Environment

Wanting to demonstrate that “cities can be less impactful on the planet,” natural builder Lydia Doleman bought and remodeled a Portland house to demonstrate her values. Composting toilets reduce water usage while feeding the soil. Growing food shortens dependencies. Building materials were recycled and/or less toxic. She revised the floor plan to create spaces which encourage shared living rather than separate spaces. She also built Portland’s first permitted straw bale residence a cob studio and. Take a tour with Lydia in part 2.

Having learned "How Much Food Can I Grow Around My House?" (Peak Moment 87), Judy Alexander kept right on going. As chair of the Local 2020 Food Resiliency Action Group in Port Townsend, WA, she helped initiate 25 community gardens in her county within four years. Sitting in her own neighborhood's garden, she talks about the power of cooperative gardens compared with individual plots. There's something for people of all ages and skills to do (even non-gardeners), while enjoying learning from one another, and building closer neighbors and a more secure community.

More than a community garden, this sharing garden provides fresh produce for all who've contributed to it, with surplus going to the local food bank. Coordinators Chris Burns and Llyn Peabody note that with one large plot rather than separate plots, Alpine Sharing Garden enables more efficient food production — from watering to optimizing for pollinators. They share tips for getting started, garden planning, communicating with volunteers, garden practices like deep mulch, and especially the joy of giving without expecting a return.

Watch baker Jen Ownbey whip up a batch of zucchini bread while she talks with Janaia about doing what she loves. Every week, members of her bakery CSA (community supported agriculture) get a handmade, local, mostly organic, and even personalized box of breads and bakery desserts. Jen talks about getting started, selling wholesale and at growers markets, plus the joys, lessons, and challenges of running a solo business.

Take a tour, accompanied by curious sheep and geese, of Mark Cooper's self-sufficient small farm. Over several years, he transformed a rundown house and hillsides of berry brambles into pasture and gardens where he produces and preserves most of his family's food. Visit the Goose Grotto in a constructed pond, a heritage fruit tree orchard, logs producing shiitake mushrooms, and a cheap-and-easy container kitchen garden. Mark gives us a close-up view of the solar dehydrator he constructed from salvaged materials — and his tips on food drying.

Nevada County locals Loraine Webb and Jim Wray demonstrate the how and why of packaging bulk foods with nitrogen. They're using equipment available for community members to use at minimal cost. Jim demonstrates packaging: make plastic bags using a heat sealer, fill with foodstuffs, suck out the oxygen with a small vacuum, then replace the air with nitrogen and seal.

Former truck driver Bill Wilson tells an insightful story about the energy packed in a gallon of gas — which we won't always have in cheap abundance. Now a permaculture educator, he sees permaculture as a viable, realistic way to use nature to provide the abundance we really need — harvesting sunlight, food, wind, water and more. Can you guess what the magic stuff is that we all can't live without?

Jenny Pell's infectious enthusiasm will sweep you up into creating a future that's beyond sustainable — to one that's "additive." This lively permaculturist suggests that you belong where you live and get (re)connected to your "chain of inputs and outputs". She invites us to to regain skills, especially in food production, and to participate in creating abundance, which is "the only way forward, the only way for the human family to survive."

In Colorado it's cold for much of the year, but inside this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager and permaculturist Breigh Peterson: the greenhouse structure with its interplay of light and water, warmth and air; curving raised beds of vegetables and flowers; fish tanks moderating the temperature; vertical trellises and shelves to use vertical space. Outdoors a huge garden of row crops and a young orchard are complemented by free-roaming chickens and ducks.

The future is abundant, asserts permaculture designer Larry Santoyo. His vision of living in the present provides a wonderful antidote to fear about uncertain futures. People need to rediscover that we're part of the ecosystem, and apply permaculture design principles to the many problems we face. Larry teaches sustainable permaculture design as a discovery of the world around us. He notes that trying to be self-sufficient is really anti-permaculture. Instead, we need to develop self-reliance skills. Then as we find others in our communities to interact with, everybody gets to play!