The study of Permaculture is best approached from the bird’s eye view, or “Pattern Level”.  Over time, we zoom in to look from a worm’s eye view - what we call the “Details Level”. The pattern informs the details; the context makes sense of the minutia.  And what we at SPI emphasize overall, is that in our world the “human sector” (in permaculture, ‘sectors’ refer to the energies flowing across a site or through a project.  We study a myriad of sectors - wind, water, sun, human. etc.) is the foundation for all observations, techniques and applications. After all, we’re living in the Anthropocene Era now - even geologists (in labeling current time as the anthropocene) recognize that the study of the Earth at current time deserves an underlayment of anthropology, it simply cannot be escaped.  We must take into account the effect of humankind on anything and everything we do. From community design on down to garden design.

Moving through a Permaculture Design Courses (PDCs), students learn hard skills like tree plantings, soil sampling, client interviews, map making, mushroom cultivation, grafting, intensive gardening and so much more. Stocking the toolkit.  This is the easy part, frankly - collecting merit badges for all our skills. Nothing gets a group excited like digging in the dirt! And, we all get to know each other in the process. Oddly enough, that’s the hard part. Tensions arise, energies flow, bonds are made, strengthened, made stronger again by sharing and vulnerability and a common experience.  This may sound like a metaphor for a drum circle, but the reality is that this simple process of group learning develops intimacy; it supports fundamental human needs. In this ever-connected world of electronic “followers”, “likes”, and “friends”, we see an increasing need for real-world sharing and connection. The struggle is real! That “fear and scarcity” that Hemenway references is just as human as it is economic. We emphasize and explore this in our classes for a number of reasons, but most importantly, we model, learn and practice these skills because they are absolutely crucial tools in the toolkit for successful design.  As Dave Jacke says, “90% of all Permaculture projects that fail, fail due to poor design in the human sector.”

As we get to know each other, the “human ecosystem” of the classroom unfolds.  We become guilded into useful groups and subgroups as we navigate our own Human Sector experience.  There are unique flora and fauna represented by the individuals present. We may have teenage college students, 70 yr old retirees, businesswomen and men, entrepreneurs, execs, stay at home parents, massage therapists and construction workers, all in one room.  Any one person might hold several of those titles at the same time. The cooperative learning experience then unfolds as a result of all the people in the room coming together, stepping up to the experience and leaning into the recognition that we are all in this together.  We begin to see how we meet each other’s needs. What would happen if we were stranded on an island together? Where are the holes in our knowledge base? What skills are being lost from our communities altogether? How do we identify these strengths and challenges in our projects and for our clients?  How do we meet them with grace and understanding, and ultimately - with elegant solutions? Enter the intentional design process. It’s a way to pull all of our skills together and make sense of a situation, whether it’s an office space or a backyard.

Over time, we fill the toolkit with strategies for strength and resilience.  And while we learn these skills for independence, we continue to dig into the importance of dependence, not on fossil fuels or electronics, but on each other.  We can’t all specialize in everything. We don’t all have grazing lands, we don’t all have mechanical skills, we don’t all have computer savvy. How can we come together to fill those gaps for each other?  How can we use the human sector to elevate our design? To enhance our lives? This human sector focus turns all of the other tools into useful equipment, not just blunt instruments. After all, what’s the point of building a community garden with no community?  No food forest is meant to feed a single individual. And drilling deeper into skill building and design savvy, we always, always, always return to Principle #1 - Observation and Interaction. If you’re not awake and involved, if you’re not participating, the cycle is broken.  Permaculture design requires engagement. It’s as simple as that.

It’s not uncommon to see a Perma-newbie on a message board saying “Permaculture has all the answers!  We can use it for anything!”. At first glance, this sounds so incredibly pretentious, but they’ve hit on something - Permaculture does have many answers, because it’s rooted in observation, adjusts to accommodate feedback, and includes everybody.  And when you utilize everybody’s strengths - you can find all the answers.  Or at least a lot of them.

But without the design process, Permaculture is just a pile of tools. Mollison famously warned against PDC grads just being “a bunch of woo-woos spinning around in circles”. And it’s a fair criticism.  Permaculture can easily be an echo chamber of environmental enthusiasts, and gardeners, natural builders, non-violent communicators, edible landscapers, artists and more. But even Mollison, the founder himself, wasn’t afraid to call it out. Because that’s the heart of the design process - we never stop observing, we recognize feedback, and we re-evaluate as-needed.  Permaculture in practice is an evolution. This design process gives us a structure to hold all of the tools, and a method to the way that we use them.

So when people frown on day 1 of a course when we say “this is not a gardening class”, I lean in.  When people roll their eyes as we use Hemenway's talk of “love and abundance”, I get excited. Bring on the skeptics!  These folks have the most transformative experiences of anyone because the Permaculture design system actually values and validates them and their opinions.  We use an intentional design process because we look at all elements together - skeptics included. We design for people AND the environment, and we make each one better in the process.  The toolkit is massive and growing all the time, and none of it holds together without the process. And because we are growing with intention, we aren’t just tools, but instruments, tuned to a purpose, playing together.  Hell, we’re a symphony for change! Ok... maybe I’m getting carried away. But the moral of the story is that Permaculturists walking the walk aren’t just woo woos spinning in circles. We’re a community spiraling towards abundance, and it’s all by design.

