Agriculture made us enemies of the Earth. Live Free or Die star Tony Troia explains how forest gardening can turn us back into best friends.
Tony and Amelia eating in their forest garden on their National Geographic reality TV show “Live Free or Die
Engineer develops method for growing mature, dense food forests in just 10 years
Most of the world we live in today was once forest, our natural habitat for millions of years.
One-acre garden provides fruit, veggies and eggs for 50 families with very little labor
More and more people are learning growing food doesn’t have to be hard work. When you work with nature instead of against it, it does much of the work for you.
Earthworms build topsoil from scratch and increase food production up to 75 percent, meta-analysis finds
In order to “meet the challenge of feeding a growing world population,” soil scientists from the Netherlands have published a report on what they believe is one the most important factors effecting crop production — earthworms.
After thousands of years of turning the soil upside-down, farmers are finally realizing they’re killing the microorganisms that keep soil alive… Faced with losing the farm, more and more are converting to the ancient “n0-till” methods of permaculture
In the no-till gardening method seedlings are planted into tiny holes drilled with as little disturbance to the soil as possible. Credit: www.charlesdowding.co.uk
To “till” soil means to dig it up, stir it, or turn it over. Whether it’s done with a shovel, a hoe, a pick or a plow, the goal is to turn over the upper layer of the soil, bringing fresh nutrients to the surface, while burying weeds.
Tilling has been the hallmark of agriculture, since its inception, with the plow being the most intensive tool to this end.
But 10,000 years after we started doing it, humans are finally starting to question whether digging up the Earth is the smartest way to make her produce for us.
Toilets waste massive amounts of water and essential nutrients that could be used in place of chemical fertilzers
An article in I F**king Love Science encourages people to pee in their showers to save water and the planet “just a little bit.”
They calculate the average American uses around 4000 gallons of water flushing pee down the toilet per year, peeing an average of 7 times per day.
More than half of all animal species have disappeared in the last 50 years… Scientists warn humans could be next if we don’t make major changes
Earth’s 5th mass extinction was 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs and countless other species disappeared. Humans could go out with the 6th, if they don’t make some major changes quick… but no one seems to care or even notice that it’s happening.
“Earth’s sixth mass extinction event is underway,” the headlines of dozens of major newspapers warned last summer.
Family grows 7000 pounds of organic food per year on a tenth of an acre, supplying 90 percent of their vegetarian diet… They spend less than $2 per day per person on other kitchen staples and make over $20,000 a year selling excess produce
Fifteen minutes from downtown Los Angeles, just 100 feet away from a major freeway, a small city lot was transformed into a mini paradise.
In a recent post, I wrote about why permaculture is humanity’s last hope for long-term survival. We could go back to hunting and gathering, but there isn’t much wild food left to hunt or gather, thanks to the global destruction caused by agriculture.
Permaculture is not only sustainable, it’s regenerative, says author of the world’s best selling permaculture book Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture, 2nd Edition
Permaculture is not only sustainable, it’s regenerative, and can heal the damage caused by conventional agriculture.
Bullock’s Permaculture Homestead on Orcas Island
When someone claimed to have a “sustainable” farm, the late biologist and permaculture professor Toby Hemenway liked to ask them how long their farm had been around?
“500 years? 5000? A million?”
Because hardly anyone could answer more than a hundred, Hemenway started to realize most of us have no idea what “sustainable” means.
In the video below, he explains why there is no such thing as sustainable agriculture and why permaculture has to be the future of food if there’s going to be a future for humans at all.
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