Tag Archives: permaculture

Episode-833- David Consolvo on Establishing and Growing a Survival Orchard

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Modern Survival| 17 Comments
Episode-833- David Consolvo on Establishing and Growing a Survival Orchard [ 1:05:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Trees Can Produce for Decades or Even Centuries

Photo Credit to London Permaculture via Flickr

Note – At times there is a lot of distortion on David’s end in this interview.  I never head it during the recording.  It isn’t constant please excuse the few occurrences as the content of the show is exceptional.

David Consolvo has been growing his orchard in Virgina for over 23 years now.  He originally began planting his orchard in a quest for better health and nutrition.   Over the years he has found it to help his health both physical and mental in other ways simply by the joy of working in it, watching his trees grow and having the security of food close at hand.

Over the years Dave has also become a prepper and is a long time listener of our show.  He has a root cellar he calls a “fruit cellar” and has integrated his ability to produce food into his emergency planning.

Join David and I Today as We Discuss…

  • What are some common beginner mistakes in planting an orchard
  • What are some of the best varieties to keep dependence on inputs low
  • Which fruits grow best in which climates
  • How can you have your own fresh fruits year round
  • How can you self propagate trees/bushes/vines
  • What nut varieties get into the earliest production
  • What “exotic varieties” have done well in the US so far
  • Uses for trimmings and prunings from your trees
  • Combating disease, insects and deer

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

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Episode-831- Seed Starting Primer for 2012

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Modern Survival| 23 Comments
Episode-831- Seed Starting Primer for 2012 [ 1:17:17 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Starting Seeds

Starting Seeds is Easy

I get a lot of questions from people who are looking to start plants from seeds vs. buying plants at the nursery.  Many people struggle with seed starting for a variety of reasons so I am dedicating most of today’s show to help you master the skill of taking tiny seeds and turning them into food and medicine producing plants.

The reality is starting seeds can be frustrating if you don’t do it correctly but it doesn’t have to be difficult as long as you follow the blueprint Mother Nature has laid out for us.  Once you do that starting your own makes producing your own food extremely cost effective.

Join me today as we discuss…

  • Understanding how seeds germinate in the wild (this answers so many questions)
  • What are the needs of a seed
  • Cubes, pots, paper and peat
  • Why starting indoors is a good idea
  • Light and not all light is equal
  • The role of the greenhouse and getting by without one (sort of)
  • Building a simple grow light
  • Mist watering and watering from the bottom
  • Creating constant temperatures
  • Culling and “pricking out”
  • Starting seeds in pots that are generally considered “direct sow”
  • Seeds that should almost always be direct sowed
  • Hardening off seeds
  • Potting up the why and how
  • Holding back in ground planting until you are sure
  • Mulch is your friend

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

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Episode-828- Steve Solomon on Organic Mythology and Soil Health

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Modern Survival| 41 Comments
Episode-828- Steve Solomon on Organic Mythology and Soil Health [ 1:27:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Steve Solomon author and founder of SoilAndHealth.org

Steve Solomon founder of SoilAndHealth.org

Steve Solomon writes books on food gardening.  He officially “retired” at the age of 44 after selling the mail order seed business he built up with great success in the 1980s.  Today he makes his home in Australia where he grows the majority of the food they consume.

Steve considers himself a political libertarian and sees his role in life to be “encouraging others food self sufficiency and better health.  He describes his methods and books as “beyond organic” or even as “outside organic”.

Today he joins us to discuss why the quality of our food has been in decline for centuries.  The importance of mineral amendments in not just growing a lot of food or good looking food but growing highly nutritious food.  Why you should definitely do a soil test on the land you are growing on even if you are getting good or even great production and more.

Steve will even explain why although organic food may be free of many toxins it is often no more nutritionally valuable then conventionaly grown produce.  He will even challenge the definition of “heirloom seeds” in a quite convincing manner.

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

 

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Episode-827- Dave Whitinger of AllThingsPlants.com

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Modern Survival| 16 Comments
Episode-827- Dave Whitinger of AllThingsPlants.com [ 1:27:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Dave Whitinger of AllThingsPlants.com

Dave Whitinger of AllThingsPlants.com

Dave Whitinger is the founder of many websites, most notably DavesGarden.com and AllThingsPlants.com.  Thousands of gardeners around the world use his websites for researching gardening information.

Dave is widely recognized as a leading figure in the online world of gardening. He’s the current president of his local master gardener association and lives a mostly self-reliant existence with his family on 90 acres in East Texas.

