Regenerative Skills

In this ongoing series on homesteading I’ve talked to a lot of people who’ve given us really practical information on how to make the transition to a more self-sufficient way of life and connect with nature in the process. We’ve explored how to start businesses on your land, grow and produce your own food, as well as forage for wild food and medicine. In this episode we’ll take a look at the softer side of the homesteading lifestyle in talking about the inner transformations and the feelings connected to rewilding and reconnecting to the land. For this perspective, I spoke to Ayana Young who made a drastic change in a short time from living in downtown Manhattan to living with minimal amenities in the redwood forest in northern California. We explore the motivations behind such a drastic change as well as the inner transformation that can take place during the journey. We also explore the personal sides of managing expectations, mental adjustments to a new environment, and the benefits and drawbacks of living so removed from modern life. Given that I’m normally very focused on the practical, logical and hard science side of ecosystem regeneration and lifestyle transition, it did me a lot of good to take the time to ponder the inner journey that takes place and to consider how others think and feel about the upheavals of these transformations and transitions.   Back when I spoke with Ayana we were not yet in pandemic lockdown here in Spain, but now that we are and now that the quarantine has been extended until at least April 11th, it looks like we here, and many people all around the world are getting a taste of isolated living, even though we may not have moved at all or are only one door away from many neighbors. These drastic transformations are bringing out extreme and unusual feelings in people, myself included, and I’m hearing more and more urgency in developing alternative livelihoods and support systems for ourselves and our communities. I myself was in the process of purchasing a small farm with my partner when everything shut down here in Spain and the process has been suspended indefinitely, but the two of us feel more committed than ever to move to a situation in which we can be of direct help to our community here by providing healthy food and offering learning opportunities to the people around us who are also looking to make a transition. We are living in uncertain and stressful times, but know that you’re not alone in this journey. We will all need to work together and help each other out in the coming transition to a regenerative society. Though I certainly have low moments and doubts these days, I’m also confident that truly good and beautiful examples of human ingenuity and compassion will come out of this pandemic and that our communities will band together in new and inspiring ways to lift us collectively out of this and away from the trajectory of destruction and consumption that we’ve been on before now.  If you’ve been enjoying these episodes I’d encourage you to look through the archives of the Abundant Edge podcast for more inspiration and practical information on everything from natural building for low cost, high quality housing, to growing your own food, planning regenerative farms, and much much more in over 150 episodes. This information and the community connections that it can create are more important and urgent now than ever. Thank you all so much for listening and supporting this show. I hope this finds you all safe, healthy and in good company. Resources: https://forthewild.world/

Continuing with our ongoing series on homesteading I wanted to talk to someone with a bit more of a similar experience to my own. More than once now I’ve found myself in a new country and starting to build a permaculture inspired, self-sufficient, homestead lifestyle. There are a lot of unique challenges and difficulties when operating in a new place, a different country, or a whole new continent. Zac Barton contacted me a while ago after listening to this podcast to tell me about his own story of settling in a foreign place to pursue the permaculture dream and I felt compelled to share it with you in this episode. Zac first went to visit Nepal back in 2005 on a short volunteering trip and immediately fell in love with the country and the people there. Since then he has worked with a diverse group of projects through the Kamala Foundation which he founded, all based around ecosystem abundance and healthy community building. In this episode we talk about the climate, land and cultural context of Nepal which has fascinated me for a long time. Zac also talks a lot about the challenges he had in getting his homestead and permaculture teaching site off the ground, as well as the influence and impact that it’s had on his surrounding community. Just as importantly he shares the impact and influence that the community has had on him and how it has informed and altered his own goals.  Homesteading in a foreign country is a topic that I really love, not only because I’ve lived it myself a few times, but because every region has its own traditions of working the land and rich knowledge bases to draw from and inform a healthy relationship with the local ecology and communities. If you’re listening to this and have your own foreign permaculture story to share, please tell me about it.