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1. Searing-In a New Mindset- Using One Cooking Method to Make Countless Dishes   

One of my favorite cooking methods is searing meat and making a pan sauce. There are actually several cooking techniques combined to make this quick and easy meal preparation: Searing, Deglazing, Reducing, and Emulsifying. Don’t let those terms make you think this is complicated - it’s super easy.  One of the more famous examples of this method is chicken piccata, which essentially goes as follows:
Sear seasoned chicken breast cutlets in olive oil on both sides until browned and almost cooked through.  Add a tad more oil into the pan and cook minced garlic in the same pan. Deglaze the pan with white wine and chicken stock, making sure to dissolve the delicious brown bits that are stuck to the pan.  Reduce the liquid until it’s almost gone and stir in cold butter little by little until a sauce forms. Add capers, lemon juice and flat leaf parsley and then season with salt and pepper.

Once we cook something like Chicken Piccata, we could think of it as adding a single recipe to our repertoire - but if we switch gears, we can think of it as a method to utilize the food we have on hand to make countless flavor combinations.

Step one -  look in the fridge and see what we have on hand.  
Step two, formulate a plan for specific ingredients.
Step three - cook!

Almost any piece of meat that you would consider throwing on the grill can be seared and cooked through. You can make any type of pan sauce by deglazing the pan with stock and/or wine, swirling in butter, and stirring in some herbs.  Maybe next time, instead of olive oil, capers, and lemon we can use a sesame oil/grapeseed oil blend, ginger, mirin, and green onions. By switching out the ingredients we’ve made a completely different meal using the same technique. Little by little we can add techniques to our repertoire and a whole world of improvisational cooking is ours to experiment with! You can follow the same line of thinking and apply different flavors combinations to other methods of cooking such as braises, roasts, soups, sautees, and so much more.

2. Cooking From the Pantry

1. Buying in Bulk

Purchasing and storing rice, quinoa, pasta, etc. in bulk can save us money.  It can also reduce our carbon footprint by reducing trips to the store as well as the amount of packaging we buy and discard. It really comes in handy when the roads are covered in ice and we need to get dinner on the table. Whole and bulk spices from an Indian or Pakistani grocer are infinitely cheaper and tastier than the powdered spices from the big-box grocery store. Whole spices last longer because they have much less surface area exposed. Simply toast spices (coriander, cumin, or fennel seed, for example) in a dry pan until they are several shades darker and then grind them in a mortar and pestle or in a coffee grinder.

B. Using Whole Ingredients to Make your Own Specialty Mixes
Learning to make ingredients can help as well. For example, lots of southern biscuit makers swear by White Lily Flour because it makes an extremely tender biscuit that also stays together. Knowing a bit about flour and how it reacts to water can help us understand. Water links together the characteristically elastic gluten-forming proteins in flour and the higher the protein count, the tougher the resulting product will be. However, a bit of protein is necessary for structure. White Lily flour strikes a good balance between tender and sturdy and is about 8% protein. So if we mix half cake flour (7%) with an all-purpose flour (about 9 to 10%) we can approximate the ever important protein levels of biscuit flour. We really don’t need to know all about flour proteins to make a substitute ingredient -  simply do an internet search for substitutes and we can save ourselves from stocking specialty items. Now, our AP flour and Cake flour are more multi-functional. The same could be said for things like garlic-salt (garlic powder and salt mixed in it’s own little container!?) and lemon pepper. For lemon pepper we could just mix salt, pepper, and lemon zest. It’s more wholesome than the premixed stuff which is full of citric acid, and other free flowing agents. Actually, I suggest zesting all citrus fruit. Even if we don’t plan to use the zest right away it can be frozen and used later - in pie crust, scones, soups, spice rubs (it’s great on salmon), drinks, and so much more! There is so much value in that marginal fruit “waste.”

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3. Full-Value Cooking
Speaking of valuing the marginal, I’ve watched so many vegetable stems and usable parts of meat get thrown right into the trash. Whole tops of peppers, broccoli stems, asparagus stems, peach pits and skins, carrot tops - all have value. Here are a few techniques for maximizing the value of your food.

A. Using the Less Prized Portion of Vegetables
We can micro-dice pepper scraps, zucchini ends, onion tops, the tougher outer layers of brussels sprouts, etc. and sautee them for use into a wonton filling, rice pilaf, goat cheese spread, or into ricotta cheese for ravioli filling. I like to julienne and pickle broccoli and cauliflower stems for a sour note in salads. I love cooking beets in vinegar and honey and then serving them over their own stems and greens with a little cheese crumbled on top.

