Category: low-footprint living

I am deeply honored to be included in this post of “Best Permaculture Books Written by Women”.

In this post by Heather Jo Flores on permaculturewomen.com, I find myself in great company with some of my favorites, including the classic No Work Garden Book by Ruth Stout. Another book mentioned is Beyond the War on Invasive Species by Tao Orion, which “contains a broader view by taking into account that we need to understand why invasive species are existing in an ecosystem to make more ecological decisions that address the root of the problem.” I haven’t read this book yet but plan to because the prevailing approach, even within the permaculture community, to “invasive species” has always felt off-base to me.

The author of the post, Heather Jo Flores, also herself happens to be the author of one of the best permaculture books around. That book is Food Not Lawns: How To Turn Your Yard Into a Garden and Your Neighborhood Into a Community.

Heather, an artist, activist, and permaculture educator, has developed an extensive base of resources including permaculturewomen.com and the Permaculture Women’s Guild (which offers an online permaculture design certificate course taught by 40 women). She also offers her own series of online classes in the areas of emotional permaculture and practices for women authors.

Don’t worry, someone is listening to you. Even when it seems like no one hears or cares, someone is listening. It could just be one person, but that person really needs to hear what you have to say, and you never know what great things may come of it.

So go ahead. Write that post; upload that video; post that photo; make that comment. Someone is listening.

Speaking as someone who’s many times been the reader, hearer, viewer of that post or comment or video that almost didn’t get made. And felt saved by it, and taken it and run with it.

Speak! Share your unique voice. Someone is listening.

In my recent post of food-gardening tips, I advised beginners against “fighting nature,” by which I meant don’t try to grow food in the hardest season when you’re just starting out.

The same applies to the part of your garden that you’re cultivating for purposes other than food (such as wildlife habitat; flowers for pollinators; shrubs for privacy and blocking out streetlights).

With my ever-alert scrounger’s eye, I’ve been finding various shrubs and plants that people have left at curbside. Also, friends have been giving me surplus plants they don’t want. Lots of free plants — great! But I shouldn’t have tried to plant them in the yard during the hottest driest time. If I had it to do over again, the curb-scrounged podocarpus shrubs pictured in the top photo would have spent a few weeks being babied in pots on my shaded patio. Instead, I made the mistake of planting them in the harsh cruel world of the yard during what has turned out to be a very hot dry spell. Carrying water to those shrubs and to my other yard transplants each day has turned out to be a major hassle! Also it uses an awful lot of water, 20 or 30 gallons a day. (By the way, although the podocarpus look dead, one of my super-horticulture-savvy friends tells me they’ll be fine.)

Now I’m learning from my mistake. The second pic shows some plants that a friend invited me to dig up from her yard today. I’m babying them on the patio til the weather gets a bit less harsh. Snuggled up together in pots, they won’t need as much water.

Can you spot a subtle-but-significant difference between the second photo and the third?

Answer: In photo #3, I have removed the label sticker from the plastic tub! Yes, I’m that fussy, at least in certain ways — I really notice the difference! I’m very much a practitioner of the KonMari aesthetic, long before I had heard of Marie Kondo and read her books on decluttering. I remove the labels from dish liquid and other bottled household products (the few I use), and was amazed to find that someone else did that too.

This past Monday, September 10, I was privileged to be a guest on the Sustainable Living WMNF radio program, which is hosted with grace and skill by Jon Butts and Tanja Vidovic. I’ve been on this high-quality radio program before with fellow Florida permaculture designers, but this time I was on to talk about my book.

Synchronistically, the segments before me were 1) Tanja talking about her recent incident of being “trespassed” from her local park for (peacefully) objecting to application of toxic weed-killer; and 2) an interview with Joseph Romm, author of the book Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know.

I say “synchronistically” because both of these segments underscore very strongly the importance of reducing the human footprint, which is the core message of my book.

