The Permaculture Podcast

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Nearly every episode of the podcast, including this one, ends with the final statement, “Until the next time, spend each day creating the world you want to live in by taking care of Earth, yourself, and each other.” What does it mean, however, to take care of ourselves, or one another, in a meaningful way? That question forms the central point of this interview with ecological landscape designer, speaker, and author Jessi Bloom. She shares her personal story of becoming Trauma Informed, ways we can work on healing ourselves through mental and physical health routines, how we can help others by taking a Mental Health First Aid training, and what we can do to create sacred spaces and use plants, plant-based medicine, and daily acts for our overall happiness and wellbeing. This work isn’t about a day at a spa or a simple vacation to r

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Today co-host David Bilbrey sits down with Gregory Landua to talk about Regen Network and how they are using blockchain technology to create transparency and accountability for regenerative businesses. This allows those who use these systems to decentralize how to account for the use of natural resources and how we can, with these tools and others emergent ideas, allow farmers, designers, and others to retain and generate more of their own wealth, in whatever way they value that capital. Find out more about Gregory, the white paper he mentioned, and how to get involved at regen.network. Though I’m not a techno-optimist by any means, I do like to see the interplay of culture, technology, and emerging ideas. How we might use the blockchain, most well known for cryptocurrency and Bitcoin, in ways never initially imagined to explore di

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Ben Goldfarb joins me to talk about his new book,Eager: the surprising, secret life of beavers and why they matter. Drawing from his work and our experiences in resource management, conservation, and environmental education we talk about the role beavers had in creating and shaping the landscape, history, and people of the United States, and the importance of reintroducing and protecting beavers to return the world to the wetter, boggier place it once was. Visit our Partner: HomeBiogas Find out more about Ben's work at bengoldfarb.com and Eager at chelseagreen.com. What I love about this conversation is the way Ben talks about beavers and how we can connect to the world through the stories of others. From that, as I mentioned and he and I touch on, there is a deep value in good nature writing and how it can move us. Beautifully wri

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Our guest for this episode is the carpenter, architect, and builder Kelly Hart. He joins me today to talk about Earthbag Construction, the subject of his recently published book Essential Earthbag Construction from New Society Publishers. In this interview, Kelly walks us through many of the steps required for building with earthbags, including the practical needs of what bags to use, what you can fill the bags with for thermal mass or insulation, some of the tools and equipment you’ll need, establishing a foundation, laying the courses, tying each layer together, and also how to secure your doors and windows.After you’ve listened to this interview, you’ll have a basic understanding of how to use earthbags for construction. With a copy of Kelly’s book you can learn the rest. Find out more about Kelly and his work, including his DVD A

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast For the last several years I’ve run a Summer-to-Fall fundraiser in order to ask those listeners who can to donate to the show and keep the podcast freely available and frequently updated. This year I need to begin the campaign a little early as I am in need of urgent oral surgery due to an abscess the size of a quarter inside my head - it’s at the front of my maxilla for those of you familiar with human anatomy or who want to look it up. This problem went undiagnosed until a few weeks ago; growing silently and painlessly while doing a fair amount of damage. Thankfully, if the surgery is performed soon the specialist feels we can save the affected teeth, seal my sinus, and get this to heal without any complications. Living in the gift, I need to ask you now for help with this, as the cost of surgery is $1770, or more than two months

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Author, teacher, and forager Pascal Baudar joins me to discuss his exploration of primitive brews and fermentation, the basis for his latest book The Wildcrafting Brewer. He shares with us the way we can combine local ingredients as flavor, with water, sugar, and yeast to create sodas, beer, wine, and mead with local flavor and sense of place. If you are familiar with his first book, The New Wildcrafted Cuisine, then you know his thoughts push the limits of what we might think of when considering what to toss into our brew pot. Taking these methods, he again takes us in an unexpected direction that goes from the social drinks we might expect, to discuss how we might consider making culinary, healing, or even psychotropic beverages. Find out more about Pascal and his work as a forager and teacher at urbanoutdoorskills.com and his boo

