It’s been a wild couple of weeks for me and as a result I’m struggling a bit to catch up. After the 5 day regenerative Design course at the Green Rebel farm in Miravet, Spain, then the three day Climate Farming conference at Schloss Kirchberg in Germany, and I’m now on a short break visiting the small farm of a good friend of mine in Dessau between events before a week long team retreat with the Climate Farmers team in Brandenburg. When I get back I’ve got tree planting events lined up in the Py...
Oct 29, 2022•44 min
Welcome to a very special episode. For the first time on this show I've given the mic over to the participants on my regenerative design course and told them they can ask me anything. This was completely unplanned and came out of some of the many amazing conversations with the group in the evenings. Many of the people who came out to learn with us here on the Green Rebel farm are long time listeners of the podcast and they were excited to take on a leading role on this episode. They also saved m...
Oct 14, 2022•56 min
Today I’m back with part 2 of my interview with Blake Cothron, the author of the new book “The Berry Grower: small scale organic fruit production in the 21st century.” Just in case you missed the first part of this episode, Blake Cothron is an organic farmer, educator, professional horticulturist and small business owner in Stanford, Kentucky, USA. He has been a grower for over 25 years and has been operating an organic plant nursery business for almost 10 years. His specialties are small fruit ...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr
I’m super excited to share with you all what is about to be a deep dive into one of the most promising and often overlooked small farm enterprises, small fruit and berry growing. In order to get the scoop on berry growing, I went straight to the source to speak with Blake Cothron, the author of the new book “The Berry Grower: small scale organic fruit production in the 21st century.” Blake Cothron is an organic farmer, educator, professional horticulturist and small business owner in Stanford, K...
Sep 30, 2022•56 min
Today I’m excited to share a special episode which comes from a presentation I gave about two weeks ago with Gaia Education, an leading organization in providing education in sustainable development.Through Ecosystem Restoration Camps, the NGO that I used to work with, I have co-facilitated the design portion of their Ecosystem Restoration Design course for the last few years. Now, for the first time they’ve made the course available for open rolling registration, which means you no longer have ...
Sep 23, 2022•40 min
A lot of my work at the moment is centered around building community and connecting people across Europe who are on a journey into regenerative agriculture. As I learn more and more about the farmers that I’m working with and their challenges and desires for the future I’m struck by the stories that unfold. Stories of legacy, perseverance, experimentation, recovery from adversity, hope, and so much more. As I work to gather and record these stories and to connect these people so we can better co...
Sep 16, 2022•35 min
It’s no secret that the farmer population in Europe and many other places has been diminishing and growing older for a long time now. There are however still lots of younger folks who are interested in becoming farmers, but are struggling to get their foot in the door. Barriers to entry such as high land prices, high startup and infrastructure costs, lack of loan options, bureaucratic difficulties in inheritance, and a steep learning curve if you don’t already have experience farming are holding...
Sep 09, 2022•1 hr 12 min
Ever since moving to Europe three years ago, I’ve been working to understand both the differences and similarities between the cultural, societal, and governmental background that I’m more familiar with from the USA and Mesoamerica compared to Spain and the larger European Union. Especially since my work is centered around agriculture and how we can set up the infrastructure to assist growers on this continent who want to shift to regenerative management, I need to first gain an understanding of...
Sep 02, 2022•59 min
This week I wanted to get back to one of my favorite formats from the early days of this show in which I just take the time to speak with some of my close friends and collaborators about what we’re working on. Today I grabbed my good friends Nick Steiner and Jacob Evans. Nick is one of my closest colleagues in my work with Climate Farmers. He leads the Academy at the company and has spearheaded the coach matching service where we put farmers in touch with other farmers and experts who can help t...
Aug 26, 2022•1 hr 9 min
I’ve been taking it easy since my sister and her little girls are over visiting from Kuwait for the month and my Granny on the Isle of Man was also able to stop by for a week. So for that reason I’m going to rebroadcast one of my favorite episodes on agroforestry from two seasons ago with Patrick Worms. I hope all of you out there are also finding time to unwind and enjoy this summer despite all the challenges and extremes we’re experiencing. With regenerative agriculture and agroforestry increa...
