The Permaculture Podcast

This episode is a look at the large-scale operations at D.C. Water to turn municipal waste into fertilizer and energy at the Blue Plains Waste W10ater Treatment Plant and looks at ways we can take the principles of permaculture and move them from the home to the community scale. The audio of the interview comes from a video which you'll find on the podcast's YouTube Channel at: YouTube.com/thepermaculturepodcast You can view the video directly by visiting: bit.ly/bloomsoil

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. Resources Otto Scharmer Presencing Institute Theory U Books MITx u.Lab Peter Senge The Limits to Growth (Wikipedia) Club of Rome EdX Transforming Capitalism Lab

In her storytelling way, Rosemary Morrow joins me to share why, after all these years, she continues to practice permaculture and finds this design system so important to our present and the future. Her newest book is Earth Restorer’s Guide to Permaculture, which you can find in the store at PermaculturePrinciples.com. Listen to the first conversation with Rosemary: Rosemary Morrow's Journey to Permaculture Visit Our Partners Wild Abundance - Top 10 Vegetables to Grow that Will Really Feed You! Marjory Wildcraft - How to Grow Food! Donate Directly to the Podcast: PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast Join Our Patreon Community: Patreon.com/permaculturepodcast Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture? Browse the extensive archives of the show. 

My guest for this episode is Brad Lancaster author of the Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond series. In this episode, Brad and I discuss the value of infiltrating water into the soil so that it becomes a resource that we invest during water-rich times and withdraw from that bank only when needed during dry times. As Brad’s work includes more than just drylands the conversation also includes ideas for storing water in rich areas. Along the way we also look at several listener questions including fog harvesting, using living systems to hand wet basements, and observing to find the right match for plants suitable to wet clay soils. What I really enjoyed about this conversation was Brad’s continued reference to creating and using living systems. Visit Our Partners Wild Abundance - Top 10 Vegetables to Grow that Will Really Feed You! Marjory Wildcraft - How to Grow Food! Donate Directly to the Podcast: PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast Join Our Patreon Community: Patreon.com/permaculturepodcas

Looby Macnamara, with Delvin Solkinson, joins me to discuss Looby's work on Cultural Emergence, her vision for our work as permaculture practitioners, and the tools she's developing to help facilitate this transition. Find out more about Looby and the Cultural Emergence deck at Cultural-Emergence.com. Delvin is at VisionaryPermaculture.com. Cultural Emergence Kickstarter Visit Our Partners Wild Abundance - Top 10 Vegetables to Grow that Will Really Feed You! Marjory Wildcraft - How to Grow Food! Donate Directly to the Podcast: PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast Join Our Patreon Community: Patreon.com/permaculturepodcast Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture? Browse the extensive archives of the show. 

How do we limit the damage of the greatest terrestrial environmental disaster ever, climate change? By drawing down carbon. How we do that, and the most effective ways possible, form the base of this conversation with Eric Toensmeier, as he shares his ongoing research about the impacts of agriculture and how we can use agroforestry to increase productivity and sequester carbon. Find out more about Eric at perennialsolutions.org, and The Carbon Farming Solution at ChelseaGreen.com. Visit Our Partners Wild Abundance - Top 10 Vegetables to Grow that Will Really Feed You! Marjory Wildcraft - How to Grow Food! Donate Directly to the Podcast: PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast Join Our Patreon Community: Patreon.com/permaculturepodcast Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture? Browse the extensive archives of the show.  Resources The Carbon Farming Solution Project Drawdown Perennial Solutions The Center for Agroforestry at the University of Missouri Agroforestry at Virginia Tech IPCC - In

My guest today is the adventurer, activist, and humanitarian Rob Greenfield. Rob joins me to talk about the Food Freedom project he launched in Orlando, Florida, where he is growing and foraging for all of his nutritional needs. Find out more about Rob, his work and other projects, including those mentioned during his introduction, at RobGreenfield.TV.  Visit Our Partners Wild Abundance - Top 10 Vegetables to Grow that Will Really Feed You! Marjory Wildcraft - How to Grow Food! Donate Directly to the Podcast: PayPal -or- Venmo @permaculturepodcast Join Our Patreon Community: Patreon.com/permaculturepodcast Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture? Browse the extensive archives of the show.  Resources National Farmers Market Directory (USA) Trash Me Green Riders Free Ride Orlando Permaculture Meetup Group Shad Qudsi - Atitlan Organics  

My guest today is Akiva Silver of Twisted Tree Farm in Spencer, New York. He joins me to talk about his life and the experiences that lead to his book Trees of Power from Chelsea Green Publishing. You can find Akiva, his farm, and work at twisted-tree.net and you can find his book, Trees of Power, at chelseagreen.com. Resources Twisted Tree Farm Trees of Power (Chelsea Green) Tom Brown Jr. Tracking School The Graves Tree - Arthur Graves Chestnuts Empire Chestnut Company (Route 9 Cooperative) Related Interview: Foraging with Sam Thayer

In this guest episode, the final in this series, naturalist and writer Shane Sater, shares his insights and thoughts on kochia as it relates to sparrows; a reflection on how an introduced plant species create novel ecosystems and adaptations. And that was Shane Sater. You can read more of his nature writing and view the photographs from his journey in the natural world at WhatsGoingOnBlog.org.