B. Pureeing Scraps and Adding Them To Sauces
One way to use scraps and disguise vegetables for picky eaters at the same time iis to puree and hide carrot peelings, mushrooms stems, etc. and mix it into pasta sauce. Carrot tops, beet greens, and radish greens are great in pestos and smoothies.

C. Steeping In The Flavors
Peach pits and skin can be steeped into cream for a delicious ice cream or custard base as can coffee grounds - espresso creme brulee with churros anyone? This technique is never ending - chive stems steeped in milk and added to mashed potatoes, roasted Hatch Chile skins steeped in cream and used to make green chile queso, and on and on.
 
D. Using Less Valued Meat Scraps
One of the most tragic waste streams is usable meat scraps. These animals gave their lives for our sustenance so the least we can do is utilize them wisely. Of course we can use chicken bones, beef bones, as well as shrimp, crab and lobster shells for stocks and broths, which are the basis of countless soups, braises, and sauces. We can also save chicken fat to cook with or enrich rice dishes, beef fat and tough chine meat can be made into ground beef. Chicken skin tacos - enough said!
 
There are levels of usefulness when it comes to “waste”, so let’s starting with eating it when possible. Of course not all food waste is edible or palatable, but it typically has value anyway. We can’t eat rosemary stems but we can certainly use them to smoke fish or to skewer and grill chicken. And we can always vermicompost, compost, or feed animals with food waste.
 
4. Making Energy Multitask

Beyond food waste we can better use resources while we cook by making energy work for us in multiple ways - through batch cooking, by capturing escaping energy and valuing/using would-by “waste” and by making meal-prep a bonding experience.
 
A. Batch Cooking
By cooking in batches we can save fuel, wash water, and personal energy. It takes much less energy to cook twice or three times the amount we need for a meal, as it does to cook the same meal three separate times. Batch cooking and then freezing portions of prepared meals comes in handy and we all need a night off from cooking and washing dishes.
B. Capturing Escaping Energy
Boiling a big pot of water to make pasta uses quite a bit of electricity or gas and there is a good deal of heat energy going unused as steam escapes off of the pot. There are several ways we could we use that energy: we could steam dumplings, veggies for the week or even fish or shellfish in a bamboo steamer, right on top of the pot while the pasta cooks. We can also blanch veggies in the hot water before we cook the pasta. When the cooking is done  we could use the pasta water for making stocks or simply watering plants. Similarly, potato water is great for making gravy and actually increases the volume of the yield.     
There are other energies that go unused in a kitchen, such as a cooling but still warm oven. This heat can be used to proof sourdough bread for the bulk fermentation stage, or for drying herbs, breadcrumbs, and more.
 
C. Stacking Functions - Turning Meal Prep Into Teaching and Bonding Time

Yet another waste stream is wasted opportunity. Kids can easily be integrated into the cooking process (ginger can be peeled with a spoon - great for really young kids!). We can also invite friends and share the experience of learning from each other and bonding as we cook. From my personal experience, my children are way more likely to try new foods if they’ve had a hand in preparing them. I love seeing their pride as they present their dishes. My three year old made breakfast potatoes the other day and all his sisters liked his small batch better than the ones I cooked - success!

By using cooking methods instead of recipes, cooking from a smart pantry, changing our mindset to full-value cooking, and making energy multitask for us, we can waste less food, energy, and opportunities. What techniques do you think are important to setting yourself free from the details of recipe preparation?


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“Always predict the worst and you’ll be hailed as a prophet.” Replied the great satirist Tom Lehrer when asked why he was so popular.
Here is my contribution to our collective pessimism.  
There is some indication that we are on the doorstep of another crisis.  If one is to listen to Yang’s analysis or read Jeremy Rifkin’s 1995 book - The End Of Work - we are in a time where millions of jobs will be lost to automation without much opportunity for retraining.  Resources will remain locked up, while jobs, scarce. It is a time to re-imagine yield. Time banks might be an interesting way forward.

Now, I’ve gotten ahead of myself and I need to end this on a high note.  With a scan of the timebanks.org website, one finds suggestions to have time bank meetings that are monthly potlucks and to create group time bank projects that are limited only by the imagination.  Potlucks, seed swaps, community wellness days or volunteer work parties strike me as robust events that get a great deal of work done for non-profits and time bank members. More importantly, they serve as gathering spaces where core values can be exchanged and articulated and relationships built.  
This is something time banks do well.  
It keeps people in the game.  Long after the exchange of currency dissolves, there is still a group of people and anytime there is a group of people coming together around shared values, there is a chance for intimacy.
I live in the same community I grew up in.  Wes Jackson’s imperative to “find a place and become native!” is an afterthought for my family.  I was born into a network of people, I grew up with them, and for the most part, things haven’t changed.  For others who move to the valley or experience life on the margins in a new community, a connection can be tougher.  Sometimes churches are the answer and other times it’s the school system or sports.  Still, for many, especially those seeking alternative answers to struggles that the mainstream solutions seem to come up short on, time banks can be a great relief.  
I wish I could keep going on about the feel-goods around the concept of time-based currency.  But, for now, I’m out of time. In part 3, I’ll dive deeper into the analysis of what time banks do well and attempt to integrate this into what we teach at SPI:  The 8 forms of capital.


This is the second installment of a four-part piece on time-based currency and permaculture economics.  Stay-tuned y’all, it’s getting fun.

For more information on Cahn - a fascinating man.  Check out this 2018 Forbes article.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2018/03/21/time-banking-helps-build-individuals-organizations-and-communities/#6824a5965ba4

And more info.

​https://timebanks.org/

Food Forests or Edible Forest Gardens are a VAST topic - and one of the things we strive to do in our teaching at SPI is to simplify Permaculture to make it as practical and applicable to our students as possible. In this vein, I've come up with a "Mid-Atlantic Food Forest Cheat Sheet" to help you get off on the right foot with your Food Forest design dreams.

Essentially this is a list of Food Forest plants that I have found are most suitable to our region and to the diversity of a Food Forest system - that is low-maintenance, multi-functional, and native when possible (shout out to Ryan's blog "Plantin' Ain't Easy!). Most importantly, the cultivars chosen are disease resistant to most of our local diseases (for example, I like to plant Apple cultivars that are resistant to the "Big 3" apple diseases - Fireblight, Apple Scap, and Cedar Apple Rust). I've also arranged the fruit trees by fruiting window to make efficient layout easier, ala Stefan Sobkowiak's "Grocery Aisle Concept" at Miracle Farms in Quebec. This cheat sheet is useful whether you are planting out a large-scale "linear guild" orchard or a small-scale "expanding island" orchard. Also, I've thrown in some planting and maintenance tips just for the heck of it - because why go through all of the work and money of getting your orchard started if you aren't able to take care of the plants!

One last note - for the sake of easy maintenance you'll notice I like to simplify my Food Forests to include only Tree, Shrub, and Herbaceous layers. The more adventurous orchardist might want to throw in vines, groundcovers, fungi, etc. - but I like to start with small and slow solutions. I also tend to exclude a whole host of perennial plants from my Food Forest which I find require specialized maintenance strategies - think raspberries, blackberries, blueberries, seabuckthorn, pawpaws, American persimmons, and figs, to name a few. I haven't forgotten those gems but in general I like to plant them together in blocks interspersed throughout the farm, not in my orchard rows. As always, this is an ever-evolving document, but hopefully, it will help you avoid some of the mistakes I've made over the years. Enjoy!

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Mid-Atlantic Food Forest Cheat Sheet
 By Trevor Piersol
 

The Tree Layer (Species/Cultivar by Approximate Harvest Date)

July Harvest

• Peaches: Burbank July Elberta, Early White Giant, Patio Peach
• Sour Cherries: North Star, Danube, Surefire, Nanking Cherry

August Harvest

• Peaches: Blushing Star, Intrepid, Contender
• Beach Plums: Jersey
• Apples: William’s Pride, Pristine, Dayton
• European Pear: Ayer’s

Early September Harvest

• Apples: Empire, Priscilla, Pixie Crunch
• European Pears: Blake’s Pride
• Asian Pears: Shinseki, Hosui, Kosui

Late September Harvest

• Apples: Liberty, Redfree, Jonafree
• European Pears: Shenandoah, Potomac, Magness
• Asian Pears: Shinko, Chojuro

October Harvest

• Apples: Freedom, Enterprise, Goldrush, Arkansas Black, Sundance
• Asian Pears: Korean Giant, Seuri
• Asian Persimmon: Nikita’s Gift, Roseyanka, Ichi Ki Kei Jiro, Hana Fuyu, and others

November Harvest

• Che (Seedless)
• Jujube

Tree Rootstock Recommendations

In general, I recommend semi-dwarf or semi-standard rootstock. Dwarf rootstocks will bear fruit sooner but are more fragile and shorter-lived.

Apple Rootstocks

• Dwarf: Geveva Series (make sure to choose fire blight resistant Genevas)
• Semi-Dwarf: M7

Asian and European Pear Rootstocks

• Semi-Dwarf: OHxF 333

Cherry Rootstocks

• Dwarf: Gisela 3

Peach Rootstocks

• Dwarf: Citation
• Semi-dwarf: St. Julian A

Asian Persimmon Rootstocks

• Semi-dwarf: D. Lotus

The Fruiting Shrub Layer

I like to plant 2-3 fruiting shrubs around or between each tree. The shrubs selected are all fairly easy to grow and will have a height and spread of about 4-7 feet.

• Jostaberry
• Black Currant (Titania, Consort)
• Aronia (Viking, Nero)
• Nanking Cherry
• Cornelian Cherry
• Serviceberry (Thiessen)
• Goumi

Nitrogen-fixing Shrubs

Although I see it as optional, it is nice to plant at least one Nitrogen-Fixing shrub around or between each tree. All will grow to about 12’Hx12’W with the exception of the Goumi which is 6’Hx6’W. Here are a few that are well adapted to the Mid-Atlantic.

