

The Permaculture Podcast
Scott Mann
Caring for Earth, Ourselves, and Each Other.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 14, 2025 • 7min
Designing Out the Designer
A response to Geoff's comment about designing out the designer, from my recent episode about my design process.
What I'm Reading: People and Permaculture
What I'm Listening To (Music Video): Psycho Killer by The Talking Heads
Getting to Know One Another:
What song(s) or musical artist(s) defined your life, now or when you were growing up?

Jul 11, 2025 • 57min
Karryn Olson: A Pattern Language for Women in Permaculture
Karryn Olson-Ramanujan, an environmental educator and permaculture designer from South Dakota, shares her insights on empowering women in permaculture. She introduces a unique pattern language to enhance female leadership and discusses the intersection of gender, motherhood, and sustainable living. Olson highlights the need for inclusivity and self-reflection to reshape perceptions in the predominantly white permaculture community. She advocates for the '30% solution' to address gender disparities and emphasizes valuing traditionally feminine roles to foster a more diverse permaculture movement.

Jul 4, 2025 • 43min
Rhonda Baird - Being Present for Ourselves and Others
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My guest for today is Rhonda Baird, editor of Permaculture Design Magazine, and designer and educator at Sheltering Hills Design, LLC.
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Jun 27, 2025 • 48min
Rhonda Baird - Organizing and Supporting Our Communities
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Rhonda Baird, the editor of Permaculture Design Magazine and teacher and designer at Sheltering Hills Design, LLC., joins me to continue our conversation about creating change. In our first interview, we spoke about the way that we can work on ourselves as individuals. Today we move from the inside to the out with how we can organize and support others and our community.
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Jun 20, 2025 • 43min
Owen Wormser - Designing for Clients: From Consultation to Implementation
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When I left my permaculture design course I was fairly comfortable walking the landscape and looking for areas of shade or full sun, and tracking how that would change throughout the day. To walk barefoot after a brief rain to feel where the soil drained quickly or to find spots where water pooled, even if I couldn’t see it with my eyes. To build either a water or an A-frame level to plot and map contours. I knew how to make a base map, a plant list, and to use those to put together a design. With shears and a pocket knife, I could prune limbs or loosen pot-bound roots. With a shovel and spade, I could dig holes and put plants in the ground.
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Jun 16, 2025 • 14min
Q&A: Client-Centered Design
In the first of the new, Q&A episodes, Owen asks:
"What is your design process? (site analysis, implementation, and how you approach a design)"

Jun 13, 2025 • 44min
Owen Wormser - Turning Lawns into Meadows
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My guest today is Owen Wormser. Owen is a sustainable landscape designer from Western Massachusetts and author of Lawns into Meadows: Growing a Regenerative Landscape, from Stonepier Press.
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Jun 6, 2025 • 42min
Annie Raser-Rowland - The Art of Frugal Hedonism
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Want to listen to more conversations about Permaculture?
Browse the extensive archives of the show.
Can you live an enjoyable, self-indulgent life while remaining thrifty and at the same time not overtaxing Earth’s resources? To have all of that sounds too good to be true.
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May 16, 2025 • 1h 19min
Holistic Management with Allan Savory
If you’re new to the world of permaculture, you may not be familiar with the work of Dan Palmer, who passed away in 2022, as his website and podcast don’t circulate or get mentioned as often as they used to.
His website, makingpermaculturestronger.net, is still available, where you can explore his archives. I recommend taking the time to do so, as it’s worth the journey.
It’s because of Dan, as the host of this episode, that I reshare this interview. With his gentle nature, his desire to go deeper into what made design and implementation more effective, and how he synthesized all that knowledge into something actionable, Dan was a positive voice for change to so many, including myself.
Enjoy this interview, originally released in 2020.
Support the Show
Become a Patron on Patreon: patreon.com/permaculturepodcast
Donate directly at paypal.me/permaculturepodcast or using Venmo: @permaculturepodcast
You can also book me for a meandering or design consultation. Find out more about those at: thepermaculturepodcast.com/meandering

May 12, 2025 • 8min
The Permaculture Podcast is Back!
The world is on fire and needs us, all of us, to care and show up. Each of us needs permaculture, so here I am, back at it again, sharing more from beneath this big, beautiful umbrella of philosophy, design, and implementation.
In this episode, I share a bit about where things are at, what the show will look like moving forward, and what to expect from here.
Support the Show
Become a Patron on Patreon: patreon.com/permaculturepodcast
Donate directly at paypal.me/permaculturepodcast or using Venmo: @permaculturepodcast
You can also book me for a meandering or design consultation. Find out more about those at: thepermaculturepodcast.com/meandering
If you’d like to drop something in the mail, contact me, and I’ll send you my current mailing address, as we’re in the process of moving to a new city hundreds of miles from our current home.
Contact the Show
If you’d like to share your thoughts on this episode, have ideas for types of episodes to try, questions I can answer on air, or want to contact me about a potential collaboration, you can reach me by:
Leave a comment
Use the contact form at thepermaculturepodcast.com
Sending me an email: show@thepermaculturepodcast.com
Sending a message via Text or WhatsApp to: +1 717.827.6266