In this episode, Chris Knapp, one of the founders of Maine Local Living School in Temple, Maine, returns to talk about their immersive educational experience, The Understory. During our conversation, Chris shares how this program came to be, his influences, and the knowledge, skills, and encounters he and his fellow instructors seek to impart to students during the multi-week, onsite program. If you are interested in permaculture and what permaculture education can look like beyond the Permaculture Design Course, or you are an instructor looking to build upon your existing curriculum and offerings, this is an interview to dive into. Find out more about Chris, the school, and The Understory at MaineLocalLiving.org.

My guest today is Chris Knapp, an instructor and one of the founders of Maine Local Living School, a homestead and education center in Temple, Maine. In this conversation, Chris shares how he came to develop a deep love for the land and created a connection to the place he calls home. This is an experience he seeks to share with each of his students, whether school-aged children, young adults transitioning to adulthood, or adults seeking a change in their path on their journey through life.   Find out more about Chris, the school and programs, including The Understory, at MaineLocalLiving.org. Chris will be back on the show for the second part of our conversation, as we dive into The Understory and what Chris and his fellow instructors seek to impart through this immersive homesteading and permaculture experience. Until the next episode, or I hear from you, spend each day deepening your sense of place, while taking care of Earth, your self, and each other.

This is the second in a series of three guest episodes from Shane Sater. A naturalist and writer based in Montana, USA, Shane shares his deep passion for nature and community through writing and recordings like this one, bringing together his education in environmental science, botany, and field biology with his experiential work in community, integrating the wonder embodied relationship with nature to the human experience. In addition to this work and with a love for all creatures, Shane feels a special affinity for silk moths, stinging nettles, cottonwoods, and meadowlarks. Read more of Shane's nature writing and view the photographs from his journey in the natural world at WhatsGoingOnBlog.org.

My guest for this episode is Sam Thayer, the expert forager and author. You can find Sam's personal experience working with wild foods in his books, The Forager's Harvest and Nature's Garden. Resources  Sam Thayer The Forager's Harvest Nature's Garden Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate

My guests for this episode are Violet Brill and her father “Wildman” Steve Brill. Violet and Steve are foragers from New York. Violet assists her father on his plant tours, leading groups of people and teaching them about wild edibles. You can find out more about Violet and Steve at wildmanstevebrill.com.

Chef and writer Sara Bir joins me to share her work as a foodie 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. Resources Sara Bir (sausagetarian.com) Sara on Instagram The Fruit Foragers Companion (Chelsea Green)

This episode is the first in a series of guest permabytes from Shane Sater. Shane, a naturalist and writer based in Montana, USA, has a deep passion for nature and community which he explores through his writing where he brings together his training in environmental science, botany, and field biology with his lived experiences in his community, speaking to wonder and the embodied relationship with nature that all of us can have. Throughout his journeys, Shane feels a special affinity for silk moths, stinging nettles, cottonwoods, and meadowlarks - among many other of Earth’s creatures. Read more of Shane's nature writing at: https://whatsgoingonblog.org/ 

My guest for this episode is Katrina Blair, author of the wonderful book The Wild Wisdom of Weeds from Chelsea Green Publishing. Katrina lives in Durango, Colorado at Turtle Lake Refuge, home to the Turtle Lake Community Farm and Wild Food CSA, and Local Wild Life Cafe.

My guest for this episode is Stephen Barstow, author of Around the World in 80 Plants. Together, we talk about his incredibly diverse garden in Norway where he grows over 2,000 edible plants in a rather small space. We begin with his background and how he came to have an interest in edibles, from his beginnings as a foraging vegetarian, to his beginning to eat and collect plants from wherever he traveled. He shares with us his love of edible ornamentals, or what Stephen calls edimentals, and he also recommends some to start with when first beginning to introduce more of these species into your garden.  Resources Edimentals.com (Stephen’s Website)  Around the World in 80 Plants (Chelsea Green Publishers)  Around the World in 80 Plants (Permanent Publications)  Sturtevants Edible Plants of the World (PDF. Large File)

My guest today is Nathan Carlos Rupley. A member of my permaculture community, he spends his time as a stay-at-home dad, self employed-artist, and aspiring hunter-gatherer. When not hanging out with his family or walking in the woods, you can find him reading about a wide range of subjects including simple living, foraging, native agriculture, natural building, “primitive” technology, philosophy, applied ecology, theology, and much more. He brings this knowledge to the table today as we discuss what he’s learning from the native plants of his ancestors. The exploration of these plants and the related cultures provide insights into his place in the world and where he comes from. This leads to a conversation that ranges around a variety of thoughts including how we can learn more about plants and their uses by studying folk and Latin binomial names. What understanding ancestral plants can teach us about our identity. The impacts of colonization, on the colonized and colonizer. And being good mentors and ances

My guest for this episode is Tradd Cotter, a microbiologist, and mycologist who, along with his wife Olga, owns and operates Mushroom Mountain near Greenville, South Carolina. He is also the author of the book Organic Mushroom Farming and Mycoremediation from Chelsea Green Publishing. In this interview, we talk about his book, the science of microbiology and mycology, entrepreneurship, and also touch on the power of mushrooms for remediation.