• Indigobush – Amorpha fruticosa (native)
• Smooth Alder – Alnus serrulata (native)
• Siberian Pea Shrub
• Goumi
• Seaberry aka Seabuckthorn

The Herbaceous Layer

Herbaceous plants are interspersed around the base of each tree or within the linear guild rows. Make sure to mix up species and also plant along edges and in sunny, open sections. Many double as beneficial insect attractants that also produce a nice yield of culinary and medicinal herbs/vegetables. Below are some of my favorites.

• Yarrow (native)
• Bee Balm (native)
• Mountain Mint (native)
• New England Aster (native)
• Echinacea purpurea (native)
• Blue Vervain (native)
• Angelica archangelica
• Sweet Cicely
• Comfrey
• Rhubarb
• Garlic Chives
• Peppermint, Spearmint, etc.
• Egyptian Walking Onion
• Sea Kale
• Perennial Sorrel
• Creeping Thyme
• Roman Chamomile

Planting and Maintenance

When you are ready to plant make sure you follow proper planting protocols: digging a large planting hole, pruning damaged roots and spreading them out evenly, and not planting too shallow or too deep. Bare-root planting in fall or spring is much more successful than summer planting. I like to dunk the plant roots in a mycorrhizal inoculant slurry before planting
https://bio-organics.com/product/mycorrhizal-root-dip-inoculant/. I also amend each tree planting hole with approximately 2 lbs. azomite (for micronutrients) and 2 lbs. rock phosphate, mixed evenly into the soil.

Once trees are planted they will need an average of 1” of rain per week to get established. They also need a weed-free zone maintained around the drip line at all times. Dwarf trees will need to be tied to a stake. The cheapest option I’ve found is a ¾-inch EMT electrical conduit. Sink the stake 2-inches from the trunk of the tree on the upwind side and then fasten the tree to the stake using a flexible tree lock.

A tree guard placed around the trunk of the tree at the base is essential for preventing rabbits and voles from girdling the tree (I like the see-through mesh variety), and branch tips must be protected from deer browse with some sort of fencing/exclusion barrier. Proper training from the outset is important to minimize corrective pruning later on. Seasonal pruning is recommended to encourage proper airflow and branch distribution and maximize fruiting.


Pest and Disease Management

There’s no doubt that growing fruit trees organically in the Mid-Atlantic is a challenge. We’ve already gotten part of the way there by choosing disease resistant cultivars and creating diversity in the Food Forest. From there you can choose to target problems with organic sprays or experiment with pro-biotic and holistic sprays like effective microbes and neem oil. To learn more about holistic sprays I recommend Michael Phillips’ book “The Holistic Orchard.”


Sources for Plant Material

Here are some online nurseries I recommend for bare-root trees and shrubs: Raintree Nursery, Cummins Nursery (especially for apples on Geneva rootstock), and Burnt Ridge Nursery. Stark Brothers is a great source for dwarf fruit trees although they do not specify rootstock. Edible Landscaping in Afton, VA is the go-to place for Asian Persimmons and Paw Paws. Nourse Farms is a great source for berries. For herbaceous perennials try sourcing from local nurseries or starting from seed. You can also order in plug trays of herbaceous plants online from Richter’s.

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A friend of mine once said that “peoplin' ain't easy”.  Having spent more than a decade in the mental health field-boy do I know this to be true.  I used to say I left my "real" job as a community counselor in order to work with plants because plants are easier.  
I was wrong.
My colleague likes to remind me of a quote from the writer and permaculturalist Starhawk, that “permaculture is the art of relationships”.  The more time I spend working with plants the more this idea is brought into focus. As a planter and grower, I am guilty of a Pollanesque botany-of-desire species selection in my own projects.   What is the plant's function? Do I like the plant? And then there is still that question.
What IS a permaculture plant?
And why are we slow to provide plant lists in our courses?  I can imagine biting BuzzFeed's style and using this blog for listicles with titles like "10 of the best perennials every permaculture student needs to know about."  That would up our readership. Here is another "The Six Most Appropriate Plants For Your Permaculture Design."
Not only would these lists be wrong, but they would be arrogant, and not only would they be arrogant but they would be vain. In all things, permaculture included - arrogance is helpful until it becomes vanity - tip of the cap to my man Merwin.

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As an educator, It can be a delight to hover in that ambiguous space of pattern and concepts with the hopes that anyone reaching for a plant list does some of the preliminary research and work on their own to start building plant knowledge and competencies.  I can remember the first several years I really dug into the material, falling asleep night after night with nursery and seed catalogs splayed out on my chest until I had memorized all of them.
Then what do we do?
I turned to the elders of our discipline.  
For example, Mark Shepards STUN (Sheer Total Utter Neglect) method of species selection is fun to write about but expensive once you ground truth it.  I've spent thousands of dollars on plants that have passed into their next life.
And then there is Dave Jacke-straight up genius-his two-volume encyclopedia on the subject is an invaluable addition to what we do. On the other hand, that shit is overwhelming.  I can remember dreaming of field grafting Korean nut pine onto all of my white pines after reading and confronting the shocking amount of information in his tome. Read, but plant simply when starting out.   In the end, it’s not about lists, though that is a place to start. It’s about experimenting with what works on your site based on your goals, and then diving deep into the relationship.
But What DO you do?  

