as Facebook  

About Erik Ohlsen

Erik Ohlsen is an internationally recognized permaculture teacher, educator, and author; he is an award winning landscape contractor and a life long activist. He has specialized in homestead scale regenerative design: including water harvesting, food forests, seed saving, community organizing, habitat development, erosion control, and building topsoil for over 20 years.

Episode Highlights:

• Work Erik has done since starting with permaculture at 19 years old
• How Coronavirus interrupts our globalized connections
• How Erik is mobilizing his local community through gardening
• What is the Gift Economy
• How can a degraded landscape be turned into gardens

Show Links:

• Erik Ohlsen’s website
• Permaculture Skills Center
• Permaculture Artisans

About Richard Heinberg

Richard Heinberg is Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute and author of several books on energy and the environment, including Afterburn: Society Beyond Fossil Fuels, and, with David Fridley, Our Renewable Future. His upcoming book is Power: Humanity’s Quest for Ability, Control, Influence, and Beauty—and How It All Went Wrong.

Show Highlights:

• Connections of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak to the different aspects of our society
• Reliance on economic efficiency to the COVID-19 Pandemic
• Why Resilience and economic efficiency can't go together
• How Permaculture is a strategic program in times of disasters
• The problem of our denial mechanism in dealing with real issues
• Resilience victory gardens for the future

Links:

• Richard Heinberg's Website
• Post Carbon Institute
• Resilience.org

About Yael Zaidman

Yael is a nurturer of life. Whether she is working with compost, soil microbes, worms, plants, or seeds, she brings all to life. Yael has experience building and growing farms and gardens from small scale backyard gardens to managing the greenhouse propagation and starts for a 100 acre organic farm.

Yael is the co-founder of the San Diego Sustainable Living Institute and Terra Corazon, a 17 acre permaculture farm in San Diego County, which she is developing with her family and friends. 

Episode Highlights:

• Yael’s approach with her food growing projects
• How to find ideas on what to grow in your garden
• Eating the garden that is already growing with wild edibles
• How to start a garden
• Importance of community in garden resilience

Episode Highlights:

• From agriculture to ecology
• The development of the eco-machine
• What is an eco-machine and how to start one
• Founding of the New Alchemy Institute
• Cleaning toxic pollutants using only biology

About John Todd

Dr. John Todd began his ecological design work in 1971 when he co-founded the New Alchemy Institute with the mission to “Restore the Lands, Protect the Seas and Inform the Earth Stewards”. He began designing biomes and bio-shelters, structures for the cultivation of foods and other biological products utilizing sunlight and solar heating. The best known of these was the Ark on Prince Edward Island in Maritime Canada described in the book “Tomorrow is Our Permanent Address” co-authored with his wife, Nancy Jack Todd (Harper and Row,1980).

By 1980 he began working on an ecological hope ship designed to be powered by the sun and the wind and capable of housing and propagating a wide diversity of agricultural materials for impoverished regions of the world. A one-fifth scale model of the vessel was built and tested in New England waters. This work led to the creation of a series of sail powered work vessels known as Ocean Pickups, initially financed by the Canadian International Development Agency. This story was coauthored with his wife in “Bioshelters, Ocean Arks, City Farming” (Sierra Club Books, 1984).

In 1986 work began on the first generation of Eco-Machines, ™ living technologies designed to grow foods, generate fuels, treat wastes including toxic materials and restore impaired environments. This work was described in “From Eco-Cities to Living Machines”, (North Atlantic Books, 1994) and continues to this day.

The first decade of this century saw the commercialization of these ecologically engineered systems around the world, including in China, South Africa, Brazil, and Australia.

The 1990’s saw the invention of the first Restorer technology, a floating Eco-Machine designed to clean up polluted bodies of water. They are now widely employed for the treatment of pollution.

The first two decades of the 21st century led to wastewater treatment and recycling becoming integrated into architecture. This work included the Lewis Center at Oberlin College and the first Living Building Challenge structure at the Omega Institute at Rhinebeck, New York.

In 2008, he won the inaugural Buckminster Fuller Challenge for “the best idea to help save humanity”. His plan was to restore over one million acres of coal mined land in Appalachia using advanced ecological methods. His design work included the development of economic structures to permit the people of Appalachia gain ownership over their own lands.

