It'll Be Just Like Starting Over (June 15, 2017)

Grace and I are reviving the Grace and Paul Pottscast. After two years of chaos and crazy commutes, things are settling down, just a bit. I have unpacked my microphones, set up a little space for recording, and started making some test files. I will try to apply what I’ve learned about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, so at least at first, my rule for producing these will be “it’s good enough.” I can’t promise a consistent schedule. Our baby girl is having surgery in just a few weeks and caring for her will be our first priority. But we will get something out!

Flashback: Permaculture, Hugelkultur, and our Saginaw Garden

To get started, I’m going to link to a podcast episode I recorded on June 15, 2014. I think this is one of the best of our old conversations. For one thing, Grace does most of the talking!

In this episode, we spoke about our gardening projects at our house in downtown Saginaw, Michigan, where Grace worked to apply permaculture principles to create an urban food jungle. Here is the original description of the episode:

I managed to get a little time with my wife in the garden. In this conversation she gives me an audio tour and explained what is actually in our garden beds, and in the process elucidates the application of permaculture principles to a home garden, and why it looks to the untrained eye like we’re just growing a lot of weeds.

The summary for iTunes has the following text:

A walking tour of our low hugelkultur beds and this year’s new raised beds; winter’s survivors; our weeds; wild and cultivated strawberries, groundcherries; lettuces; dill; never be tilling; always be mulching; eating living food; leeks; tomatillos; willow; garlic scapes; purslane (pigweed); vitamin C and calcium sources from the northeast; how nature mulches itself; two kinds of clover; our deciduous tree nursery; collaborating with nature; let’s see who shows up; smoothies without compromise; training your system to taste natural sweetness; water catchment; cosmos; plantain; annuals for nitrogen fixing; sunflowers; open-source zucchini; radishes; daikon; peas; cucumber; plants to climb and shade each other; nasturtium; considering a beehive; bee balm; mason v. honey; transplanted volunteer tomatoes; hazelnuts; almonds from California; doing things as our budget allows, with salvaged wood; sunflowers and potatoes don’t like each other, but maybe the peas can mediate; a big kale party; the potatoes that didn’t make it; onions; swiss chard; marigolds; thinning plants; carrots; a closed source zucchini; more lettuces; beets and beet greens; remembrance of growing seasons past; getting our neighbors involved; a typical city lot; a lot of food in a small area; feeding our kids the healthiest food we can find anywhere; Michigan’s right-to-farm laws, and their evisceration; Michigan, agricultural powerhouse; Michigan and Ohio wines and beers; hellish monocultural farm-scapes; many kinds of blueberries; a cross between rasberry and blueberry; our flower-shaped flower bed; thyme, lavender, oregano, mint, feverfew, and pink lemonade blueberries; a quick sprint through the flower beds; parenting success days; my favorite person in the whole world; don’t judge us by the height of our grass; kill your lawn; little apples; many thanks to Frank.

How to Listen

You can find the MP3 file here.

The Podcast feed is here.

The Podcast channel on YouTube is here.

More Information

Hügelkultur

Permaculture