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast In this episode co-host David Bilbrey continues to explore the intersection between permaculture, regenerative business, and the paradigm of capitalism by speaking with Alex McIntosh and Mario Garcia of Thrive Natural Care. Together they talk about how a company with a strong ethos can influence their competitors in the marketplace, while still caring for their business partners and customers. Listen to this conversation to learn more about how we can change the system from the inside, by modeling our preferred actions for others. Find out more about the company and products of Thrive at thrivecare.co. Stepping away from this conversation I am left considering the ongoing push-pull between doing what is right and what works for our time and place. As individuals, groups, and organizations interested in the environment and caring fo

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast My guest today is Sara Bir, chef, writer, and author of The Fruit Forager’s Companion, from Chelsea Green Publishing. Using her book and those experiences as a place to start, we explore her interest in wild fruit and foods, including first falling in love with the paw paw, and about how shared experiences, in the forest or around the table, bring us together. You can find Sara on her website sausagetarian and her book at Chelsea Green. I also recommend following her on Instagram, if you’re on there, as she posts some really great pictures about food. Just as with her website, you’ll find her there as sausagetarian. While you’re there also be sure to follow the show permaculturepodcast to see more of what goes on behind the scenes. I’m also giving away a copy of The Fruit Forager’s Companion to a Patreon supporter, you’ll find tha

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Today's guest, in an interview recorded by co-host David Bilbrey, is the microbiologist and soil researcher Dr. Elaine Ingham. During this conversation, David and Elaine explore the microbiology of the soil, the impact of this life on the health of our plants and agricultural system, how we can be citizen scientists, and the power of a microscope to bring all these ideas together, right in front of our eyes. Underneath it all is the importance of healthy, living soil for human well being, as individuals, participants in a community, and citizens of the world. Find out more about her work on soil microbiology at soilfoodweb.com and on her classes and other work with Environment Celebration Institute at environmentcelebration.com. David and I have partnered with Dr. Ingham and Environment Celebration Institute to make her courses more

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. In this short interview, David Bilbrey sits down for an in-person interview with Kevin Jones, recorded at the ReGen18 conference in May 2018.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. In this short interview David Bilbrey, co-host of The Permaculture Podcast and founder of EcoThinkIt.com, sits down for an in-person interview with Joel Solomon, recorded at the ReGen18 conference in May 2018.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. In this short interview David Bilbrey, co-host of The Permaculture Podcast and founder of EcoThinkIt.com sits down for an in-person interview with Stuart Cowan, recorded at the ReGen18 conference in May 2018.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. My guest today is Paul Hellier of Fair Food Forager, who joins me to begin an ongoing series of conversations to talk about what we can do reduce waste, change our consumptions patterns, and decrease our ecological footprint.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. In this episode Co-host David Bilbrey continues to explore the edge between permaculture, business, and social change by sitting down with Dr. Otto Scharmer. Together they talk about Dr. Scharmer’s work on Presencing and Theory U, the development of effective organizations, and how each of us can become more powerful changemakers.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. My guest for today is Rhonda Baird, editor of Permaculture Design Magazine, and designer and educator at Sheltering Hills Design, LLC.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. My guest for this episode is Amy Stross, blogger at TenthAcreFarm.com and author of The Suburban-Microfarm. I wanted Amy to join me for an interview to hear her perspective on creating integrated spaces where people are and will continue to live for the foreseeable future: in cities and suburbs.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. Co-host David Bilbrey returns to speak with Julie Mettenburg of Tallgrass Network, a hub of the Savory Institute that serves 25 million acres across Kansas and Missouri once dominated by the tallgrass prairie.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. My guests for this episode are Jill Lorenzini and Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters, here to discuss the new bioregional cookbook Eat Mesquite and More! We use that as a frame to talk about how to learn more about our natural world, invite ourselves into wild spaces, and deepen our sense of place through connection to the land, plants, and the meals that bring us together.

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. Karen Lanier shares what she learned while writing The Woman Hobby Farmer, a book that helps us look inside of ourselves and to decide whether we are ready to farm and to ask the question, “Why do I want to farm?”

Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast Browse the Archives. Avery Ellis, of Colorado Greywater, joins me to talk, in a conversation recorded live at a local coffee shop, about aquaponics, water harvesting, and his entry into the world of community politics when he joined the stakeholder process that changed the laws around how people can collect and use water in Colorado.