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below is a list - it's not exhaustive, it's sparse.  It's based on our experience in our specific region - Shenandoah Valley - where winter temps get down to zero.  More importantly, these are plants we have developed relationships with. As you make your lists for your own projects, take the time to get to know your species. "Plantin' ain't easy,"  but it's fun.

   What makes a plant a permaculture plant?  Just three things:

1. Low maintenance
   
2. Multifunctional
   
3. Native when possible.  
   

For Medicine

Comfrey - At some point, this plant might begin to be played out, but it’s so damn helpful and easy.  Not only is it great for the soil and acts as a wonderful barrier plant but when mashed up and boiled becomes an incredibly healing poultice.  I’ve had gigantic swollen elbows rendered healed from long soaks. I dream of one day taking a bath in the stuff to relieve the stiffening that is happening to my aging body.  Another great use is boiling down the plant material and letting it cool to be used as a rooting agent for propagation!

Tulsi - Another favorite-It gets hot in the field in July.  And nothing cuts the heat like a cold glass of Tulsi or Holy Basil.  One of my favorite aspects of the plant is that it self seeds. Once it throws seed you never have to plant again.  Just walk the patch in the spring and smell the unmistakable perfume of Tulsi wafting up from the soil.

Yarrow - natures bandaid-It’s an incredible resource for those too often moments when a harvest knife nicks a finger.  Of course, follow up with some electrical tape around the wound-one must remember to not bleed on the food.

Elderberry - I could write a book about elderberry I love the plant so much.  My journey with plants began with a passionate interest in the mystery of healing plants. Before learning to grow, harvest and use Elderberry I was enamored with the folklore around the plant and immediately promised myself to incorporate the charisma of the plant into my own system.  One of my favorite poets Peter Lamborn Wilson likes to exclaim: “We must re-enchant the landscape!” and Elderberry does this. If one is to fall asleep beneath elderberry then a person dreams of fairies. I can remember the joy of watching my young daughter dance around the elder bush with fairy wings on.  She was just playing, little did she know her play had aligned quite neatly with traditional folklore. Perhaps, however, the most practical of the old stories recommend planting the Elderberry among the healing herbs. The Elder, it is said, is the keeper of medicine and teaches the medicinal plant how to be themselves.  On a less abstract note, the use of Elderberry is a true blue winter health elixir. The antiviral properties of Elder make for an excellent daily syrup to keep the sniffles away. And it tastes great! In keeping with the re-enchant the landscape theme I recommend the Black Lace Elder but make sure you pair it with an Emerald Lace Elderberry in order to have proper pollination.  

For Easy Fruit

Pawpaw - A great joy of the early fall is trekking through the forest in search of pawpaw patches.  When planting on your homestead we recommend great varieties like Shenandoah. Michael Judd has a pawpaw book coming out and we can’t wait to get our hands on it!  

Persimmon - Most people cringe when we mention Persimmon, but I”m telling you they are super easy to grow.  And some of the hybrid’s and Asian cultivars are excellent tasting. Nikita’s Gift is highly recommended.   

Arkansas Black Apple - Apples are tough in the Mid-Atlantic region especially here in the Shenandoah Valley.  There are many disease-resistant varieties like Liberty, William’s Pride, and Enterprise. However, My favorite tasting and the one that seems to be the toughest and lowest maintenance is the Arkansas Black.


Patio Peach - Peaches are a roll of the dice in our bioregion.  From insect pressure and disease to the dreaded late frosts here in the Valley, the fruit can be finicky.  The Patio Peach is not going to bring money into the system, but as a homestead peach for out of hand eating in July, it can’t be beaten.  This tree consistently is loaded with peaches and has needed zero maintenance in my system.

Asian Pear - For productive fruit production in your homestead this is the way to go.  Very little disease pressure and consistent fruiting. Shinko seems to be the most prolific but on wet years the fruit will split.  You can go from counting on having all of those canned pears at harvest to losing 60% of the harvest after a big rain. Korean Giant and Hosui have been our favorites at the homestead.

​Gooseberry - I put the gooseberry on here because it’s my children’s favorite.  It fruits early and young and provides hours of entertainment for the kids while they surgically pick the berries around the thorns.  Be careful with white pines in the neighborhood, however. White Pine Blister rust can take them out with the quickness - and Ribes like Gooseberry are often the culprit.  


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For Firewood


Black Locust
Black Cherry

I include the above trees together under the firewood category for one reason.  They are excellent when used in a coppiced hedge system. I like to plant either tree on 8 inch or one-foot centers.  After about 3 or 4 years, the tree can be cut down only to resprout from the trunk. By planting close together and strategically cutting every third tree every year, one can have a continual hedge and a supply of great wood small enough not to have to split for burning.  In addition, locust is nitrogen fixing and produces sweet-smelling edible flowers. Black Cherry is an excellent wood to have in the homestead for furniture making as the homestead ages.

