My guest today is one of the most inspiring and enthusiastic educators working in permaculture and regenerative education anywhere in the world. I had the pleasure of interviewing Matt Powers, author of “The Permaculture Student” and “The Permaculture Student 2,” in the last season on this podcast and got to catch up with him again to talk in depth about some of the most urgent transitions facing humanity and how we all need to prepare ourselves to contribute positively to a regenerative shift i...
Dec 21, 2018•1 hr 6 min
Animals and livestock can be an essential component to land restoration if managed correctly and while we already have goats, chickens and ducks on our small demonstration farm here in Guatemala, I’ve been looking into the addition of another animal enterprise that would fit into our existing systems without overwhelming the small space we have. For a while I’ve been interested in rabbits for their fast reproduction, amazingly fertile manure and their delicious lean meat. That’s when I came acro...
Dec 14, 2018•54 min
It’s not often I get the chance to speak with a renowned animal behaviorist, much less for a talk about nutrition and nourishment, but my guest today, Fred Provenza, professor emeritus at Utah State University, makes the argument that we can learn a lot about our own health by observing the way that animals choose their food in their natural environments. Fred challenges us to be more skeptical of the latest diets and academic findings on nutrition and listen more to our own bodies and how they ...
Dec 07, 2018•44 min
The Abundant Edge team is back to talk about all the progress from our projects over the last month as we transition from the rainy season to the dry season here in Guatemala. We’ve got compost production, plant propagation, new baby goats, duck houses, gray and black water treatment for the house and much more. Above all we’re talking about how each one of these projects and enterprises contribute either directly or indirectly to building soil health and fertility on the land. If any of you are...
Nov 29, 2018•58 min
Leah Penniman’s mission is to end racism and injustice in our food system by increasing farmland stewardship by people of color, promoting equity in food access, and training the next generation of activist farmers. Her new book, Farming While Black, has been called "a revolutionary work that opens important doors" by Civil Eats and a “brilliant guide” by Mark Bittman. In this interview Leah explains the effects of miseducation around the contributions of people of color to agriculture and food ...
Nov 23, 2018•36 min
For those of you used to the more practical and literal information that I usually focus on in these interviews, you'll be refreshed by the story telling and concepts in this next session. This week, Neal Hegarty interviews countryman Diarmuid Lyng, a former star hurler for the county of Wexford who wrote a compelling article on the concept of "silver branch perception" from Irish mythology and how the traditional sport of hurling is linked to the health of the ash tree from which the "hurley" i...
Nov 16, 2018•1 hr 15 min
Those of you who’ve been listening to this podcast for a while know that I geek out big time when it comes to natural plasters and finishes. So you can imagine how excited I was to get to talk to kyle holzhueter, a certified plasterer who learned his trade and got his certification in Japan where the traditional style and techniques are surprisingly different from those that I’ve become accustomed to from the western world. In this interview we cover those important differences which, though les...
Nov 09, 20180
In this month;s regenerative round table Jeremy and Oliver discuss the challenges of managing a lot of animals in a small space and some of the problems with keeping pests and predators out. We cover the progress on the little coffee beneficio, plastering the house, producing native and edible plants for ourselves and clients and all of the progress over the last few weeks of developing our little farm on lake Atitlan in Guatemala. Resources: Abundant Edge course schedule Volunteer with us at Gr...
Nov 02, 2018•45 min
Get the design and siting PDF here In this special episode, Oliver goes into one of the key lectures in the Intro to Natural Building course on some of the most important considerations and bits of information to consider when designing a natural building and choosing a site for the structure. In this episode we cover many iconic natural building styles, considerations for different climates and regions, designing for function, determining needs and wants, and a whole lot more. Don’t forget to d...
Oct 26, 2018•50 min
My guest today, Ziggy Liloia from “the year of mud” has been building naturally and blogging about his experiences for a decade since he started with a small cob cottage, just over 200 sq ft at an ecovillage in Missouri back in 2008. Since then he has explored many other materials and techniques and joins us today to talk about the myths and realities of natural building, especially when it comes to costs, climate appropriate design, and labor considerations. In this interview Ziggy and I discus...
