Fri, 30 October 2015
Farm Planning and Land Design via the Regrarians Platform with Darren Doherty - Part 2 - Water, Access, Forestry (b033)
Darren Doherty presents the Regrarian Platform. This is Darren's introductory presentation that he gave at Grant Schultz's Versaland in October 2014. The presentation lays out the ten key components of the Regarian platform - climate, geography, water, access, forestry, buildings, fences, soils, marketing, and energy. This episode focuses on water, access, and forestry. This episode is the part of a four part series - episodes b032, 033, 034, 035. The workshop was open source, so thanks to Darren for allowing me to share this with you all. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/b33 |
Wed, 28 October 2015
TUF031 - Being Realistic with Your First Year Expectations - Work to Learn, Not to Earn – The Urban Farmer – Week 31
Set yourself up for success by having realistic plans and expectations for the first year. Match your lifestyle and your budgeting to those realistic expectations. If you are going to start out farming with a gun to the head survival mentality then it makes things very hard. Long term learning gets displaced for the need to put money into the till today. Work to learn, not to earn. The goal is to farm for a career. Not make a bunch of money this year and then do something else next year. And the only way to do that is day after day for the long run, learning as much as you can in the process. Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf31 |
Mon, 26 October 2015
Farm Planning and Land Design via the Regrarians Platform with Darren Doherty - Part 1 - Climate and Geography (b032)
Darren Doherty presents the Regrarian Platform. This is Darren's introductory presentation that he gave at Grant Schultz's Versaland in October 2014. The presentation lays out the ten key components of the regarian platform - climate, geography, water, access, forestry, buildings, fences, soils, marketing, and energy. This episode focuses on the introduction, geography, and climate. This episode is the part of a four part series - episodes b032, 033, 034, 035. The workshop was open source, so thanks to Darren for allowing me to share this with you all. Show Notes: www.permaculturevoices.com/b32 |
Fri, 23 October 2015
Building A Million Dollar Permaculture Business - That's Ecologically, Socially, and Financially Sustainable with Erik Ohlsen (CD7)
Today's show is another remarkable story of another entrepreneur, a permaculture entrepreneur. It's the story of someone who went from being an anti-money activist to running a $1M permaculture design and build business. A business that catches millions of gallons of water, builds soil on hundreds of acres, plants hundreds of useful trees every year, restores native habit, redesigns our cites our schools and new developments. It is a success story that is 10 years in the making. And one was almost derailed a few times along the way. But just like with Harland Sanders, it was persistence and a strong belief in what he was doing that allowed my guest today, Erik Ohlsen of Permaculture Artisans, to continue his vision and build it into a $1M design business. If you don't think that permaculture based business can be profitable or be big, here's an example of one to change your mind... Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/cd6 |
Wed, 21 October 2015
TUF030 - When to Expand the Farm By Adding More Land and When NOT TO Expand By Maximizing What You Have – The Urban Farmer – Week 30
Big isn't always better. More just for the sake of having more is pointless. Just because you have access to more land doesn't mean you need to take it. If you are getting bigger then you better have a reason why you are getting bigger... If you are thinking about expanding stop and ask why? Does it fit within the overall plan that you have for your business, your farm, and your life? If not, then don't do it. Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf30 |
Mon, 19 October 2015
While the presentation will focus on plant propagation for a profit from a small/backyard nursery stand point if you want a successful permaculture business you will want to attend this talk. Within permaculture perennial plants represent an extreme expense and an incredible opportunity. In this 60 minute presentation Jack Spirko will bring his 20 years of business management, marketing, technology and sales experience to the plant propagation niche. This talk was presented at PV2 in March 2015. To watch this presentation visit permaculturevoices.com/b31. |
Fri, 16 October 2015
Today's show is about time. Specifically how precious our tiem is, and how we ought not to waste it. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. This is one of the most common regrets that people have at the end of their lives. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people don't honor even a half of their dreams and die knowing that it is due to choices they had made, or not made. How many people listening to this have unfilled dreams? How many people are really living their lives the way they want? How many people are listening to this as they drive drive to or from a job that they really don't like and in a perfect world wouldn't be doing? A type of job that they only go to pay the bills because they have kids, a mortgage, etc, etc.. A lot of people live that life. And that's a life of fear disguised as practicality. It's a sad way to live, because life is too short. Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/cd5. |