In the first half of this interview I spoke with Pam Dawling, the author of “The Year-Round Hoop House'' about the most important information about siting, building, irrigating and soil care for extending crop growing in hoop houses. I tap in to Pam’s extensive knowledge of feeding 100 people in the Twin Oaks Intentional Community in Virginia, mostly from her 30’ by 100’ hoop house and the details of that particular setup.  In the second half of the interview we turn to a topic that so many of you listeners have written to me about, and that’s communal living. These days there’s a renewed interest in ecovillages, intentional communities, and various configurations of communities like that. Many of you who’ve been listening for a while know that I’ve been fascinated by these dynamics and community configurations for a long time too.  Pam gives great insights about her personal motivations for moving to a communal living situation as well as the decision making structure, and many other dynamics that have kept Twin Oaks together since its creation in 1967. Though we recorded this interview a while ago, there’s a lot of relevant information to the current world pandemic situation in that we talk a lot about the resilience and security inherent to land based and semi autonomous living.  I want to also send a quick message of solidarity to all of you around the world who have been affected by the coronavirus outbreak and economic impact of the response. As I’m recording this we’re in the second day of a nationwide quarantine here in Spain where all but essential services and businesses are closed for a two week minimum in order to halt the infection rates. Now more than ever we have an opportunity to rethink the way our communities and lifestyles are configured and how they interact with the environments immediately around us and around the world. In times like these it’s impossible not to see how every part of the planet is connected and how all of our actions, habits, lifestyles and consumption affect everyone else, more directly than ever. To prevent tragedies like this from becoming the new norm we urgently need to restore our damaged environment and work to create earth-wide resilience by regenerating the foundations of our food chains in the form of soil and water resources from which all other life is derived. We must find a way to create societies and cultures based on the care and creation of life in all its forms, not just our own. This unfortunate epidemic can serve as a positive event if it becomes the wake-up-call that inspires massive action on a global scale to completely reinvent the way our economies are structured from those based on resource extraction to those based on resource creation and stewardship. Many of us who have benefitted from the sequestration of wealth from around the world to afford us our comfort and relative abundance, including myself, have the choice to use this privilege to lift other people and other forms of life up, even though it means we compromise our own comfort and ease of living.  On a more personal note, I truly hope that this message finds all of you in good health and in good company. We need each other. We need community. You’re not in this alone. If any of you feel like reaching out through the comments on the website or by email, I would love to hear what you find inspiring and uplifting in these difficult times.  Resources: https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/ https://newsociety.com/books/y/the-year-round-hoophouse https://newsociety.com/books/s/sustainable-market-farming https://www.twinoaks.org/

Welcome to another episode in this ongoing series on homesteading. In this session I reached out to John Moody, the author of many books including “DIY Sourdough, The Elderberry Book” and the one we’ll be focusing on today “The Frugal Homesteader.”  John is also the founder of Whole Life Services and Whole Life Buying Club and is the former executive director of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. Like many of the people interviewed in this series, John decided to make a major transition in his lifestyle when he discovered that his diet was literally killing him with duodenal ulcers, seasonal allergies, and other health problems, so he and his growing family began to transition to real local foods and local food distribution and life on a homestead on 35 acres in rural Kentucky. Since then he has become a well-known speaker at conferences, events, and media including Mother Earth News, Wise Traditions, and others.  In this interview we focus on the many creative ideas that he covers in the “The Frugal Homesteader.” More than just a list of tips and tricks, John promotes a mindset of resourcefulness and problem solving that is based on long term thinking and looking at the bigger picture. We cover a lot of real examples from his own experiences in setting up a homestead for the first time and both successes and failures that lead to great solutions.  The best part is that listeners of this show will have the opportunity to win a free copy of John’s book “The Frugal Homesteader.” Here’s how it works, just leave a review of The Abundant Edge Podcast on iTunes and take a screenshot of your review. Send it to info@abundantedge.com along with the address where you’d like to receive your mail and I’ll send the book to the first person I receive an email from. If you live outside of the US or Canada, you can just send the email and we’ll send you a digital copy. If you don’t win this time, don’t worry, I’ll be giving away a ton more books from new society publishers this season so stay tuned each week for your chance to win more books. If you’ve already left a review on iTunes you can share this episode on your prefered social media platform, take a screenshot and send an email just the same. These steps really help us to reach a larger audience with this information and message of actionable steps that anyone can take towards ecological regeneration so I really appreciate you all who’ve been helping me get the word out. I’ll be looking forward to your emails and sending those books out soon. Resources: https://johnwmoody.com/ Get your copy of "The Frugal Homesteader" The Whole Life Buying Club

