In June of 2017, I gave an informal tour of our urban farm for a few members of the local garden club. In addition to my voice, you'll hear my wife Jessie and local farmer Tim Nicklin. Rather than record it as a video, I've made a slideshow to accompany the audio using photos from all 9 years we've lived here, as well as some from the weeks after the tour took place. See the slide descriptions for the timestamps when they are described in the audio.

Audio recording of the tour

version español

Important: Read this retrospective before attempting to build this design.

In my previous article, Rethinking keyhole beds and mandala gardens, I demonstrated that the circular horseshoe shape celebrated in permaculture as being mathematically and ergonomically opt

In August, 2008, we moved into our house on a 1/10 acre lot, and I began gardening with a single sheet-mulched plot in the front yard. I took a baseline set of soil tests from the front and back yards in January, 2009 and began a regimen of no-till, no-spray (i.e. no chemical amendments), no-manure gardening, using only plant-based mulch to maintain soil fertility while harvesting as many as 75 crops for market each growing season. The soil tests were done by our local university extension agency.

Gardening with Oklahoma Native Plants: Steve Owens, Bustani Plant Farm

Soil preparation is not as important for native plants: they like the soil the way it is! Some even like to be stressed. Try growing them in cracks between landscape elements.

Wildflower meadow gardens are great for pollinator habitat, but study your site first. Consider microclimate and choose plants accordingly. Contrasting white flowers can help break up the uniformity of a meadow garden.

Here are the slides for the presentation I'm giving this afternoon at the Oklahoma Native Plant Society's Indoor Outing:

I'm a big fan of the late Toby Hemenway's book, Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture. I own both editions, and for many years I used it as the curriculum for the intro permaculture courses I taught. In my opinion it's a classic right up there with Mollison's big black book.

Presented at Flint Hills Technical College

Part 1: March 2, 2016

Glossary of terms

Audio recording

Notes from a talk at Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society, January 29, 2016.

People often ask me what I think about greenhouses, as a permaculture designer. I've been meaning to write this article for so long that I was beaten to it; Kris de Decker wrote an excellent article, Fruit Walls: Urban Farming in the 1600s followed by Reinventing the Greenhouse.