Aug 19, 2022•32 min
Though we’re quite a few episodes into this series on tree planting and agroforestry already, I had a unique opportunity to go back to the roots and explore some of the fundamentals of the plant kingdom and how we can actively work to preserve the wonder and diversity of vegetative life. The truth is that the challenges of climate change and ecosystem mismanagement aren’t only having an effect on humans and animals. Despite the fact that plants make up the vast majority of living biomass on eart...
Aug 12, 2022•59 min
Welcome back to another episode in this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. Today we’re going to pick up where we left off last week in our conversation with Mark Krawczyk about the practice of coppicing woody perennial plants and woodland management as a whole. For a quick recap, Mark Krawczyk is the author of the new book Coppice Agroforestry: Tending trees for product, profit, & woodland ecology. Mark is an applied ecologist, educator, and grower incorporating the practices ...
Aug 05, 2022•45 min
Welcome back to another episode in this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. So far we’ve taken a broad look at many types of reforestation and how to integrate trees and woody species into farming systems, but there’s another side of the coin in this conversation. Today we’re going to start another two part session focusing on the management of woody perennials, specifically the practice of coppicing. In order to get a better understanding of this ancient woodland management system...
Jul 29, 2022•49 min
Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. This week we’ll wrap up the two part interview I did with Philipp Gerhardt, the founder of the website baumfeldwirtschaft.de (which translates basically to tree farming) and managing director of Deutsche Agroforst GmbH. He is considered a leading expert for keyline design in Central Europe and is active in research projects and as a lecturer in seminars. As a pioneer in agroforestry, he has developed new approaches with his t...
Jul 22, 2022•59 min
Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. This week will be the first of a two part interview I did with Philipp Gerhardt, the founder of the website baumfeldwirtschaft.de (which translates basically to tree farming) and managing director of Deutsche Agroforst GmbH. He is considered a leading expert for keyline design in Central Europe and is active in research projects and as a lecturer in seminars. As a pioneer in agroforestry, he has developed new approaches with ...
Jul 15, 2022•53 min
Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. So far I’ve had a lot of interviews talking about tree and perennial systems and we’ve mostly looked at things from a macro perspective. Today we’ll take a closer look at one of the most incredible families of plants that are present in the majority of temperate ecologies around the world, the family Quercus, more commonly known as oaks. Here to give us a window into the undervalued world of o...
Jul 08, 2022•1 hr 3 min
Welcome to a special episode edition of this ongoing series focusing on tree planting and agroforestry. Often when we think about agroforestry we think first about food. Orchards of fruit and nut crops are certainly an important aspect of agroforestry, but so is the responsible harvesting and care for woodlands for building materials and fuel. For a long time now I’ve admired the work of Ben Law who’s a woodsman, permaculture practitioner, and author of many books on developing, tending, and usi...
Jul 01, 2022•42 min
Welcome back to this ongoing series on tree planting and agroforestry. As I’ve been researching this topic for years I’ve begun to see a spectrum of tree planting concepts that look like a gradient based on the diversity in the system. On one extreme you have monoculture orchards and timber plantations which are just a single species on large tracts of land, and on the other extreme you have syntropic agroforestry for productive systems and what are known as Miyawaki forests for native reforesta...
Jun 24, 2022•59 min
Just as promised from last week’s episode exploring the wide and unknown varieties of fruit and nut trees for cold climates, we’re going to go deeper into getting forest gardens established in frigid zones. It turns out there are tons of planting options for people who live in hardiness zones 6 and below. There are even some advantages in maintenance and pest pressure since you get a long dormant season and the low temperatures prevent a lot of warmer climate pests from reproducing. To learn mor...