Continuing with this ongoing series on homesteading, I reached out to Deborah Niemann, the author of many books including “Homegrown and Handmade, Eco-thrifty, Just Kidding and Raising Goats Naturally” which is now in its second edition. She also blogs at thriftyhomesteader.com, hosts the podcast “For the love of goats' ' and co owns Antiquity Oaks, a small farm in Cornell, Illinois. Like nearly everyone in this interview series, Deborah didn’t grow up on a farm or a homesteading lifestyle at all. Her transition to a healthier and more earth connected way of living lead her to teach others how to care for animals, grow their own food and much more. In this episode I talk to Deborah about just how realistic it is for someone to hope to produce all their own food and how much time it takes her and her husband each week to produce 100 percent of their own meat, eggs, maple syrup, and dairy products, as well as a good portion of your vegetables, fruit, herbs, and honey. We also dissect her book “Homegrown and Handmade to understand some of the most important considerations and plans that she recommends for people looking to get started in a whole range of small farm enterprises like market gardening, small orchards, micro-dairy, meat animals, poultry, fiber and sugar production. This is a really inspiring interview for people who think that you need a whole team, a bunch of machinery or a ton of land to produce an abundance of a wide range of products. Deborah does a great job of breaking things down into manageable steps that you can follow to grow and develop your homestead operations sustainably. The best part is that listeners of this show will have the opportunity to win a free copy of Deborah’s book “Homegrown and Handmade.” Here’s how it works, just leave a review of The Abundant Edge Podcast on iTunes and take a screenshot of your review. Send it to info@abundantedge.com along with the address where you’d like to receive your mail and I’ll send the book to the first person I receive an email from. If you live outside of the US or Canada, you can just send the email and we’ll send you a digital copy. If you don’t wind this time, don’t worry, I’ll be giving away a ton more books from new society publishers this season so stay tuned each week for your chance to win more books. If you’ve already left a review on iTunes you can share this episode on your prefered social media platform, take a screenshot and send an email just the same. These steps really help us to reach a larger audience with this information and message of actionable steps that anyone can take towards ecological regeneration so I really appreciate you all who’ve been helping me get the word out. I’ll be looking forward to your emails and sending those books out soon. Resources: Homegrown and Handmade Raising Goats Naturally Ecothrifty Goats Giving Birth For the Love of Goats Podcast Antiquity Oaks

In the past I’ve done a lot of episodes focusing on specific skills and enterprises that people integrate into a regenerative lifestyle, but in this series I’m going to be speaking with people who’ve put a bunch of those pieces together into a lifestyle centered on positive interactions with nature and a move towards self sustainability.  Homesteading is a general term that originally comes from the homesteading acts in the United States which were a series of laws enacted between 1862 up until the 1930s which allowed an applicant to acquire ownership of government land or otherwise public land for free or very cheap if they lived on and farmed that land for a set period of time. Canada and Australia also had similar policies in their past to promote expansion and settlement of their large countries when they were newly colonized. These days, since the acts have long since expired, homesteading has come to mean a lifestyle of self sufficiency and is more characterized by subsistence farming, back-to-the-land movements and small scale home economics. Different areas around the world have different names for this concept, for example a smallholding or a croft in the UK are fairly synonymous with a homestead. Given the rise in popularity of homesteading and people wanting to reconnect with nature and learn to work more intimately with the land to produce their needs and livelihood, I wanted to create a series that helps people who are aspiring to this kind of lifestyle prepare themselves for the dramatic changes and the many wonderful options available to them. Homesteading isn’t just one thing. Far from it in fact. The people interviewed in this series will explain how they made the transition from a more conventional and dependent life, to one of more autonomy. They’ll explain the struggles, lessons, victories and failures that got them to where they are and what advice they would give to others starting out. So especially for those of you who dream of making a big lifestyle change, this series is for you. Now let’s jump into the first interview in this series. Many of the people I know who’ve made a big change in their life towards self sufficient living in nature were inspired to do so after a major wake-up call event, and Natalie Bogwalker was no different. After a serious bike accident caused her to re-evaluate her life choices she decided to go “all-in” and went to live primitively in the woods at the Wild Roots community in North Carolina. After years of immersion and learning in that lifestyle, she became motivated to share her knowledge with more people and create a larger community movement.  In this interview Natalie talks about her journey of making such a drastic change early on in her life, what she learned from the experience and how it has informed the way she lives and teaches on her homestead now. She breaks down a lot of the routines and time investments on the different operations of her place and how the dynamics of having different operations like the classes and workshops, apprenticeship programs and other community connections affect everyday life. Some of my favorite moments are from Natalie’s observations from experience living very primitively to the more modern and connected way she lives now and her recommendations for people weighing their options and considering a move to one of these lifestyles. She also gives great practical information on wild plant resources as food and medicine and much more. Like every interview in this series, Natalie’s setup and lifestyle represent a few of the millions of options out there for how to plan, build, and run a homestead and it’s meant to give you ideas and pragmatic insights from people who are doing and living this every day Resources: WildAbundance.net Wild Abundance Permaculture Classes Wild Abundance Blog

