Category: Permaculture Design

  • Silvopasture By Addition: Planting Trees Into Actively Grazed Pastures

    There are two general methods to establish silvopasture – by addition or by subtraction. This post details a method for silvopasture by addition pioneered by Wyn Miller of Lick Skillet Farm for establishing high-value trees for livestock forage, fodder and shade in actively grazed pastures managed for commercial livestock production. Her method utilizes tree tubes…

  • Korean Natural Farming: No-Smell Pig Pens

    When pigs are to be kept in a permanent or semi-permanent hard pen, a deep bedding system inoculated with indigenous micro-ogranisms (IMOs) should be used to improve sanitation for the animals and people tending them and to eliminate the smell of pig manure. This method for healthy, low-maintenance, pleasant smelling confinement pig rearing was developed…

  • Sovereign Energy > Moving Heat > Grid-Independent Cooking Systems

    Introduction to Grid-Independent Cooking Systems Cooking food is an activity shared by all of humanity on a daily basis. We either do it ourselves or have someone (or increasingly, some thing) do it for us. It’s fun to cook hot dogs on a stick over a campfire, but it is hardly feasible as a daily…

  • Floating Wetland Gardens In Pantry Ponds For Resilience, Function and Yield Stacking ~Epi-079

    Floating wetlands are a “new” old technology that is well worth looking into if you are doing aquaculture at just about any scale – from small backyard tanks a few hundred gallons in size, on up to multi-acre ponds and lakes. Floating wetlands take the essential functions provided by wetlands and concentrated them into a…

  • Designing For LIGHT At Every Level – Patterns For Incorporating Natural Light Into The Built Environment ~Epi-077

    Light is an essential human nutrient. So much of our modern built environment is built without regard to orienting and integrating natural light, and our health – physical, mental, spiritual, emotional and communal – suffers for it. The good news is that you can design your structures (or retrofit them) to bring natural light back…

  • Zone 0 Pattern Language Fundamentals – Designing Your Permaculture Kitchen ~Epi-076

    Join me today as we discuss designing functional kitchen spaces that people want to be in. Lots of people are inheriting kitchens designed more for magazine covers than for function – and where there is a lack of function there is a concommitant increase in friction, which means more stress and less joy. Kitchens are the…

  • A Primer On Hugelkultur

    A Primer On Hugelkultur What Is Hugelkultur? Hugelkultur is the technique of burying woody material and mounding it over with earth to create raised garden beds. When And Where Is Hugelkultur Appropriate? Hugelkultur is most appropriate in temperate climates with a pronounced wet season – often regions that are heavily forested – and is a…

  • Growing Mushrooms In The Forest

    Growing Mushrooms In The Forest

    Log-based Mushroom Culture Preparing Logs Mushrooms can be grown on freshly cut, inoculated logs within a natural woodland setting. Logs are recommended to be cut in late winter to early spring and inoculated shortly thereafter. There are many methods to inoculate logs, some of which work better for different types of culinary or medicinal mushrooms.…

  • Sovereign Water – Spring Development Basics ~Epi-074

    Today’s show is for those of you lucky enough to have a spring on your property. We will cover the basics of spring morphology and function – including the way I really think they work vs. what the textbooks say – and then we’ll go over basic spring assessment criteria, and the main components of spring…

  • Constructed Wetlands Primer For Black & Greywater Treatment

    What Are Constructed Wetlands? Constructed wetlands are built to use biology in the purification and clarification of blackwater and greywater effluents generated by human settlement. They are built to mimic the function of actual wetland ecologies, but in a way to prevent premature discharge of effluent waters to the environment. Where Are Constructed Wetlands Appropriate?…