By Jeffery Heppler “Back in 2012, long before soil health, regenerative agriculture or carbon farming became cool, farmer Gail Fuller and soil scientist Dr. Jill Clapperton invited a fringe group of farmers, researchers, and community leaders to share ideas, innovate, and build relationships. This informal gathering of renegades came to…
PDC Graduate Starts Gardening Initiative in Manhattan By Patty McKenna Toward the end of my Master of Public Health degree program, I convinced my graduate committee that taking the Permaculture Design Course (PDC) was a relevant elective for public health and specifically my work on local gardening. In March of…
Living With the Seasons and Turning Problems into Solutions: Spring Edition By Stephanie Lambert What to do (and not to do) right now in your permaculture garden The arrival of spring with some warmer days has me itching to get outside and start working in the garden. It is tempting…
By Jeffery Heppler A Field Trip to Prairie Turnip Farm Electric fencing from a permaculture perspective is used to provide disturbance to the land in sensible doses that mimic the large herds of grazers across the prairie not so long ago. By having smaller paddocks that are more densely stocked,…
As we enter May of 2020, the hügel beds at Kansas State University’s Willow Lake Student Farm are nearing completion, eight months after breaking ground. The effort has been time consuming and required a lot of sweat, teamwork, and equipment. Winter weather limited our ability to move soil and compost,…
By Amber Lehrman, KPI Education Lead In October of last year, I was invited to help teach a PDC at Maya Mountain Research Farm (MMRF) in Belize this March. I happily accepted and traveled there for the first 2 weeks of March (what a time to leave the country!). It…
By Sasha Banks-Louie Contour garden. Photo courtesy of i.pinimg.com Decades of tillage and a lack of cover cropping have caused serious harm to the world’s hillside cropland and its soil structures, creating an urgent need to explore alternative cultivation methods, such as those used in contour farming. While the practice…
By Sasha Banks-Louie Slow Money can help local growers find local investors to fund their farm projects High prices of farming equipment and the increasing costs of borrowing the money to pay for it, has pushed US farmers into $21.9 billion dollars of interest-only debt in 2018, according to the…
By Sasha Banks-Louie Pickling cucumbers using vinegar, salt, and spices. Students braved a chilly morning commute on Saturday, November 10 to gather in the cozy kitchen of the First Baptist Church in Lawrence, where Kansas Permaculture Education Chair Amber Lehrman hosted a workshop on how to preserve food by canning…
By Bill Price, Co-Chair, Kansas Permaculture Institute, Board of Directors A lot of us love cooking outdoors and can’t imagine what summer would be like without barbecues. But there is an alternative. If you haven’t considered solar cooking, maybe this article will, at least, cause you to think about trying…