Jun 17, 2022•59 min
There are so many interesting perspectives to approach this topic from and today we’re going to hear from two people who turned a personal love of plants into a thriving botanical garden and nursery. Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano started creating a botanical garden in their backyard 22 years ago by planting native trees, shrubs, perennials and unusual edibles. Soon after they became interested in bog plants, hardy cacti, woodland species and non-native trees as well. T ogether they fenced in 3 ...
Jun 10, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Welcome to a brand new series. Over the next months we’ll be exploring a wide variety of perspectives and knowledge about tree planting, agroforestry, forestry management, and everything to do with woody perennial species. In the last couple years you’ve probably seen tons of articles and promotions about reforestation and tree planting initiatives around the world. Many of these are tied to specific climate change mitigation metrics as it becomes more and more apparent just how vital trees are ...
Jun 03, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Today is the last episode of the series on building community. Though there remains so much to say on this subject, I wanted to wrap up this endlessly complex and nuanced topic with a discussion about the challenges and learning of integrating into a foreign community. I have a lot of my own thoughts and stories on this, but I also immediately thought to check back in with a friend of mine who’s been on this show before in a previous series on homesteading, and who’s had similar experiences whic...
May 27, 2022•1 hr 4 min
As we come to the end of this series on building strong communities, I wanted to revisit one of the most impactful conversations I had from last season. Last year you may remember that I released an 11 episode series of expert panels focused on various aspects of regenerative agriculture. In the final panel session I recorded a discussion with Allan Savory, Ana Digón, and Rudolf Buehler all of whom have been catalysts for for the creation of community for growers and land stewards around the wor...
May 20, 2022•1 hr
Over the last decade I’ve begun to see a subcategory of permaculture learning start to gain attention. As more and more people encounter the principles of this ecological design framework and experiment with different ways of applying it in their lives there’s been an emergence of social permaculture to integrate the patterns of nature to tackle inner challenges. The wonderful book Human Permaculture: Life Design for Resilient Living by Bernard Alonso and Cécile Guiochon was my first introductio...
May 13, 2022•44 min
As I continue to explore the knowledge and wisdom of people around the world working to build and strengthen their communities, I’ve been uncovering inspiring examples of local initiatives striving for a carbon neutral future. Inspired to act by the global efforts to reduce nonrenewable fuel dependence and to uncouple their essential infrastructure from fossil fuels, communities have taken it upon themselves to do their part to transition towards a sustainable future even if governments at the n...
May 06, 2022•52 min
You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click on the link below and we’ll help you find tailored assistance that can fasttrack your transformation...
May 05, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Learn more about the Regenerative Media Alliance and our events and resources here! I’m very excited for today’s episode, because it’s been in the works for quite a long time. For years I’ve been thinking about how to connect with some of the other podcasters and content producers that I’ve admired and learned from. My initial motivation after all was to contribute something to the incredible body of work being built online and made available for free. These resources are behind my own professio...
Apr 29, 2022•53 min
In today’s episode I’m going to bring us back to an aspect of strengthening community that I first began to explore in this series with David Holmgren and Charles Marhon. Back then we looked deeply into how suburbs and towns can work at a foundational level to regenerate their communities through civic planning and collaboration through each level of local government. In today’s episode I spoke to Sarah James, the co-author of the book The Natural Step for Communities which provides inspiring ex...
Apr 22, 2022•47 min
You can now get connected to the vast network of experts, consultants and coaches who are part of the Climate Farming network. We know that making the transition to profitable regenerative agriculture is hard enough, but without support from people with experience and who understand your unique context, you can waste needless time, money, and effort along the way. So don’t do it alone. Just click on the link below and we’ll help you find tailored assistance that can fasttrack your transformation...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 7 min
Today I want to build on the focus of last week’s episode with Morag Gamble in which we explored the challenges and opportunities for environmental and societal regeneration in refugee communities. One of the people that Morag mentioned in the interview who is also pioneering regenerative work with refugee communities was Natalie Topa. I immediately recognized that name from an inspiring webinar that I’d watched in which Natalie presented her work and design methods from her experience working i...
Apr 15, 2022•1 hr 17 min
