100: Toby Hemenway on A Permaculture Way of Life
Toby is the author of a new book on urban and suburban permaculture, The Permaculture City, as well as Gaia’s Garden, the best-selling permaculture book in the world, which won the 2011 Nautilus award and was named one of the ten best gardening books of 2010 by The Washington Post. He has been an adjunct professor at Portland State University and Scholar-in-Residence at Pacific University. Toby is a well-known permaculture teacher and has taught over 70 Permaculture Design Courses. He and his wife, Key el, live in Sebastopol, California.
Listen in to our 100th episode and learn about:
- How he became a mid-level manager at a drug company and what happened on a day of playing hookey that changed his life.
- His path of learning from, and then working with, Tom Ward and Penny Livingston
- Taking a Permaculture Design Course
- His definition of Permaculture
- His definition of Sustainability and an important question to ask
- His definition of Regenerative
- How a beginner can get started with Permaculture
- What is a Permaculture Design Course and what will you learn?
- Why the concept of “Multiple Functions” is one of his favorites and what that is
- A “10 cent” tour on Patterns and how we can see them in nature and in our lives.
- Why he wrote the highly popular Gaia’s Garden
- Why The Permaculture City is so useful for Urban Farmers from small towns up to large metropolises
- His online class that he teaches at Urban Farm U
As well as:
- His biggest failure and successes
- What drives him
- What book has the biggest influence on him
- A special piece of advice for listeners
Books Toby has written:
Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture
The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience
Toby’s book mentions and recommendations:
Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual
On Growth and Form: The Complete Revised Edition
Where can you find Toby?
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