As part of publicizing my new Essential Earthbag Construction book I spent some time answering questions about earthbag building in general at www.permies.com where they gave away several copies of the book to those who participated. As I spent more time at this site I realized that it is one of the most informative and … Read more
Continue with us on our journey to have a permanent water source and container on our property at the Busted Wagon Ranch.
Ernst Gotsch spent years planting a giant 500 hectare (1,200 acre food forest) in Brazil to perfect his techniques. In this video, you can see the results of farmer’s who have trained with Gotsch and are now applying his methods. The results speak for themselves: truly outstanding, world class. In 18 months you can turn unproductive invasive grassland into a lush food forest. The rows of vegetables in between the tree rows pays for the cost and labor of planting the fruit and timber trees, which means the system pays for itself almost immediately.
I have had some recent email communication with a reader who writes, “My wife and I are nurturing an Academy of Building Conservation, following research by Donovan Rykema that the greenest building is the one already built because of the embodied energy of materials and past investment. We have an embarrassment of riches which I think of as the blessing and the curse; a blessing because of magnificent historic context, and a curse because the sheer number of sites overwhelms available resources. One example is Woodburne Mansion which is crumbling because the County says they lack the resources to stop the leaks.“
All this week I will be available at the Permies.com forum answering questions about my new book Essential Earthbag Construction. This is an immensely popular and informative forum discussing every aspect of Permaculture. My focus will be earthbag building, but you can find or initiate threads related to any pertinent subject. If you engage in … Read more
A book about earthbag building has just been published by New Society Publishers, titled Essential Earthbag Construction: the complete step-by-step guide. I wrote this book at the publisher’s request, as they are issuing a comprehensive series of essential guides about a wide range of natural building methods and wanted to make sure they covered earthbag construction.
This book is particularly detailed in its description of what is involved in designing and building with earthbags. It also features a lengthy foreword by Owen Geiger outlining many of the recent developments that have occurred around the world.