Beginning in 2015, Dr. Todd began work on the design of living technologies to protect and restore the inshore oceans. It has culminated in the design of small wind powered ships called Ocean Restorers. These carbon neutral vessels are being developed for marine research and for the purification of polluted sea water. His new book “Healing Earth: An Ecologist’s Journey of Innovation and Stewardship” was published in January 2019. It includes concepts and technologies for sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide and for climate stabilization.

Many people are interested in careers in permaculture, regenerative design, and just restoring the ecosystems of this planet, but when you look out at the current job market, often times those jobs are not available. It is not that the work is not needed, it is that someone just has not started that business yet. In today's show, we talk with Brook Sarson about her journey into permaculture and creating a career path in work that is both meaningful and has an ecological and community impact.

Show Highlights

• Allowing job opportunities to unfold
• Strategies to succeed
• The importance of business partnerships
• The myth of the expert
• How positive action creates movement and momentum
• How bottom up action can lead to policy change

About Brook Sarson

Brook started her rainwater and greywater harvesting business, H2OME, in 2008 with the mission to be a resource to the San Diego Community for water harvesting. She was determined to create change from the ground up by showing homeowners, educators, and policy makers how simple and effective rainwater harvesting and greywater recycling can be. Her continued mantra has been that individual contributions create tremendous impact toward a larger water conservation strategy.  In 2017, Brook joined forces with Rosalind Haselbeck to start CatchingH2O, a licensed Water Harvesting Contracting business. 

Show Notes can be found at www.PermacultureForTheFuture.com/episode9

Episode Highlights

• Getting into permaculture
• Using rainwater and greywater
• Designing living and functional ecosystems
• Planting ecosystems
• Sequestering excess carbon from the atmosphere uses plants and soil

Your Show Host

Josh Robinson is a father, gardener, farmer, teacher, and ecological instigator. He has over 19 years of experience in the field designing, installing, and teaching about creating ecological abundant gardens, home, farms, and businesses. Josh has been teaching permaculture to hundreds of people since 2005. He holds a Master’s Degree in Ecological Landscape Design from Prescott College.

His work has received multiple awards as well as being featured in Toby Hemenway’s Gaia’s Garden and Art Ludwig’s Create an Oasis with Greywater. Josh has started multiple permaculture based landscaping businesses including his current business, Ecology Artisans, where he designs and leads crews in installing beautiful, functional, and abundant landscapes throughout San Diego. In addition, Josh is the Director of the permaculture educational organization, The San Diego Sustainable Living Institute.

Currently Josh is working with his family and friends in developing the 17 acre permaculture designed farm and education center at Terra Corazón in Valley Center, California

Episode Highlights:

• Different uses and application of biochar
• How biochar becomes a water, mineral, and nutrient reservoir for plants
• How humans has been using biochar for herbal medicine
• The importance of biochar in the Amazon and other places in the world through time
• How industrialization has affected how we use biochar
• Different ways people can do to make biochar

About Michael Wittman

Michael Wittman, Char-man of the Board of Blue Sky Biochar, has long been an environmental activist for an ever-growing number of national grassroots movements. He brings to bear a lifetime of experience in alternative energy and soil science. In 1970 he was a volunteer organizer of the very first Earth Day in New York City. His highest priority has long been the defense and conservation of all natural resources and life on earth.

His affinity for this planet’s continued good health has never wavered as he has continued to advocate prudence and moderation in the environment. He is also a Marine Naturalist spending half his life diving and kayaking around the world and he is a life-long animal rights activist. An accomplished, knowledgeable and engaging public speaker, Michael has approached American fuel reform from a refreshingly calm and reasoned perspective while broadening the public consciousness of reasonably affordable and underutilized natural resources.

Having now brought his personal and professional passion full circle, in 2010 Michael founded Blue Sky Biochar to promote both the notion of sustainable and regenerative soil health and the means by which to make it happen. Blue Sky continues to advocate the individual reclamation of our biological birthright on earth.

Episode Highlights

• From little garden experience to growing 100% of his food on land that he did not own
• How to acquire land for gardening without owning it
• Working with the community to build resilience
• Why Rob was triggered by the industrial food system
• The impact of his Permaculture Design course he got in Guatemala
• Challenges of living a self-sustained lifestyle

About Rob Greenfield

Rob Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. His life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world."