He joins us today to discuss the history of Dave’s Garden and his new and dramatically improved website, All Things Plants. We will also be discussing gardening, farming, self sufficiency, sources of online gardening information, advanced gardening topics, permaculture, hugelkultur, raising livestock, gardening in Texas along with the drought of 2011.

Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

 

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Episode-824- Dan Vamos from Homestead Dividends

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Modern Survival| 26 Comments
Episode-824- Dan Vamos from Homestead Dividends [ 1:08:21 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Dan Vamos is many things.  A father, an English teacher, a homesteader, a DIY enthusiast, a prepper and a patriotic American.  He has also been listening to The Survival Podcast for a very long time, all the way back to the podcasting from the car days.

Along the way he founded a website called, “Homestead Dividends”, designed to help the average person transform their home into a true homestead and get more out of their homes both while living in them and when it comes time to sell them.

Join Dan and I Today as we Discuss…

  • What are some ways to get the most out your house or residence
  • What should you do to make your house start working for you
  • What are some ways to waterproof a basement
  • What are some common mistakes people make when working on their house
  • Why should I start planting permafood right away
  • Why start with small trees and plants
  • How a three-ring binder can help in selling your house
  • How you can have a “pick-up truck? without owning one
  • Why Dan cashed in a retirement accounts to buy a home

Resources for Today’s Show…

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

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Episode-805- Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Modern Survival| 27 Comments
An Interview with Joel Salatin from Polyface Farms [ 1:15:24 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms

Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms

Joel Salatin, 54, is a full-time farmer in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. A third generation alternative farmer, he returned to the farm full-time in 1982 and continued refining and adding to his parents’ ideas.

The farm services more than 3,000 families, 10 retail outlets, and 50 restaurants through on-farm sales and metropolitan buying clubs with salad bar beef, pastured poultry, eggmobile eggs, pigaerator pork, forage-based rabbits, pastured turkey and forestry products using relationship marketing.

He holds a BA degree in English and writes extensively in magazines such as STOCKMAN GRASS FARMER, ACRES USA, and AMERICAN AGRICULTURALIST.

Joel is a hightly sought-after conference speaker, he addresses a wide range of issues, from “creating the farm your children will want” to “making a white collar salary from a pleasant life in the country.”  We are very fortunate to have him with us today on The Survival Podcast.

Join Joel and I Today as we Discuss…

  • What are some of the biggest challenges to small producers today
  • How can farmers transition from traditional agriculture to more natural production
  • Thoughts on how homesteaders can adapt some of Joel’s techniques
  • The value of sprouting – Ferris Wheel sprouter idea
  • Thoughts on small livestock like poultry and rabbits
  • Thoughts on ethical slaughter
  • Grazing pork and poultry one behind the other
  • How can homesteaders work to achieve greater self sufficiency
  • What can we do to help small producers have more commercial success

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Joel’s Links

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Episode-802- Permaculture Misconception vs. Reality

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Modern Survival| 19 Comments
Episode-802- Permaculture Misconception vs. Reality [ 1:03:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
The Forest is the Teacher, Not the End Goal

The Forest is the Teacher, Not the End Goal - Photo Credit to Axel-D via Flickr

I keep quite a few things set up on Google New Alerts.  That is where you run a search for a term on Google News and ask them to send you an email when ever a given word or phrase pops up in the news.  So as you might imagine I do this for terms like “pandemic”, “economic collapse”, “natural disaster” and many others related to the preparedness industry.

I also have terms set up that are more on subjects connected to basic self sufficiency and homesteading.   As you might imagine I include the term “permacuture”.  The other day that alert sent me a link to an article called, “Traditional Farming in the Rain Forest”, it led to an article that was a scathing retort on permaculture calling it basically useless.

The author gets almost every single part wrong.  It wasn’t that we disagree mind you it was that his claims and assertions were simply 100% inaccurate.  Despite this it  has helped me to better understand many of the objections I hear about permaculture.  Today I plan to discuss them and try to answer some of these objections, hopefully with a now better understanding of what the objection is really all about.

