My “farm” consists of 170 square feet of raised beds. We designed the space to have beds arranged in a U-shape with a center raised bed and walkways that make it easy to access all corners of the garden without stepping inside a bed. I affectionately call our garden Honey Hill Farm because my husband and I live at the top of a hill and Honey our beloved dog oversees all activity in and out of the garden.
Greg gets a chance to talk to Perrine, a delightful French organic farmer and permaculture enthusiast and hear how she transformed her life by ditching her career as a lawyer to start a self-sufficient, organic farm without any gasoline driven engines at all. Now, she and her husband are examples to others on how to successfully farm the old-fashioned way.
Fellow permaculturist and gardener Cricket Aldridge joins Greg in the studio to talk about her urban farm and how much she loves everything about it. She tells about some of her favorite aspects and what she’s able to grow or make from her harvests, from canning to mead making and many other things besides.
Greg interviews Kate, an herbalist with a focus on healing her community. She tells how she found her calling in herbalism and becoming a partner in an herbal product company and she explains why ethical harvesting of herbs is so important.
Wings on the Wind Healing Arts Center and Sanctuary. 3.2 acres
What are you growing? Everything: I will list some but there are too many to remember them all
Maximizing functions from landscape elements to save time, energy and money. Greg meets Shawn who explains a key permaculture concept of having multiple functions from one element. Shawn tells how he has designed many projects focusing on elements that have at least seven functions each. With his experience, he has brought together several examples in his new book and so he shares some ideas in this interview.
Our farmstead – Taproot Garden – is a 10-acre parcel. Those acres include 4 acres of woodland, 3 acres of native prairie which we reestablished 3 years ago with the help of the DNR and the Fish and Wildlife Service, a quarter-acre garden, a quarter-acre chicken yard (home to 30 laying hens), plus house, barn, small greenhouse, labyrinth and yard.
Greg chats with an organic seed farmer and educator Don Tipping who shares his story about how he started growing seeds. Don also explains how and why a couple cooperatives got started including the Open Source Seed Initiative. He has been able to open his farm to host intensive seed academy classes and he guides Greg through the topics that are covered.
I live in Columbus, Ohio on a .28-acre plot. I have a corner lot and it is mostly flat but I do have a slight slope at the East side of my yard. My front yard is larger than my back yard; therefore, I planted a vegetable and rain garden in my front yard.
Greg gets to hear about a new topic on the podcast when he chats with Brandon who shares the basics about Natural Building. A life-long lover of the outdoors, Brandon tells how he found what he had been looking for in a building process that has been around for many centuries.
