How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Jen Nobel
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series featuring personal stories from Verge grads speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. This time we’re [...]
How our process helped this graduate see his property in a whole new light
My name is Ian Griebel, and I operate a 2,300 acre ranch with my wife Dana Blume and my two wild little boys Cohen and Fynn. I’m the third generation farming this land, but have only been doing [...]
How a Resilient Home Addresses Global Risks
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
What We Talk About When We Talk About Solar
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
The Permaculture Podcast: Essentials Rainwater Harvesting
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
A Closer Look at Permaculture’s Most Famous Quote
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
Transforming Our Urban Home: On Soil, Solar, and Community
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
How Rainwater Harvesting Transformed Our Urban Home, Part 2
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
How Rainwater Harvesting Transformed Our Urban Home, Part 1
This week, I want to go over a case study in rainwater harvesting design. This example is special to me because it’s about how we partnered with my mother-in-law to transform her property into a [...]
Designing Your Own Passive Solar Greenhouse, Part 2
Welcome to Part 2 of this series on how you can design your own greenhouse that can extend the planting season, enhance growing conditions, and provide a cheery space for those dark winter days. [...]
Seabuckthorn: A Permaculture Crop Spotlight
Looking for an ideal pioneer species for your cold climate permaculture food forest? I highly recommend seabuckthorn, a plant that grows quickly, fixes nitrogen into the ground, and produces [...]
Permaculture: An Insurance Policy for Uncertain Times
Unprecedented wildfires, floods, and droughts – Climate change (or as George Monbiot prefers, climate breakdown) is no longer a topic solely for environmentalists and ecologists; it has entered [...]
A Conversation with RBM Grad John Hemmerle
This month, we had the chance to chat with John Hemmerle, owner of Our Land Organics, a Cincinnati-based ecological landscape company and a 2017 graduate of the Regenerative Business Mentorship [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Gaëtane Carignan
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our ongoing blog series that features personal stories from students speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Dustin Bajer
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series that features personal stories from students speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. This [...]
On Living Larders, Part 2: Types and Designs
As I mentioned in part 1 of this blog series, a living larder can be defined as living floral or faunal food sources that humans can harvest when needed. There are three types of living larders: [...]
On Living Larders, Part 1: A Definition
On our way back home from a consultancy, Takota Coen and I were talking about how brilliant permaculture is at solving problems, specifically when it comes to food security. After some productive [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Jon Berlie
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series that features personal stories from students speaking on how permaculture shaped their careers and their lives. This [...]
The Hidden Risks of Autonomous Farming, Part 2
Last time, I posed the following questions: 1) What are the hidden black swans associated with relegating all food production to robotics? 2) Is food production important enough that we should [...]
The Hidden Risks of Autonomous Farming, Part 1
I thought it would be a good time to kick off 2018 with a piece looking at the future and the brave new world of autonomous farming. But in order to look forward, let’s think like historians and [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Kaz Haykowsky
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, our blog series featuring personal stories from past students speaking about how permaculture changed the direction of their outlooks [...]
On Climate Change Adaptation, Part 2
Last time, I spoke about the need to look at climate models with less bias, emotion, and anxiety so that we can derive insightful and constructive actions from them. (You can read the first part [...]
On Climate Change Adaptation, Part 1
Recently, I attended a community meeting where we spoke about looming climate shifts. As part of the evening, we watched a presentation by Stuart Scott from Columbia University on the future of [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Vaden Somers
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, a new blog series featuring personal stories from past students speaking about how permaculture changed the direction of their outlooks [...]
6 Principles for Starting, Running, and Improving a Business, Part 4
Welcome to the final episode in the podcast series, 6 Base Principles for Starting, Running, and Improving a Successful Business. You can listen to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 to get up to speed, [...]
6 Principles for Starting, Running, and Improving a Business, Part 2
Some of you may remember a conversation Javan and I had a few months back about the 6 principles for starting, running, and improving a successful business. The podcast below continues that [...]
Podcast: Improving the Business and Marketing of Small Farms
Rob here. I’m back with Javan speaking with Diego Footer over at Creative Destruction, this time on the marketing of small farms from a city dweller’s perspective. An intro: [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Mike Dorion
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, a new blog series featuring personal stories from past students speaking about how permaculture changed the direction of their outlooks [...]