Join me today as I discuss…

  • 1 Prime Directive + 3 Ethics = Permaculture
  • Common Objections to Permaculture (none of which are based on reality)
    • The Rain Forest can’t feed as many people per acre as a farm
    • If we don’t do anything and let nature take its course we will starve
    • We need annual crops too not just perennials
    • Permaculture only produces weird things no one eats
    • Permaculture is limited to forest gardening
    • All permaculture amounts to is good organic gardening
    • Permaculture is all about growing food and plants
    • We can’t have productivity with out fertilizer and irrigation
    • We have to till soil to plant modern crop

Resources for Today’s Show…

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Episode-789- A Progress Report from the Spirko Homestead

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Modern Survival| 22 Comments
Episode-789- A Progress Report from the Spirko Homestead [ 1:00:58 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jack in overlooking his homestead 2009 - What was a dream is now a lifestyle.

It’s Thanksgiving Week!  Woot!  Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday.  Hang with my son, eat myself into a turkey coma with zero guilt, watch football, enjoy some scotch, watch football and snooze in front of a fire.  Thanksgiving is a “man holiday”, if such a thing exists at all.

Since this is such a great week, I wanted to keep things light and exciting so I figured it was a great time for a progress report on the Spirko Homestead instead of something heavy like a feedback show which always seems to have a lot of the economic mess in it.  So tune in today and I am just going to shoot from the hip and tell you whats going on and where we are going next.

Join me today as I discuss…

  • How one 25′ swale ditch changed how I see my property
  • How to build and use an A-Frame level
  • What is going on with Hugelkultur Project #2
  • Digging a ditch near trees, a sawzall is your friend
  • How to get your wife on board with major landscape changes
  • Keeping still ponds clean with reed beds and cattails
  • How a pond that doesn’t hold water can still fill up
  • Thoughts on Aquaponics, yea I think I am gonna do it
  • Frogs, pigeons, ducks and squirrel it is whats for dinner
  • Plans for the next Spirko dog, hoping it is a long time in our future
  • How Permaculture and survivalism are really the same
  • An awesome new DVD from Geoff Lawton

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

 

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Episode-788- Trevor Van Hemert on Composting

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Modern Survival| 14 Comments
Episode-788- Trevor Van Hemert on Composting [ 1:13:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Trevor Van Hemert of PedalToPetal.com

Trevor Van Hemert of PedalToPetal.com

Trevor Van Hemert runs Pedal to Petal a company that picks up food scraps from all over the city of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada. Pedal To Petal is a permaculture-based collective of bicycle loving food security activists who are taking direct action to reduce carbon emissions and landfill waste and to feed the soil and the city’s hungry.

They do all their pick up and transport via the use of bicycles with zero use of any fossil fuels. The finished compost is used to grow food in the same city where the components are collected and the compost is produced making Pedal to Petal a truly local business.

While most people would tend to expect Pedal to Petal to be a non profit business it is actually a very successful for profit enterprise proving that a business can be successful, profitable and still have a soul and a noble purpose.

Join Us Today as we Discuss…

  • What exactly is compost
  • What is compost useful for
  • How does nature make its own compost
  • What can and can not be composted
  • The science of composting
  • How long does composting take
  • Stages of the compost cycle
  • Carbon and nitrogen sources and ratios
  • Rat proofing compost bins
  • Composting with worms
  • Multi bin systems
  • Heating with compost
  • Aerobic vs anaerobic composting
  • Making bio gas
  • Composting humanure
  • Compost pit for water storage

Additional Resources for Today’s Show

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

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Episode-787- Paul Wheaton on Cast Iron Cooking, CFLs and Rocket Mass Heating

Posted on November 17, 2011 by Modern Survival| 68 Comments
Episode-787- Paul Wheaton on Cast Iron Cooking, CFLs and Rocket Mass Heating [ 1:47:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
Paul Wheaton - Founder of Permies.com

Paul Wheaton from Permies.com

So Paul Wheaton is back for another interview that basically means when the two of us get together you might as well strap in for about 90 minutes of information, entertainment and insanity.  No guarantee on the ratios by the way.

Today Paul joins us to discuss cooking with and caring for cast iron cookware, his work to determine the effectiveness of CFS (or lack there of) and building and utilizing rocket mass heaters.

Additionally tune in to learn about an event where you can meet both Paul and myself along with one of our mutual heroes, Sepp Holtzer.

Paul is the author of many articles both online and in many off line publications.  He is a pioneer in Permaculture and taking techniques to another level.  He has published hundreds of videos on his YouTube channel and works tirelessly to teach how profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Resources for Today’s Show…

Remember to comment, chime in and tell us your thoughts, this podcast is one man’s opinion, not a lecture or sermon. Also please enter our listener appreciation contest and help spread the word about our show. Also remember you can call in your questions and comments to 866-65-THINK and you might hear yourself on the air.

 

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