In a time when many feel disempowered, Rob believes that our actions really do matter and that as individuals and communities we have the power to improve the world around us. He is currently traveling on the 2020 World Solutions Tour sharing solutions to our current problems, leading solution-based action days, and spreading stories of communities and people that are standing up for sustainability, truth, equality and justice. 100% of Rob’s speaking honorariums for the tour are donated to indigenous and women led grassroots organizations.

Episode Highlights:

• From little garden experience to growing 100% of his food on land that he did not own
• How to acquire land for gardening without owning it
• Working with the community to build resilience

Show Links:

• Rob's Website
• Shared Earth Website mentioned by Rob

Episode Highlights:

• Roles of fungi and mycelium play in living ecosystems
• Fungi evolved on land long before plants
• How to manage partnerships with fungi and plants (gardens, orchards, food forests, etc)
• Importance of mycorrhizal fungi 
  • Nutrient exchange
  • Connect plants to the wider forest ("The Wood Wide Web")
• Utilizing fungal inoculants for specific garden types
• Producing your own garden inoculants
• Myco-remediation and how fungi can break down even the most toxic compounds

About Peter McCoy

Peter McCoy has been studying and working with fungi for twenty years, and teaching mushroom cultivation and applied mycology to people around the world for over a decade. His book, Radical Mycology: A Treatise on Seeing and Working With Fungi has been praised as the most important and comprehensive text on fungal ecology, mushroom cultivation, mycoremediation, and medicinal mushrooms written to date, and one of the most significant contributions to advancing mycology in the 21st century. Peter's work is widely regarded as pioneering in the topics of applied mycology and his voice is one of the foremost in the less-explored fields of fungal evolution, fungal communication, and the history of fungi in human cultures.

 In 2017, Peter founded MYCOLOGOS, the world's first mycology school, to share his extensive knowledge through online courses and in-person training programs. A lover of the outdoors, Peter's work is a direct response to a life spent foraging in the fungi-rich Pacific Northwest of the United States.

Episode Highlights:

• Roles of fungi and mycelium play in living ecosystems
• Fungi evolved on land long before plants
• How to manage partnerships with fungi and plants (gardens, orchards, food forests, etc)
• Importance of mycorrhizal fungi 
  • Nutrient exchange
  • Connect plants to the wider forest ("The Wood Wide Web")
• Utilizing fungal inoculants for specific garden types
• Producing your own garden inoculants
• Myco-remediation and how fungi can break down even the most toxic compounds

Show Links:

• Peter's Online Website (Including the online education): Mycologos
• Radical Mycology Book
• Rodale's Article on making your own local mycorrhizal inoculants

Show notes can be found here

Show Highlights:

• Importance of saving your own seeds
• Advantages of saving your own seeds over buying from a catalogue
  • Climate adaptation (Heat tolerance, cold tolerance, drought tolerance, flood tolerance, seeds adapt to local soils, etc)
  • Taste 
  • Production
  • Disease resistance
• Saving seeds from hybrid seeds
• How to save seeds
• Easiest seeds to start saving (Hint: Peas/beans, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers)
• Starting a seed library
• Seed School

https://permacultureforthefuture.com/episode4/

About Bill McDorman

Bill McDorman is Executive Director and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance (RMSA), a non-profit seed conservation organization serving the Rocky Mountain West and beyond. He was previously the director of Native Seeds/SEARCH in Tucson. Bill founded 3 seed companies including High Altitude Gardens and co-founded several non-profits including the Sawtooth Botanical Garden in Hailey, Idaho. He is the author of Basic Seed Saving which he wrote in 1994. He and his wife Belle Starr, former Deputy Director of NS/S and Deputy Director of the Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance created an innovative week-long training called Seed School, Seed School Teacher Training, Seed School Online, Grain School and recently an upcoming training called, Seed & Grain Forum. The courses have graduated over 1200 Seed Citizens since the original program began in September of 2010 including many seed librarians, growers and educators. Bill's latest passion is to bring awareness to certified organic, patented seeds that cannot be saved which flies in the face of fostering biodiversity and resilient seed systems.