How Permaculture Changed My Life, by Ami Dehne
Welcome to “How Permaculture Changed My Life”, a new blog series featuring personal stories from past students speaking about how permaculture changed the direction of their outlooks [...]
Do This Before Starting up Your Permaculture Consulting Business
Welcome to the 3 part of this blogging series on Permaculture consulting (Check out Part 1 & 2 Here). In this latest post, I’m going to offer the advice I wished I had when I was starting [...]
4 Reasons Why Permaculture Businesses Fail to Produce Right Livelihoods
Last post, I spent some time dispelling the 3 main myths around permaculture consulting. (You can read it here). This time, we’ll delve into 4 reasons why a business in the regenerative field [...]
3 Myths Around Permaculture Business and Consulting
Rob here. I’ve been consulting in the permaculture world for close to a decade now. Before that, I consulted in the oil and gas industry for another five, so suffice it to say I’ve been around [...]
Podcast: 6 Base Principles for Starting, Running, and Improving a Successful Business
Javan and I recently chatted with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction on his Voices of Change podcast series, featuring “honest, hard conversations about farming, business, and life with [...]
Voices of Change Podcast: The Antifragile Property Series – Part 2
Here is Part 2 of my chat with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction and his Voices of Change podcast series, featuring “honest, hard conversations about farming, business, and life with [...]
Passive Solar Greenhouse Case Studies | On Demand
In this ten part video series (with 5+hours of professional footage), engineer & ecologist Rob Avis travels over 500 kms from the Canadian Rockies to the Alberta prairies to visit five [...]
Buy For Life: A Guest Post by Lorinda Peel
Lorinda Peel is a herbalist-in-training and a former Verge grad. We’re happy to feature her guest blog, first published over at Reforged Ironworks, a company that crafts hand-forged tools [...]
Why Regenerative-Based Businesses Struggle and 3 Principles That Will Change Your Business
Over the years, Javan Bernakevitch and I have taught a lot of Permaculture Design Courses (~60 combined) and have encouraged many of our students to start businesses that fix the planet, the food [...]
Voices of Change Podcast: The Antifragile Property Series – Part 1
I had a chance to chat once again with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction, formally known as Permaculture Voices, on his podcast series featuring “honest, hard conversations about [...]
Land as Insurance, Part 3: The Role of Farms
Here is part 1 and part 2 of the Land as Insurance series. In an attempt to understand how to create insurance for my family around food, water, energy, and money, I came up with the idea of [...]
Land as Insurance, Part 2: The Black Swan Theory
Last time, we talked about predictable risk that falls within a Gaussian distribution. But not all risk follows this pattern; some risks are rare and catastrophic and can only be explained in [...]
Land as Insurance, Part 1: A Primer
This is a three-part series based on an idea I recently had around the subjects of farming, black swans, and creating a product that can help insure against risk. In this first article I’ll [...]
Land as Insurance Part 2: The Black Swan Theory - Resilience[…] Last time, we talked about predicta...
Addition Through Subtraction
As you can imagine I think a lot about design. If you ask Michelle I think a lot about everything. I think she thinks of me as an opportunity firehose that is constantly spraying her with ideas, [...]
Tim Wickstrom: Forging Permaculture Hand Tools, Part 3
Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the final piece of his three-part [...]
Voices of Change Podcast: A Conversation with Diego Footer
Recently I had a chance to chat with Diego Footer from Creative Destruction, formally known as Permaculture Voices, on a podcast series featuring “honest, hard conversations about farming, [...]
Tim Wickstrom: Forging Permaculture Hand Tools, Part 2
Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the second piece of his three-part [...]
Tim Wickstrom: Forging Permaculture Hand Tools, Part 1
Tim Wickstrom is a Verge grad who has started his own forge business to make permaculture and garden hand tools (Check out his Alumni Profile here). Here is the first piece of his three-part [...]
The Hidden Risks of Autonomous Farming, Part 1
I thought it would be a good time to kick off 2018 with a piece looking at the future and the brave new world of autonomous farming. But in order to look forward, let’s think like historians and [...]