After 11 interviews with experts on native reforestation, holistic orchard management, water retention landscapes, perennial crop agriculture and more, I learned a lot of new things about the state of the world's forests and the tools and knowledge we have to regenerate them. In this special episode wrapping up the series on reforestation and agroforestry I’ll break down some of the information and statistics that will help you understand the major role that forests play in maintaining a healthy climactic balance on earth. I’ll also break down how both past and current practices have put forests at risk all over the world and how even many well intentioned projects are causing unintended damage. By the end I’ll replay a few of the key insights from the experts that I interviewed in this series that will give you hope that we already have successful examples of effective native forest restoration and management to help to carve out a new future for these crucial ecologies moving forward. I also highly recommend taking the time to listen to the full interviews with Jairo Rodriguez, Alex Kronick, Kristen Krash, James Potter, Pieter Van Midwoud, Peter Khan, Neal Spackman, Darren Doherty, Stefan Sobkowiak, Mark Shepard, and Shubhendu Sharma. Don’t forget to reach out if you like these kinds of episodes so I know to make more. If you'd prefer to read all this information or even print it out, you can find the article here Resources: Interview with Jairo Rodriguez Interview with Alex Kronick Interview with Kristen Krash Interview with James Potter Interview with Pieter Van Midwoud Interview with Peter Khan Interview with Neal Spackman Interview with Darren Doherty Interview with Stefan Sobkowiak Interview with Mark Shepard Interview with Shubhendu Sharma http://www.fao.org/3/XII/1018-B2.htm https://www.reuters.com/article/ozatp-climate-forests-idAFJOE7AN04G20111124 https://www.livescience.com/27692-deforestation.html https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14112-how-long-does-it-take-a-rainforest-to-regenerate/ https://fellowsblog.ted.com/how-to-grow-a-forest-really-really-fast-d27df202ba09 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/how-to-regrow-forest-right-way-minimize-fire-water-use/ https://www.wri.org/resources/maps/atlas-forest-and-landscape-restoration-opportunities https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150909124051.htm https://ensia.com/voices/tree-planting-afforestation-carbon-sequestration/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/08/why-amazon-doesnt-produce-20-percent-worlds-oxygen/ https://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/more-trees-than-there-were-100-years-ago-its-true https://issues.org/kahn-2/

Welcome to the last interview in the Reforestation and Agroforestry series. We’ve covered so many important aspects of this topic in 10 interviews over 4 months. I’ve spoken to homesteaders regenerating cloud forests in tropical climates, tech companies with more than 20 tree planting initiatives around the world, agroforestry and orchard advocates and everything in between, and this last conversation is the icing on the cake. If you’ve ever wondered how to restore a mature native forest in record time and on a modest budget, this is the episode for you, because today I’ll be speaking with Shubhendu Sharma, a former automotive engineer for Toyota who has planted both small and large native forests around the world through this company Afforestt which specializes in making natural forests of native trees.  In this interview Shubhendu talks about how he applied his engineering mindset to systematize accelerated native forest planting and create open source manuals that anyone can access and follow. He explains in detail how a dense mature forest can be planted, even in a desertified region, by taking care of soils, selecting the right species, and planting densely.  Towards the end of this interview you’ll hear Shubhendu and I talking about the possibility of the launch of a new kickstarter campaign to create a video series on how to plant your own native forest in record time anywhere in the world. I’m happy to announce that the kickstarter is now live and open for donations. If, by the time you’re done listening to this episode you can see how much value there will be in making this information available in an easy to follow video format then I highly encourage you to follow the link in the show notes for this episode and donate whatever you can to help make this happen. I’ve already put in my donation and am really excited to start planting in my own area of Spain. No matter where in the world you live or work, reforestation could have a big impact on regenerating the health and biodiversity of your ecosystem. Resources: https://www.afforestt.com/ Support the Afforestt video tutorial project on Kickstarter today! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/shubzsharma/video-tutorials-to-make-your-own-forest?ref=user_menu Miyawaki Method explained Open Source documents on how to grow your own native forest

