964: Building a Permaculture Babysitting Coop

With Beatrice Nathan...Curious permaculture story

In This Podcast: Beatrice Nathan joins the podcast to explore how permaculture principles can be applied to family life, childcare, and community resilience. She shares her journey from home gardening to teaching permaculture, and launching a Village Roots childcare co-op. The conversation weaves together food production, social permaculture, and mutual aid as practical responses to modern parenting and systemic stress. This episode highlights slow, small solutions that build trust, connection, and long-term community health.

Our Guest:  Beatrice Nathan is a home gardener, permaculture teacher, turmeric farmer, and mom to two boys. She is passionate about reweaving the web of social support, empowering ordinary people to grow food and teaching practical design principles. She believes that we all have a part to play in creating a better future.

Key Topics & Entities

• Beatrice Nathan
• Permaculture ethics (Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share)
• Social permaculture
• Village Roots Childcare Co-op
• Babysitting co-ops / time-based exchange
• Front-yard food gardens
• Community resilience
• Parenting and childcare affordability
• Permaculture zones applied to time and energy
• Degrowth philosophy
• Permaculture Design Course (PDC)
• Ruby Ranch (Asheville, NC)

Key Questions Answered

What is permaculture beyond gardening?

Permaculture is a framework for living a good life, offering ethics and principles that can be applied to land stewardship, relationships, parenting, and community design—not just gardens.

How does a childcare co-op work without money?

Families exchange babysitting hours using a shared spreadsheet. Hours earned caring for one family’s children can be used with any family in the co-op, building trust and flexibility without cash.

Why is childcare so challenging for families today?

High costs, limited availability, misaligned schedules, and the emotional toll on young children make conventional childcare inaccessible or unsustainable for many families.

How does the Village Roots Childcare Co-op embody permaculture?

The co-op applies permaculture ethics and principles like slow and small solutions, stacking functions, feedback loops, and people care to meet real childcare and community needs.

How can permaculture help parents—especially mothers—avoid burnout?

By reframing priorities through concepts like zones of time and energy, permaculture helps parents let go of nonessential commitments and focus on connection during demanding life seasons.

What’s the value of front-yard food gardens?

Front-yard gardens invite conversation, sharing, and relationship-building with neighbors, turning food production into a social connector.

How can someone start a similar co-op in their community?

Start small, set a geographic boundary, clearly communicate expectations, onboard families personally, and use existing guides and templates to reduce friction.

Why is community-building increasingly important?

As larger systems become more fragile, hyper-local, trust-based networks like co-ops, time banks, and tool libraries help meet needs when institutions fall short.

Episode Highlights

• Permaculture as a life framework, not just a land design tool
• Applying permaculture ethics to childcare and family systems
• Designing a babysitting co-op using time instead of money
• Front-yard gardens as hubs for neighborhood connection
• Reframing permaculture zones around time, energy, and life seasons
• Degrowth, relocalization, and mutual aid as practical responses to system stress
• Teaching permaculture through lived, community-based examples

Calls to Action & Resources

• Village Roots show notes — urbanfarm.org/villageroots
• Grow & Harvest Asheville — https://growandharvestasheville.com
• Permaculture at Ruby Ranch (PDC) — https://growandharvestasheville.com
• Substack: Collapsing Into Permaculture — Collapsing Into Permaculture
• Substack guide referenced: Cramming for the Apocalypse
• Instagram: Grow & Harvest AVL — Grow_Harvest_AVL

Visit UrbanFarm.org/VillageRoots for the show notes and links on this episode!

Need a little bit of advice or just a feedback on your design for your yard or garden?

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