To be continued.  


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    I want to write about a friend not rant about the potential problematic aspects of time based currency.  I fear I’ll do both before this is over.
The Wizard of Short Glade Heights is a man I met almost a decade ago.  I had moved back to the central shenandoah valley just three years prior and was chasing down the permaculture dream with a passion.  I had started attending a meeting of like minded people in town to exchange ideas about our sustainable future.
An older man approached me in the first meeting and asked the question “How green are you?”  he had a twinkle in his eye and he framed the question with a hint of irony. It was as if I’d just been approached by William Burroughs if instead of being a lifelong junky, he spent his time chopping wood.
In that first conversation I discovered with great relief, he was a neighbor.  It’s hard being an old school lefty and living in rural shenandoah valley. My values tend to skew more toward the environment and vegetables and holistic design then god, guns, and processed gas station snacks.  While I’ve since softened on my clearly irrational fear of a hillbilly apocalypse and cultivated a serious appreciation of gas station snacks-(I've had my illusory iron will shattered on many occasions due to a powerful lust for fried pickles) at the time, it was a breath of fresh air to meet a like minded person.
Quickly, he became my homesteading mentor.  I would spend my days off at his place stacking wood, cutting wood, splitting wood.  On building projects around his site he taught me about first principles and simple design.  That is where I first learned about proper tool selection and tool care.
And what a site it was.  The Wizard is a formally trained architect who by the age of 43 found himself on 4 acres of land and debt free in a liveable house.  At that time he made the decision to lower his stress by lowering his income needs and quitting his job. For the last twenty five years he has lived on 7 thousand dollars a year or 20 dollars a day.  On a site that he has spent his time transforming into a magical place.
Almost nothing at his place is new.  When I think about valuing what someone else would consider waste and creatively responding to change this man comes to mind.  Essentially he has built an ewok village featuring a pair of old farm silos out of found objects. Years ago his scavenging habits got out of hand and he realized he needed storage and an ability to organize.  He did the math and figured out that if he paid for an old building down the road from his site, he would save money by storing everything he needed instead of buying it new. He bought the building he now calls Zyx and refers to it jokingly as his personal Lowes and Walmart. In the building is a lumber section featuring 100 year old chestnut boards from an old barn, there is a hardware sections with nails pulled from pallets twenty years ago, plumbing, etc.  you get the picture.
Back down the road at his homesite which he calls Z-ville he practices a french technique which he observed while on a trip to France back in the late 90’s as the french strategy of tax abatement.  Essentially he deliberately leaves the outside of his estate run down but fine tunes every detail on the inside to create an incredible living environment. It’s remarkably efficient, it’s tiny before every damn hipster on the planet wanted a tiny house and it’s retrofitted and updated almost entirely from found materials.  
He is quite simply the “greenest” example of a life I know.  But it’s not my admiration for this man and his lifestyle that inspires me so much.  Rather it’s our relationship. The mentorship I discovered long ago has evolved into an old school neighborliness and friendship that reduces both of our needs to earn more income.  
Like man-buns, gluten-free, unschooling, tiny houses, swales, and whiteboy dreadlocks-time banks as a permaculture act of resistance is working it’s way across it’s own arc of trendiness.  It’s an idea and theory with great intention behind it. To be clear, this is not a critique of those brilliant minds who have put their passion, brains, and energy behind time banks in their own community.  This energy is well-meaning, and driven-I admire you all too. And honestly, I get it-until recently I used to sport white boy dreadlocks in a man bun while simultaneously designing a tiny house in my food forest full of swales. The arc of time and the potency of hindsight makes fools out of the best of us.
The wizard and I have an unspoken contract.  We trade skills constantly. One example of this is he eats for free off of what I produce.  During the season I supply him with all of the mixed vegetables that he can eat from my vegetable operation.  Calorie wise and weight wise, it’s not a huge burden for the farm, but it’s quite meaningful to a man who spends 20 dollars a day to live.  In the winter, I supply him with meat from the deer that I hunt and butcher. Often times, that deer comes from his land that he allows me to hunt.  In exchange he helps me when I have reached a homestead problem beyond my present capacity.  When my pressure tank goes bad-I call him, when something goes wrong in an engine, I call him, when I need consultation on re-graveling a washed out driveway-I call him.  He even goes so far as splitting a little extra wood for me and I can always cut wood from his forest for burning in my wood stove.
Recently, We both upped the ante on this contract.  He is designing the addition to our house-a skill that he is trained for in exchange for me writing an historical novel about the tiny little place in the community where we live.  It’s a novel that he has conceptualized and wants to see written but doesn’t have the time or patience to put into it.
And that brings me to a central beef I have with time banks.  I appreciate the attempt at creating a currency that evens out the playing field where everyone is valued equally.  And I appreciate subverting the magic symbolism of the dollar with a slightly less abstract concept as one hour.  However, I can't get past the feeling that In the end it’s still magic and it’s still currency and more importantly, it seems to recreate our own old school neighborliness by institutionalizing service.  And there's the rub. What time banks seem to do is layer structured togetherness on top of a void and loss of intimacy.
I am suspicious that the answer to our current social and economic alienation is structured time banks where we log our social capital.  What if the answer to these problems are less fancy, less trendy, but more meaningful. What if we just need to value and improve our intimacy skills?
    In the age of bullshit “find your tribe” marketing and goofy follow your bliss advice spilling off the lips of every get rich quick hippy life coach on the internet, what if we just need a couple of friends.  Commit to them-build that relationship-earn their trust and then count on them and make damn sure they can count on you. When I think of slow and small solutions, this strikes me as a meaningful way to build a community.  One neighbor at a time.
The Wizard has been good to me and I feel extremely motivated to be good to him.  We aren’t keeping score. I have a couple of more people I’m working on building this same relationship and it takes time.  Shit has to be worked out. But it works.
So sure, keep fighting for that local time bank-they have value-I believe this.  Just remember, as you're stacking hours take the opportunity to truly connect.  When time is currency, our relationship to time is changed.  And this I fear is how intimacy is subverted.  I'll close with a quote from one of my counseling mentors.  "Act like you got five minutes, and it's going to take all day.  Act like you got all day, and often it takes five minutes."   