Welcome everyone to the first episode of a brand new season of the Abundant Edge podcast. I can’t believe I’m starting the fourth year of this little pet project that I had three years ago after I had just moved to Guatemala and was wrapping up an internship on bamboo building, and now here I am, having moved to north eastern Spain and with more than 50 thousand of you incredible folks tuning in to this show every month from all around the world. I’m so happy to be able to keep this show going and I’m really excited to start a new season with a brand new website that makes it easier than ever to search for topics, names, categories and really anything you want to help you access great information from more than 140 interviews in our archives. I really encourage you all to check it out if you haven’t yet, and of course, if you enjoy the content of this show, please consider leaving us a review on iTunes or whichever service provider you use. More than anything this helps me to get these episodes out and into the ears of more people, and that means more people equipped with the knowledge and techniques to begin to heal and regenerate this planet.  That’s enough of the prologue, let’s jump into today’s episode. For those of you who’ve been following the last handful of episodes you know that we’re deep into an ongoing series on reforestation and agroforestry, and though most of the previous interviews have been with people working directly to plant trees and restore native forests, I decided to switch the focus for this session for two important reasons. The first, is that without good soil and access to water very few things will grow or at least they’ll take much much longer to get established. The second, is that Mark Shepard, founder of New Forest farm in Wisconsin and the author of Restoration Agriculture, has finally just released his much awaited second book called Water for Any Farm which outlines his revolutionary expansion on P A Yeoman’s original classic called Water for Every Farm.  In this interview I got to speak with Mark about how his decades of experience on his own farm as well as designing and consulting on farms all over the country helped him to solve some of the shortcomings from the original keyline design system. We start by talking about how the mismanagement of land and water has created the conditions we have today all over the world where topsoil is constantly eroded and water quickly becomes a destructive force rather than a rejuvenating one if it's left to run over naked landscapes. Mark goes into a lot of detail to describe how to read your landscape and identify key points that can be used as references for keylines to direct water all across your land in a way that slows it down and rehydrates it. We talk about what machinery and tools he recommends for major earthworks, the installation of different types of ponds, building soil over large acreage, and much more. I get sent a lot of books to look over and review before speaking with authors and I often don’t have time to read them very thoroughly, but this one, Water for Any Farm I really took the time to understand because of the incredible potential that this system has for increasing the productivity and resilience of any landscape, not just from an agricultural perspective. Adjusting the water harvesting capacity of your terrain can have an important impact on any kind of regeneration project and help with weathering severe climate events too. It’s especially relevant to the ongoing series on reforestation and agroforestry because the earthworks method outlined in the book is how Mark was able to regenerate a damaged farm surrounded by monoculture corn crops into the highly productive oak savannah mimicking ecosystem based around the pillars of hazelnut and chestnut orchards.I highly recommend you check it out. I’ve put links to where you can buy it and learn more about Mark and his work in the show notes for this episode on the webs...

Here we are! The end of 2019 and season three of this podcast. For those of you who’ve been following this show for a while you know that I went through a lot of big changes this year, most notably a big move from the permaculture farm startup that I worked on for for about 16 months in Guatemala. From there I took some big trips through southern Mexico and the US and a bit in Canada to where I finally settled down in the Catalonia region of north easthern Spain. Though I live really far away from where I started the year, I thought it’d be a good chance here at the end of the season to check in with Neal Hegarty, the co-owner of Granja Tz’ikin in Guatemala, where this year began for me, to see how things have progressed and developed since I moved away. I know a lot of you followed along on our journey through the regenerative round table sessions of last season as we planned and started building out the design for the farm, so hearing how the design is starting to mature should be a good update. In this interview Neal fills me in on how the animal enterprises that were just taking shape while I was there are becoming more consistent and regimented and how they feed the other enterprises on the farm like the cafe/restaurant, the permaculture courses, the development of the hostel space and much more. They’ve also made some important alliances in their community and around Guatemala that are helping them reach more people in their village in their goal to facilitate a better market for high quality local farm products and a better price for wholesale goods. We also talk about some of the promising big design projects that Neal is taking on which have the potential to regenerate large acreage of damaged land in some of the most biodiverse regions of Peten in the north of the country. As I mentioned, this episode wraps it up for season 3. 2019 was a really major year for me personally and for the audience of this podcast. Together with you listening we more than doubled the subscribers to this show and I got so much beautiful and heartfelt feedback from so many of you that it really renewed my faith that this show is bringing the information and the inspiration that many of you are looking for. So thank you sincerely to everyone who has supported this show and sent feedback this year. Thanks to New Society Publishers especially for their collaboration and support and for making it possible to provide this content without any long pleas for patreon donations. Being able to advocate for an organization with integrity and strong ethics means the world to me. Season 4 of The Abundant Edge podcast will kick off strong again with brand new episodes starting on February 7th but stay tuned because I’ll be reposting the most popular shows from this last year again until I return. Resources: Granja Tz’ikin Website Podcast RSS