Links:

• Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance
• Seed School Online
• Directory of Seed Libraries

Show Highlights

• Why is the water (hydrological) cycle out of balance and the problems in the world that are linked to lack of water?
• Getting started with water harvesting using passive water harvesting basins
• Harvesting water from not only rainwater, but household greywater, and air conditioner condensate to create integrated living systems
• How to simultaneously reduce flooding and solve drought
• Rain tanks and cisterns are secondary considerations after passive water harvesting earthworks
• How harvesting rainwater and increasing plant systems can reverse the excess carbon that is leading to climate change 
• Allowing water harvesting solutions to present themselves
• How rainwater harvesting systems were illegal and are now mandated in Arizona in other locations

About Brad Lancaster

Brad Lancaster is a dynamic teacher, consultant, and designer of regenerative systems that sustainably enhance local resources and our global potential. He is the author of the award-winning, best-selling book series "Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond;" and Brad has just released new, full-color, revised & expanded editions of these books in both print and ebook formats available at deep discount direct from Brad via his website HarvestingRainwater.com. Brad is also a co-founder of Desert Harvesters, which strives to repopulate Tucson’s urban core with rain-irrigated indigenous food plants.

Brad has taught throughout North America as well as in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Australia. His hometown projects have included working with the City of Tucson and other municipalities to legalize, incentivize, and provide guidance on water-harvesting systems, demonstration sites, and policy. He has likewise collaborated with state agencies to promote practices that transform costly local “wastes” into free local resources. Brad’s aim is always to boost communities’ true health and wealth by using simple overlapping strategies to augment the region’s hydrology, ecosystems, and economies—living systems upon which we depend.

Brad lives his talk on an oasis-like demonstration site he created and continually improves with his brother’s family and neighbors in downtown Tucson, Arizona. On this eighth of an acre and surrounding public right-of-way, they harvest 100,000 gallons of rainwater a year where just 11 inches per year fall from the sky. But it doesn’t end there. The potential of that water is then integrated with the simultaneous harvest of sun, wind, shade, and fertility. Brad is motivated in his work by the tens of thousands of people he has helped inspire to do likewise, go further, and continue our collective evolution.

Links

Brad's books and website store:

Videos of Brad's work and others:

Street-Runoff Harvesting

Greywater Harvesting

Sun & Shade Harvesting

Brad's Drops in a Bucket blog

Show Highlights

• How to get started composting with worms
• How to improve degraded soil with compost and eliminate the use of fertilizers, pesticides, and insecticides
• Problems of sending food wastes to the landfill
• Food waste is the #1 category of materials being dumped in landfills
• Composting and vermicomposting basics
• Using food scraps you have and turn it as a medium to grow more food
• How can you start a worm composting system without spending a lot of money
• Different worm composting systems available: wind rows, bins, continuous flow through and more
• Which species of composting worm to use of the thousands of worm species
• How overfeeding can be a problem when doing worm composting
• What is a continuous flow worm composting system
• Three strategies for harvesting worm castings: Vertical, Horizontal, and stacking
• Worm husbandry understanding
• Effects of vermicomposting on soil and plants
• Making aerated compost tea with worm castings
• How to avoid leachate in a worm bin
• Differences between aerated compost worm tea and leachate

Links

• Rhonda Sherman’s Website
• Worms Can Recycle Your Garbage
• Video – How to set up a worm bin
• Backyard Composting of Yard, Garden, and Food Discards
• Video: Backyard Composting with Rhonda Sherman
• Book: The Worm Farmer’s Handbook

About Rhonda Sherman

Rhonda Sherman has been providing education and technical assistance on vermicomposting and composting at NC State University for 27 years. A leading authority on vermicomposting, she organizes an annual conference on large-scale vermicomposting that draws participants from all over the world. Rhonda gives about 50 presentations annually, has conducted countless training courses and workshops, and has a variety of publications on composting and vermicomposting. Her new book is The Worm Farmer’s Handbook. Rhonda is the director of the Compost Learning Lab which has 13 types of composting bins and a dozen worm bins.

The world is full of negative news and the planet is in crisis. This it can be downright disheartening and you feel that there is nothing that you can do. I am here to provide a different perspective. The Permaculture for the Future Podcast is about spreading positive and impactful stories, tips, and ways that each one of us can transition into a regenerative lifestyle. We talk about simple ways to make lifestyle changes and interview authors, teachers, and other folks that are collectively healing ourselves and the planet.

If you want to make an ecological impact, stick around because this podcast is for you.

In today's show, we are introducing the podcast and what to expect from upcoming shows. In addition, we are talking about:

• The power of taking action to make the world a better place
• How gardening can transform or relationship to the planet and reverse climate change