“Ben Falk is a permaculture designer based in Moretown, Vermont. In this video, he speaks about different aspects of homesteading and cold weather, notably his wood cook-stove which also heats water, and his compost-powered greenhouse heating system. He also talks about the importance of being engaged with the land around us, and how gardening is just basically awesome!”
Another part of this video that I really like is where he talks about his mulch pile and how he uses it for heating water and, by extension, his greenhouse soil. That is amazing!
Yes, very interesting. See this previous blog post:
https://naturalbuildingblog.siterubix.com/jean-pains-compost-based-bioenergy-system/
Good video. I like how he says he moves from being a “minimize my impact” kind of person to understanding that humans can actually do a lot more good for land than the land might do for itself, if left untouched. Horticulture and animal husbandry can do a great deal of good, if done responsibly. It’s the industrialization of those practices that has led, in part, to the degradation of our natural environment. Perhaps more so than any other part of modern civilization, I would say industrial farming and meat/egg farming have produced the biggest impact, even over the pursuit of oil and minerals. After all, as much as people may want gold/diamonds/iron/oil, they want food even more. That’s my take, anyhow.
I agree. The keyword is ‘regenerative’. I have a blog post ready on this topic. On a related note, this ties in with my interest in restoring degraded land. There will be plenty of food for everyone if we restore the land that’s been killed by industrial agriculture. Now I’m figuring out how to grow forest gardens at twice the rate of the one we’ve started.