1) The human compulsion to label certain plants “invasive species,” and eradicate “weeds,” is ironic given that we humans are the most invasive species of all. If we would just rein ourselves in, and not insist on exercising total control over so much space on this planet, it would go a long way toward solving our problems. This is a key point of my book. Personally, I think our parks, and the planet as a whole, would be better with far more forest and far less human-maintained turf-grass.

2) Another key point of my book is that climate change (and pollution) are hard to wrap one’s brain around if we focus only on the planetary scale, and on trying to mandate behavior change on the part of corporations and government. But if we focus on our own daily actions (which, added up over the course of our lives, and multiplied by the millions and billions of other people doing those same actions each day, most assuredly add up), we will naturally influence corporations and the government through the power of demand (or removal of demand).
On “my” segment of the show, I was interviewed along with fellow guest Anni Ellis, of Anni Ellis Garden Design Inc. With a background of fine art and interior design, and drawing on feng shui and minimalist concepts, Anni creates outdoor spaces that entice people outdoors to enjoy their gardens in ways they never had before.

This is also something I emphasize in my book: Many of us humans have become so removed from nature that we are afraid of it. It’s a vicious cycle: The more afraid we get, the more removed; the more removed we get, the more afraid. Outdoor spaces that are comfortable and attractive to their intended users entice people outdoors and help break that cycle of disconnectedness with nature. Which makes people and the planet happier and healthier.

If you didn’t catch the show with me on it, don’t worry. All of WMNF’s shows are available on their show page on WMNF.org for at least a week after they air; through the WMNF app, and many are on Mixcloud. These shows are also available by podcast. Visit WMNF’s home page and podcast page to tune in.

Check out my most recent interview, by the excellent green radio show “Shades of Green.” I’m really pleased with how it turned out! This may be the most succinct overview I’ve managed to provide so far of my book and the Riot for Austerity. Thank you to John Hoffner and the other hosts for their journalistic and editing skills that produced this 20-minute segment. I tend to ramble and digress, so I’m sure it was no mean feat!

“Shades of Green” is based in Austin TX, and has been on the air since 2007. (Fun fact: I was privileged to be one of the original co-hosts, with John Hoffner and Ken McKenzie-Grant.) The current hosts are John Hoffner, Stacy Guidry, Reed Sternberg, and Amy Stansbury. You can find out more about these excellent journalists and eco-activists on the show’s website.

In case you have trouble with the uploaded mp4 I provided above, here’s a link to the podcast on Shades of Green’s website.

(Since I grew up in places where leaves change color, September still means “Fall” to me.)

Today’s finds:
– Enough additional stainless-steel ware to host a decent-sized party.
– Close-toed shoes for winter and for traveling inland. (My Minnetonka suede moccasins, purchased new in 2006, finally wore out for real; now that I live on the Atlantic coast of Florida these gently used Hush Puppies — made in USA, same as my old Minnetonkas — for $2 will do!)

All items came from Halifax Health Hospice thrift store, total $9.85 (silverware items were $.25 each). I’ve always been a fan of non-matching silverware, because then, unlike with a “proper matching set,” it doesn’t stand out if pieces are missing or different! And it fits my urban-rustic-bohemian aesthetic.

Riot for Austerity notes: Thrift-store purchases, being donated items, don’t add to one’s consumer-goods total under “Riot for Austerity” rules. According to statistics used in the Riot for Austerity, the U.S. average for consumer purchases comes to $10,000 per year per person. The Riot calls for us to reduce our footprint by 90% of the U.S. average; accordingly, the Riot target for purchases of consumer goods is $1,000 per year.

Since I mainly buy thrift (when I buy stuff rather than make it or scrounge it), and donated items do not count in the Riot total, I almost always come well under the $1,000 target without even trying. This year is an exception because I needed to get a new roof on my house. The Riot rules say to count necessary home improvements at 50% of the total ticket amount. Since the total I paid for my new roof was $7,000, I have to count $3,600 of that. So far, my Riot consumer total for the year is still under $4,000, or less than 40 percent of the U.S. average in the “consumer purchases” category.