Surya Nagar Farm, Fairfield, Iowa

Lonnie Gamble bought Surya Nagar Farm (Sanskrit for "home of the sun") in an off-grid development outside Fairfield in about 1994. By the time I saw it in 2004, he and his wife Valerie had built two strawbale houses and a hoop house on the property; by the time he sold it around 2015, there was also a strawbale barn that he used as a shop, office, and classroom. Lonnie's style of year-round gardening in an unheated hoop house was heavily influenced by Eliot Coleman, and he and Valerie named their son Eliot. Lonnie was one of my biggest inspirations in learning and teaching permaculture.

See an album of photos of Surya Nagar.