The Permaculture Podcast

And we return to the PDC material with Water, including how to harvest, store, treat, use, and conserve it.  As this is a topic includes numerous techniques, to help round that out are links to many of the points covered in the show for additional reading and follow up. Early on, I mentioned some percentages [...]

I had a great time interviewing Rachel and am thankful for her, and the other co-author K. Ruby Blume’s, perspectives on living a regenerative lifestyle based in permaculture. The artwork and photographs in the book are wonderful, it’s well written, easy to understand, and contains a number of hands on projects to get you started [...]

Neal from New Jersey wrote me a few days ago with the following questions.  I already had a chance to respond to him via email, so he could start working on this immediately, but this takes that response and expands on it a bit. 1) Is it bad to buy non-organic plants for your home [...]

This brings us to the next portion of the Permaculture Design Course with the very core ideas of permaculture: The Prime Directive, Ethics, and Principles that make permaculture permaculture. The Prime Directive, from Mollison, states: “The only ethical decisions is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children.” From there we [...]

One of the issues I’ve been faced with recently is having to change a design and how it is to be installed while in the middle of working on it.  This show is about some things that we need in order to be able to do so most effectively. They are: Knowledge Skills Tools Materials [...]

Have you ever been out in a garden or other location and wanted to get a measurement only to realize you were missing your tape measure or other tool?  This show will help prepare you so are always able to get an approximate idea of the distances and spaces you are dealing with.  Here you [...]

This episode is the first episode you should listen to when it comes to the very beginnings of Permaculture.  Including the history, early influences, and basic underlying reasons for it’s development.  This and the next, Core Concepts: Prime Directive, Ethics, and Principles, inform the rest of the process that goes into formulating and laying out [...]

And so begins the information that one could learn in a PDC.  This is a little late in the series of information, as it deals with animals, but I’ll work my way back around to the beginning with the next show.  I wanted to wrap up Tony’s question about animals and it was as good [...]

This question from Tony who asks: Is there, at least in theory, a “maximum size” in the utilization of Permaculture in an area? For example, the other day you illustrated your plans for your own property (I liked the “fishermen’s path,” btw), and with how remarkably detailed it all was I began to wonder “what [...]

This episode has the incredibly long title because I wanted to answer both of listener Troy’s questions at the same time. Though they are different ideas, the monetary yields, how you can save and make money implementing Permaculture, is an approachable way to share this information with other people. Finding that common thread and engaging [...]

This is another Q&A show, this time with a question from Tony. I actually take up two questions in this show, but the one that is the focus of most of this episode can be summed up as: How can people implement Permaculture in heavy human area, i.e. cities? Because I often focus on solutions [...]

This question come from Robert in Indiana, USA. He asked: Do you think getting a PDC would help if one day I wanted to start a sustainable lawn service or some sort of backyard permaculture business? My answer to this is a firm yes, but not only because of the knowledge imparted, but because of [...]

We’ve done it! We’ve made it! After all that time together working through these principles, it has come to and end and here is Holmgren’s final one. Principle 12: Creatively Use and Respond to change. I find this principle to be one about vision and dreaming up the possibilities of what the future can hold [...]

We are getting near the end of looking at Holmgren’s 12 Principles of Permaculture with this episode on Principle 11: Use Edges and Value the Marginal. After a brief introduction to what each one, numerous examples are given. There are a number of homework assignments as well. Give them a try and see what you [...]

We are nearing the end of this series on Holmgren’s 12 Principles of Permaculture this time looking at Principle 10: Use and Value Diversity. In this episode I mentioned how quickly the number of connections between elements in the system can grow. There is an equation, borrowed from Network Topology that shows this, if the [...]