This is our core system with a heart of two 330 gallon recycled IBCs, running 2 ebb and flow beds, 8 soil based beds and one deep water bed.
This system could be expanded to have dozens and dozens more wicking beds. Still running on a single pump.
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This system is far more an aquatic system with aquaponic elements unlike the first system. Still it shows what can be done with only one small energy input. This system could expand almost infinitely with wicking beds.
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The third system is built on the timber frame pond concept we developed last year. This system is growing a ton on thing on shelves in the pond, it is also running 3 wicking beds and one ebb and flow bed.
Some Projects are Clearly Regenerative, Others Are Not So Clear
One of my really good friends and a man I have huge respect for in the permaculture movement recently noted that paraphrasing here, “nothing or very little about aquaponics is regenerative”. I both agree and disagree with this statement depending on how it is examined.
Broader though there are many such dilemmas in the world of agriculture and permaculture today. Take GMO for instance, while I am a staunch opponent of GMO, I can’t deny that GMO could be useful if properly used and not seen as a way to ignore soil health among other things.
What about where you buy what you can’t grow, is organic really more regenerative or even less bad for the environment than conventional in most instances? Well that is a big ass it depends isn’t it? If you are hunting, fishing and growing your own meat, and even buying meat local, should you never buy conventional meat, due to simple necessity or perhaps a desire for something you can’t get another way?
Say you take a piece of cattle panel and make a bean trellis with it, how long will it be before the calories from the beans will exceed the energy needed to make that panel, will it rust to the ground before that happens? Is that bad if you do it, should you feel shamed for using a product that works, is inexpensive and lasts a long time?
What about ocean fish, are they being over fished? I think most honest people would say we are better off on managing that than say 40 years ago but still we are very much over fishing. Worse while the US has a lot of common sense controls on fishing, we often just buy from nations that don’t, offshoring our damage?
So now full circle, say we have that aquaponics system, we produce 25 fish meals for our table a month we don’t buy from the market, well, how does that change our evaluation of aquaponics?
More over, technology is not slowing down and while industry does a lot of damage, a cleaner energy future is coming, how does that impact all these things? I will be doing sort of a self conversation with this concept today, challenging myself with questions and dilemmas like these, and would love to hear your thoughts on them in the comments below.
Join Me Today to Discuss…
Regenerative vs. sustainable vs. reduced impact – where do the lines blur
Can a some what imperfect action have a far reaching net positive result
Examining some examples of practices with an open mind
GMOs, can any good come from them
Soil conservation even with conventional farming
Raising quail in stacked systems
Aquaponics – what is the real impact
The average garden, how much good does it really do
Buying choices, local, organic, conventional, etc.
Materials we use in our projects, metal, plastic, recycled, etc.
Making cheap cider vs. all mash or extract beer from gain and hops
What might the impacts of future technology be on much of this
Should we revisit the idea of the 10 Percent Project
Why I feel individual actions even imperfect ones have the largest impact
Looking at your total impact vs. just individual components
The real question is how do we make more people want to do these things
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
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Jeff Reiland has worked in Commercial Agriculture and Biotechnology over 20 years striving to “feed the world” but now he is a Designer of Healthy & Productive Landscapes that Enable Resilient Communities. Jeff’s business, Abundant Design LLC, and personal lifestyle both center around living in harmony with the environment.
Growing up in rural Iowa he spent a lot of time outside on and around his family’s acreage, where he helped his dad and mom build their home. Scholarships and summer construction jobs helped him pay for college where he got his degree in Biology and Environmental Studies. Following college he did GPS field mapping and soil sampling, but after his company closed that part of the business he worked on a landscaping crew and dabbled in starting his own landscape company.
Job security and expectations drew him back to science, livestock and companion animal vaccine production and research, then to genetically modified crop research and testing. Interest in survival topics following Y2K led him eventually to the Survival Podcast, where Jack and then Diego Footer of Permaculture Voices inspired him to begin his entrepreneurial journey. Jeff is in the MSB and a PermaEthos Founding Member where he took his PDC.
Abundant Design strives for beautiful and productive landscapes, that will actually improve the quality of our waters, fertility of our soil, and the health of our planet.
He runs a local meetup for permaculture, teaches classes at a learning farm and volunteers at a local community orchard. He joins us today to discuss permaculture landscaping in the suburbs.
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
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Last week we talked about a lot of great new plants to grow for 2018 so today is a good time to talk about starting all those seeds you’ve ordered or will be ordering this month. Today’s show was prompted by a question about leggy seedlings of tomatoes grown for market sales, but I think it will help everyone.
Today’s show includes a segment from a show back in 2012. I am doing this to help save my voice during my cold (dubbed snot slinger flu). More so however, because I think this information is imperative to understanding how to get best results with seed starting, and frankly the way I teach it hasn’t changed in all these years.
Join Me Today To Discuss…
Understanding how seeds germinate in the wild (this answers so many questions)
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
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Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Geoff Lawton is a Permaculture consultant, designer and teacher. He first took his Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course in 1983. He holds a Diploma in Permaculture Education, Design, Implementation, System Establishment, Administration and Community Development. Both of these were awarded by the founder of Permaculture, Bill Mollison.
Geoff has undertaken thousands of jobs teaching, consulting, designing, administrating and implementing, in 6 continents and close to 50 countries around the world. Clients have included private individuals, groups, communities, governments, aid organizations, non-government organizations and multinational companies.