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Having the energy and vision for a project is important, Trevor and Jenna got that.  Fortunately, Trevor also happens to be an obsessed student of forest gardening-and lets be honest ya’ll- food forests are sexy.  It never fails, in the first weekend of every Pdc we teach somebody exclaims; ”I came to learn how to start a forest garden.” I myself dove into permaculture fifteen years ago, seduced by the idea of abundant landscapes with food dripping onto my head, thanks to permaculture thinkers and communicators like Geoff Lawton and Dave Jacke.  
    Since those heady and bold years of permaculture experimentation we’ve picked up quite a bit of practical knowledge.  I’ve even weathered an unhealthy obsession with swales, evolving to view them as unnecessary for fruit trees in the mid-atlantic.  
In our bioregion, (the mid-atlantic), there are great examples of practitioners and sites demonstrating effective forest gardening.  Michael Judd comes to mind-a charismatic writer and designer from Maryland, Michael has simplified forest garden application into repeatable techniques like the expanding islands strategy.  Then there is Dave O’neill-a mixed vegetable farming wizard and mad man with endless energy who has successfully implemented the linear guild as a pattern for establishing food forests. I have experimented with both of these techniques on a homestead scale to successful ends complete with hand dug permed out berm and basin fish scale swales.  It’s a lot of work! Something I would want to avoid at all cost on a market scale.

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​At Wild Rose Orchard Trevor has simplified the design and installment of his system.  Recently, he walked our 6th annual SPI Pdc through installment at his future orchard site.  We all stand on the shoulders of giants, in this work he is standing on the shoulders of Michael Judd, Dave O’neill, Stefan Sobkowiak of Miracle Farms, Michael Phillips of Heartsong Farms, and Darren Doherty.

Step 1.  Design your system complete with species selection.  Trevor believes strongly in the central valley that it is important to mimic our natural ecosystem of chestnut savannahs with the use of linear guilds and wide grassy alleys between them.  He selects his species and plants them in linear guilds based on when the fruit ripens. This is known as the grocery aisle concept taken from the work of Stefan Sobkowiak.
    Step 2.  Lay out your site in keyline patterned rows.  This could easily be a book of it’s own, but in our experience, it is a skill best learned through doing rather than reading.  A recommended resource can be found at earthintegral.com. Trevor recommends slightly raised “planting strips” rather than full-on swales.  Combining keyline patterning with planting strips allows for alleys of uniform width and prevents having to use the energy required to dig swales.  
    Step 3.  Till and than, using a rotary plow or hand shovel shape your raised planting strips.  This is all that is needed to direct water from valleys to ridges even in large rain events.  It’s a low risk, low energy intervention. Step 4. Sow cover crop (Trevor recommends fall planted oats for winter kill and red clover as a nitrogen fixer.)  Step 5. Plant trees with myco inoculant. Step 6. Provide fencing for deer pressure, tree tubes for vole and rabbit pressure, and staking for wind pressure. Step 7.  Keep tree drip line weed free during the establishment years using wood chip mulch and/or landscaping fabric.

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Eleanore Pollard, a 2016 SPI alumni from our U of R course, visited Innisfree Village, "A lifesharing community with adults with disabilities."  Located in the Blue Ridge Mountains near Charlottesville, VA, Innisfree's Lifesharing Mission reads: 
   "Lifesharing at Innisfree means that residents and their volunteer caregivers live as families in the community's 15 houses. In this close-knit environment, people develop profound relationships based on mutual needs, respect, and love"
Eleanore gleaned a lot from her visit, and got to witness some beautiful and inspiring Permaculture in action.  Check out her essay below. Enjoy!