Oct 19, 2018•44 min
Rammed earth is one of the earthen building techniques that I personally have the least experience with, but since it has been steadily growing in popularity around the world for its beauty and durability I reached out to April Magill of Root Down Designs to find out more about how this ancient vernacular building technique is being revived in the southeastern US and what challenges there are to getting rammed earth buildings permitted and accepted. In this interview April talk about how rammed ...
Oct 12, 2018•54 min
The international presence of the permaculture movement has always been an inspiration to me and in today’s interview I had the pleasure of talking with Nelson Lebo of the Eco School in Whanganui in the north island of New Zealand. Nelson first reached out to me after hearing about some of our similar experiences on this podcast and I became fascinated with the development of his own farm with the unique factors in his area of New Zealand. In this interview Neslon speaks in depth about why he pr...
Sep 28, 2018•57 min
It’s time once again to check in with Atulya Bingham, one of my favorite voices and innovators in the natural building world. Atulya is the author “Mud Mountain, Mud Ball” and the newest release “Dirt Witch,” each of which tell the story of her journey of building her own home and alternative lifestyle, first in Turkey and most recently her move to the north of Spain. In the last interview I did with Atulya back in season one, she was still on the road searching for her new home. This time we ca...
Sep 21, 2018•1 hr 22 min
I have many heroes in the regenerative economy and my guest today certainly ranks up at the top. Wayne Dorband and his online educational platform, the Ecolonomics Action Team (or EAT for short) has been putting an amazing webinar series with some of the best educators and practitioners out there for years now and Wayne himself is a great example of a successful serial entrepreneur of regenerative enterprises. Above all though, I reached out to Wayne to get his expert opinion on aquaponics and a...
Sep 14, 2018•1 hr 2 min
Welcome back to the regenerative round table. Today Neal and Oliver are joined by "Bamboo" Charlie Rendall, natural builder and founder of Return to the Forest as we talk in depth about new developments and progress on the Abundant Edge farm (aka Finca Tz'ikin). We recently had a new drainage channel open up right next to the farm so as we scramble to shore up the northern border of our land and divert any potential water away from the house we discuss the many ways that you can mitigate the ris...
Sep 07, 2018•1 hr 15 min
In my focus and passion for designing beautiful, functional and holistic buildings and landscapes, it’s easy to get caught up in the macro and forget the micro, or to put it another way, for as important as the big picture is, the interactions at the ground level and the beauty of the relationships that you can develop with the plants that enrich the earth are certainly not to be forgotten. For insight on these relationships I turn today to Lee Reich, a master gardener who holds a graduate degre...
Aug 31, 2018•55 min
Welcome back to part two in our series speaking with Crystal Honeycutt about the idea of regenerative health. Crystal is a naturopathic doctor and registered clinical herbalist who has been sharing incredible insights on the topics of nutrition, self-assessment and diagnosis and how to find out just what your body needs to maintain itself in top form. For more on Crystal’s background and superhero origin story you can listen to the beginning of last week’s episode. In this session we’ll pick up ...
Aug 24, 2018•49 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Regenerative living can be a very wide and nuanced topic. Today we’ll start on a two-part journey into a tricky and sometimes controversial world of holistic health and what it means to experience regenerative well-being. My guest today, Crystal Honeycutt, is an accomplished naturopathic doctor and registered clinical herbalist who has been in private practice for more than 10 years specializing in chronic illness, stress, and trauma. I’ve been a client of hers in the past and she’s helped me im...
Aug 17, 2018•50 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Our baby goats, just a few days old One of the biggest challenges that we and many other peramculturalists face is how to balance the need for diversity and resilience in our ecosystems and enterprises and the need for efficiency and simplicity in their maintenance and operation. On this regenerative round table Neal and Oliver talk about their own experiences and mistakes along the way in finding this balance on the Abundant Edge farm as well as balancing the development needs of their site wit...
Aug 10, 2018•45 min
This is an interview I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. I was fortunate enough to speak with two guests from opposite ends of the spectrum of permaculture learning. The first, Geoff Lawton, one of the original students of Bill Mollison and a permaculture designer and teacher for more than 30 years, and the second, Sam Parker-Davies, an intern with Geoff at Zaytuna farm in Australia who has jumped in deep with permaculture learning, especially at the community level. In this interview ...