He has currently educated over 15,000 students in Permaculture worldwide. These include graduates of the Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course and courses focused on the practical design of sustainable soil, water, plant, animal, energy, structures, legal and economic systems.
Geoff has embraced the technology age. Not only is he the driving force behind the World Wide Permaculture Network (created in 2011), he also has an online training and education website named Geofflawton.com.
Geoff established Geofflawton.com in 2013 with the aim of educating as many people as possible in Permaculture and environmental sustainability. He has released Permaculture educational and inspirational films to his members regularly throughout each year and holds one Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) Course event per calendar year.
In 1996 he was accredited with the Permaculture Community Services Award by the Permaculture movement for services in Australia and around the world.
In October 1996 Bill Mollison, upon his retirement, asked Geoff to establish and direct a new Permaculture Research Institute of Australia (PRI Australia) on the 147-acre Tagari Farm. The Institute was a global networking centre for Permaculture projects. It is currently located at Zaytuna Farm at The Channon in Northern NSW, Australia. Geoff is the Managing Director.
The institute is a self funded non-profit company limited by guarantee. The institute has since founded PRI USA, PRI Jordan, PRI Sunshine Coast. Other Permaculture Research Institutes that have been launched or are in the process of being launched including: PRI Canada, PRI Chile, PRI Turkey, PRI Greece and PRI Afghanistan. PRI Australia won the Humanitarian Water & Food Award for 2010 for their initiative “Greening the Desert“.
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
Join the MSB Today
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Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Nick Ferguson is the host of the popular homesteading podcast Homegrown Liberty, is a Permaculture Designer and Consultant.
Nick was home schooled, and was able to attend college as early as 16 years old to supplement his education.
Nick also received his Permaculture Designers Course certificate from Geoff Lawton, course teacher for the Permaculture Research Institute Australia.
He now travels the USA and abroad teaching Regenerative Agriculture, and Holistic Homestead Design, and of course he is one of our Expert Council members.
Nick joins us today to discuss his new educational initiative and Hybrid PDC Course that will be released via YouTube and is supported through his Patreon page. You can learn about that project at www.patreon.com/homegrownliberty
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
Join the MSB Today
Want Every Episode of TSP Ever Produced?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Joel Salatin and his family own Polyface Farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Featured in the iconic foodie book Omnivore’s Dilemma and award-winning film FOOD INC., the farm’s moniker is “healing the land one bite at a time.” A prolific author (12 books to date) and speaker, he promotes local food systems, freedom of food choice, and farming systems that build the commons.
Joel joins us today to discuss his book, “Everything I Want to do Is Illegal” and what he calls, “War Stories from the Local Food Front”, also one of his books.
We will discuss what Joel’s farm produces and how he produces it. The biggest impediment to the success of small farms and how to balance concerns about food safety with common sense. What is missing in food choice for consumers today, the issue of “food sovereignty” and more.
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
Join the MSB Today
Want Every Episode of TSP Ever Produced?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
Since TSP announced the original Permaethos Model, Rob Kish has been working to make it a reality- with a few twists. He is a Manufacturing Engineer Technician for a medical equipment manufacturer and uses Permaculture troubleshooting methodology in an industry dominated by lean manufacturing to reduce costs and labor.
He joins us today to discuss my original vision for PermaEthos, a vision that never was achieved and frankly never attempted.
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
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Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
This project was a long time coming, I transformed a platform we had built for a water catchment tank into a 1400ish gallon fish tank using a EDPM liner.
The system currently has 4 ebb and flow beds but this is not true aquaponics but rather an aquatic system using a aquaponics component as a bio filtration system.
The body of this is built with 4×4 pressure treated lumber designed for ground contact. The first layer is 4 inches below grade and held into the limestone with 12 inch hot dipped galvanized spikes, which were aided in penetration by hammer drilling into the limestone layer. The other layers are each attached with 20, 6-inch galvanized spikes per course (5 per piece of lumber). Translation it isn’t going anyway.
Plans now include creating a floating plant island to prevent floating plants from being pummeled by the overflows and aeration wand. Adding cinder block towers and benches for emergent vegetation and of course adding a lot more fish. We also need to do some plain old landscaping around the area to make things look better now that the heavy part of the project is done.
In the spring and early summer talk a walk in the garden section of any big store or even typical smaller plant nurseries. Mostly you see peppers, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and a few other veggies and herbs.
There are so many other options though and many are tougher than our stand alone favorites. Fore instance so many people love growing tomatoes but in many areas they are plagued by early and late blight. You can usually get a decent yield and then you hit a wall, well why not grow tomatillos instead. They make fantastic salsa, are great grilled and are pretty much immune to most disease and pests.
Today we walk though 12 such options for your garden and in most of the country there is still time to get these guys up and running for your fall planting.
Join Us Today To Discuss these 12 Overlooked Garden Edibles…
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 (866-658-4465) and you might hear yourself on the air.
Join the MSB Today
Want Every Episode of TSP Ever Produced?
Remember in addition to discounts to over 40 vendors who supply stuff you are likely buying anyway, tons of free ebooks and video content, MSB Members also get every edition of The Survival Podcast ever produced in convenient zip files in blocks of 24. More info on the MSB can be found here.
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Nick Ferguson is the host of the popular homesteading podcast Homegrown Liberty, is a Permaculture Designer and Consultant.