Wed, 14 October 2015
Think about how much work you do on the farm now. How much of that work is actually being done efficiently and effectively? Are you making the best use of your time by focusing on the 20% of the tasks that generate the most return? Getting rid of crops can actually be a good thing. It allow you to work more efficiently and effectively by focusing on the task at hand instead of always trying to keep you head above water. It's very hard for any one person to do many things well, but each of us can do a few things really well. Crops are no different. And odds are you can grow a few crops a lot better than you can grow a lot of crops. Take a look at your farm and the crops that you grow. Which crops generate 20% of your revenue? And how would your farm and life look if you just focused on those? Get a copy of Curtis's new book via the show notes at permaculturevoices.com/tuf29 |
Mon, 12 October 2015
Learn practical tips to leverage this powerful and often misunderstood marketing tool. This talk will teach you to focus on generating farm revenue while avoiding the popularity contest trap. This talk was presented at PV1 in March 2014. See the slides at permaculturevoices.com/b030. |
Fri, 9 October 2015
Fear – The One Thing that You Can Control, but The One Thing that Most People Let Control Them (CD4)
Today's episode focuses on fear. Fear is a very powerful motivator for humans. It's part of what keeps us alive. But it's also what holds us back. It holds us back by taking over our mind. Stalling our actions because we are afraid of imaginary, un-quantifiable, or low odd outcomes. There's a big difference between being scared in shark infested waters and being scared about the sea level rising and flooding global coast lines. One could literally lead to death and other might not even happen. Yet a lot of people are paralyzed by the state of planet. Paralyzed by events that may or may not play our as predicted in their lifetime. And while these people remain paralyzed by fear over these future events, life goes by. And with it a lot of other things take place which should have a higher level of fear associated with them. Let's dig into this concept a little bit and see if we try to rationalize all this fear. Thanks for listening to this episode of Creative Destruction. For notes related to this episode visit permaculturevoices.com/cd4. |
Wed, 7 October 2015
TUF028 - The Importance of Record Keeping: You can only know where you’re going if you know where you’ve been. – The Urban Farmer – Week 28
How can you a lot mistakes and wasting valuable resources by overproducing a crop, and the inverse of that, not producing enough? Good record keeping. Records on the farm are extremely valuable. When you start to get a few years of records and can notice trends, those records become very valuable because the records are what dictates your future action. Action that can save you work down the line and put the right amount of product in your walk in so you can sell it. This type of planning directly translates to maximizing your farm income. And it's not actually that hard to do. Don't over-complicate it. Start by keeping simple records and get into the habit of doing it, then expand and adapt your records as time goes on. If you want to be successful as a farmer, then this is something that you need to do. It's one of the principals that has made Curtis as successful as he is. Learn more at permaculturevoices.com/tuf28. |
Mon, 5 October 2015
Making a Good Living with Profitable Market Gardening on 1.5 Acres – Presented by Jean-Martin Fortier (b029)
Is there a place for permaculture principles in a bio-intensive approach to successful ( and profitable) small-scale vegetable production? For more than a decade Jean-Martin and his wife have been making a living farming on 1.5 acres of land. Last year they sold for more than $140 000 in sales (with a profit margin of around 45 %) by selling freshly harvested vegetables trough their 140 member CSA and seasonal market stands. The secret of their success resides in the low-tech, high-yield methods of production they have developed at les Jardins de la Grelinette. This talk was presented live at PV2 in March 2015. View the slides at permaculturevoices.com/b29.
Direct download: b029-10052015.mp3
Category:permaculture,agriculture,farming -- posted at: 5:30am PST |
Fri, 2 October 2015
Joel Salatin speaks on successional farming - partnering the older generation with the next generation of farmers. This is an excerpt of an interview that I conducted with Joel Salatin on May 22, 2013 in Big Bear Lake, CA. Listen to another podcast with Joel at permaculturevoices.com/89
Direct download: A5-JoelSalatin2013Two.mp3
Category:permaculture,agriculture,farming -- posted at: 5:30am PST |