Aug 03, 2018•1 hr 14 min
Welcome to part two of the Abundant Edge design criteria checklist. If you're just tuning in now for the first time, I would recommend that you have a listen first to part one where we covered the goal and visioning exercise and the site analysis portion of our design criteria. Today we'll be starting where we left off by diving into "invisible structures and moving through the list until we've formed an actionable strategy with well defined roles and expectations. Remember, this list isn’t mean...
Jul 27, 2018•36 min
The biggest challenge for our team here at Abundant Edge when it comes to holistic design is that there are just so many considerations. Climate and landscape data, client’s wants and needs, economic constraints and many more can seem overwhelming but are crucial to creating designs that work in harmony with nature and solve real problems. This is why we put together our “Design Criteria Checklist” to help us remember some of the most important considerations and questions to ask when designing ...
Jul 20, 2018•51 min
Here we are once again to talk about the progress, projects and challenges of building the Abundant Edge homestead. On this episode Neal and I are also joined by our good friend Tim Reher. Owner of Shangrila Coffee Roasters in San Marcos just one town over from us here on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. In this episode we talk about setting up our four animal compost factory and the benefits of inoculating soil with bio-ferments and compost teas. I break down the process of slaking our own quicklime to...
Jul 13, 2018•53 min
I try to keep my fingers on the pulse of whats going on in the world of permaculture, natural building and regenerative living, since after all that’s the focus of this podcast, and as a result I find tons of inspiring projects and designers doing ground-breaking work around the world. One of the people and projects that have really caught my attention in the last two months is Luwayo Bizwick and his organization Permaculture Paradise Institute in Malawi. The scope of his projects and the impact...
Jul 06, 2018•41 min
This was an opportunity from a few months ago that I just couldn't pass up. Two of my best friends and mentors in the world of permaculture, Shad Qudsi and Zach Loeks, came together to teach a Permaculture Design Certification course and we got to sit down in the middle to talk about a wide range of topics from respecting the diversity of permaculture, exploring regenerative land management sites in local communities around Guatemala, to different landscape and soil amendment challenges in diffe...
Jun 29, 2018•47 min
Climate change can manifest in many ways, but in the last 10 years the growing trend of increasingly severe storm seasons and natural disaster have grabbed headlines and displaced entire populations. The urgency of disaster relief is growing every year and the cost of the recovery efforts is skyrocketing. This is what lead me to speak with Rory Dickens, I was first introduced to Rory Dickens through John Bodnar, a former student of mine from our intro to natural building course who recommended t...
Jun 22, 2018•35 min
I haven't been this excited about a project in forever. On this month's regenerative round table, I sit down with Neal Hegarty, co-founder of Abundant Edge, and Shad Qudsi, founder of Atitlan Organics, to get to scoop on our first community reforestation project and heirloom local avocado preservation effort. This has been the culmination of many years of observing the local ecology, and social fabric of our valley here in Tzununa and we're opening the doors for groups and organizations to come ...
Jun 16, 2018•58 min
Climate change is becoming a major disruptor of ecosystems all across the planet with disastrous effects in many cases. For that reason, I spoke with Ginny Stibolt, co-author of the book “Climate-Wise Landscaping” to learn more about how we can transition our lawn centric and synthetic chemical heavy landscape maintenance practices into beautiful ecosystems that help to address the issues of climate change. In this episode, Ginny talks in depth about alternatives to lawns and how adding native s...
Jun 07, 2018•45 min
Here we are again with one of my favorite guests, Shad Qudsi. Shad has been a good friend and mentor to me and our team at Abundant Edge for years now and is the Founder of Atitlan Organics, a profitable permaculture farm and education center here on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala. If you’d like to hear more from Shad and his path to permaculture farming in Guatemala you can always check out our previous interview from season one in the link in the show notes for this episode. I’ve invited Shad back ...
Jun 01, 2018•55 min
Bread has been a passion of mine for years. Ever since we tried making it for ourselves when I worked on trail crews in the national parks I’ve been fascinated by how much better tasting home made bread is compared to the majority of whats available on supermarket shelves. I eventually worked as a baker for a small artisan bakery in Seattle and have been making my own bread for years now and even building earthen ovens to bake in, so this interview with Victoria Redhed Miller, author of the new ...
May 25, 2018•1 hr 14 min
