Back when I was a home energy auditor for Efficiency Kansas, we were given a crash course in "building science" that made a lot of assumptions about how buildings are built and what they're made of. While those assumptions were safe for the houses I was auditing, I couldn't help wondering about the naturally built structures my friends had made from strawbales and cob and such.

This excellent and detailed report (PDF, 2.5 MB) by David Buck of the King's Fund, under commission of the National (UK) Gardens Scheme, looks at the impact of gardens and gardening on health and well being and explores what the National (again, UK) Health Service and the wider health and social care system can do to maximise this impact.

Last week I presented a stand-alone version of the soil class I normally present as part of Kansas Permaculture Institute's certification course. It was very well received! Here are the slides: https://tinyurl.com/soil-city-sprouts

Over the years I've ordered seeds from a variety of companies, some more responsible than others. For future reference, here are some of the best I've heard of:

In researching design options for clients over the years, I've looked into what's involved in building natural swimming pools -- that is, ponds that stay safe enough for swimming without the use of chemical inputs. Here are some of the best links I've found on the subject:

Organic Pools DIY Manual by David Pagan Butler (PDF, 1.2 MB, 2013)

In addition to the other sessions I posted separately, I attended several other sessions at NToTP 2019 and took less detailed notes. Here are the notes I have:

"The Carbon Key: Soil Biology Builds Resilience in Regenerative Systems" was a talk by Dr. Kris Nichols at the No-Till on the Plains conference in Wichita in January 2019. Here are my notes:

Dr. Christine Jones at No-Till on the Plains 2019

Notes from a talk by Dr.

David R. Montgomery

At the end of January 2019, I attended the annual conference of No-Till on the Plains in Wichita.

Jim Schalles gave a standing-room-only lecture on Natural Building at City Sprouts on January 12. Here are my notes: