Mike Haasl

I had one a decade or two ago when I lived in Utah and it was an amazing narrow beefy stick with apples growing off of it. They'd make a great visual fence.

food prep and preservation
instruction, regulation, insurance, safety, etc

This aspect blends traditional food prep and preservation with modern permaculture tools - covered in a sauce made from gardening, homesteading, foraging and an optional bowl of veganism on the side.

These badges grew to something freakishly massive with a lot of minimum requirements.  Eventually the minimum requirements grew to the point that there was no room left for optional stuff. This is why many amazing food prep and preservation techniques do not appear here. The following are strictly forbidden:

 - Aluminum cookware
 - Teflon and any material that looks like it could be a teflon variant (including ceramic coatings)
 - Microwave ovens
 - Plastic touching the food, including cooking utensils and zip lock bags

Silicone kitchenware is OK for use at room temperature or cooler. It will not be accepted in the food preservation or cooking badge bits where it will be subjected to heat. In short, silicone spatulas, pastry mats, jar lids, and food storage containers/covers are OK while cookie mats, baking tins, and utensils used in managing cooking processes such as stirring food or using tongs to turn or serve hot food are not allowed.

All canning lids are permitted, at this time

This aspect is not about proving that you are a master chef, but that you can reliably convert a seasonal homestead harvest into a thousand good meals throughout the year.


sand badge

cast iron skillet (select one)
   - fry an egg so that it slides around
   - vegan option (do both)
        - a stack of ten pancakes
        - hash browns that fully cover the skillet
cook at least two cups grain (or pseudograin) in four different ways
   - stovetop
   - slow cooker
   - solar oven
   - rocket stove and haybox cooker
dry food in a solar food dehydrator
vinegar brine pickle something
salt brine ferment/pickle something
canning (select one)
     - water bath canning
     - steam canning
cook stir fry
make soup / stew / chowder
make pizza
Bake 2 loaves of bread

straw badge

Restarting a cast iron skillet

Food Preparation
Make 6 quarts of stock from veggie scraps
Cook and serve a pound of sunchokes
Soup - make 4 types of soup
   - At least 1 is cooked on a rocket stove or Dakota stove and at least 2 are finished in a haybox cooker
Bake six things
   - At least two things are baked in a rocket oven and two are baked in cast iron
Roast 4 pans of food
   - At least one is done in a rocket oven and one in cast iron
Fry 12 different things
   - At least 3 things are fried on a rocket stove or Dakota stove and 6 are in cast iron
Open fire - cook 4 different things
   - At least 1 item is buried in coals and another is cooked on a spit
Make two dairy foods:
   - Vegan cheese, nut milk, hard cheese (counts as two), butter, powdered milk, yogurt, cream, cottage cheese, ice cream, soft cheeses or kefir
Make two condiments or salad dressings
Make two kinds of gravy
Grind two different grains into flour
Oils and Fats - press or render a quart of oil or fat

Food Preservation
Pressure can two different things
Water bath can three different types of food
Storing food in a living state (possibly in a root cellar)
   - At least 20 pounds of each food and at least six different species
Dry 6 different types of things - each type only once
Ferment four different types of things - At least one gallon per type of fermented food
Process grain for storage

wood badge

98% of the food for this badge is “organic or better”
75% of the food comes from homesteading, preferably from your own homestead
   - Nearby homestead or wild harvest (forage/hunting/fishing) is ok
       - Their food values need to be “organic or better”
       - Acquired with muscle power (bike/horse/foot/dogsled)
       - Trade, purchase or gifted is fine

Preserve 1 million calories
   - No more than 10% can be one type of thing (i.e. 500 qts of canned peaches)
       - 10% bacon, 10% ham, 10% canned pork, is ok
   - Must be at least 24 different types of food
   - No more than 10% can be frozen

Prepare 800 plates of food
   - “Plate” means a meal averaging 500 calories

iron badge

99% of the food for this badge is “organic or better”
90% of the food comes from homesteading, preferably from your own homestead
   - Nearby homestead or wild harvest (forage/hunting/fishing) is ok
       - Their food values need to be “organic or better”
       - Acquired with muscle power (bike/horse/foot)
       - Trade, purchase or gifted is fine

Preserve 4 million calories
   - Must be at least 48 different types of food

Prepare 3200 plates of food
   - At least 400 plates need to be 100% from your homestead
       - Salt from off-site is allowed

Please do not post questions directly to this thread.



....  unless, of course, the questions are about where to ask a question.



One of the many reasons I created these forums is that I was getting asked the same questions over and over in email.   With the forums, I could answer the question just once.  

So, naturally, for all of your permaculture questions, please post to the appropriate forum.   If you don't get an excellent answer within 48 hours, start a new thread in the tinkering forum with the subject line "invoking the 48 hour rule" complete with a link to your thread.  

If you have a question about using this site or most of our online stuff, please post in the tinkering forum.   If your question has to do with not being able to access the forum, please send an email to gir at richsoil.com.  

If you have a question about the forums, but it requires super secret discretion, you might want to take a look at the full buffet of staff and see if one of these folks is a match for your topic.

If you think we are doing a super awesome job, a nice word in the tinkering forum will fuel the whole staff for a loooong time.

If you want to promote your stuff, please note that we strongly encourage budding permaculture businesses.  We have lots of free stuff and/or advertising, please read this thread or our fancy advertising page.

If you are an author/publisher/manufacturer and you want to do one of our weekly promotions, please send an email to gir at richsoil.com.

If you want to learn more about our affiliate programs, please take a look at our fancy affiliate page here or this thread or the whole forum we have dedicated to affiliate stuff.

If you have a kickstarter that you wish for us to promote, please see this thread.

If you need help with our recent Kickstarter, go here: https://permies.com/t/214512

Or, for any of our other Kickstarters: https://permies.com/t/204496/Kickstarter-Support

If you need help with a product purchase issue, comment in the thread for the product itself.  Starting a thread in the tinkering forum can also be a good option.  

If your contact needs are more about the permies community and can't be addressed through a forum, you can jump in the email river and email: permies at permies.com

If your contact needs are more about me and less about the community, and if I have an assistant right now, your best bet is to email them: pa at permies.com


If you need help with payments we have a support thread about PayPal, Crypto and Stripe: https://permies.com/wiki/214620/Payment-Options-Related-Support


And finally, this page has links to my products, patreon, videos, podcasts, wheaton labs resources (events, bootcamp, sepper program, etc.), patreon, mailing list, and ... if you look at the donations stuff you will actually find my email address.

If you wish to send me gifts, postcards, cash monies, christmas cards with a fat check, or if you have stuff for the wheaton labs project or for individuals here at wheaton labs, send to:

  paul wheaton
  2120 s reserve #351
  missoula, mt 59801

or maybe

  boots
  c/o paul wheaton
  2120 s reserve #351
  missoula, mt 59801




Please do not post questions directly to this thread.



....  unless, of course, the questions are about where to ask a question.

Thanks, should we add this info to the top post?

If you ordered one of Paul's products from the permies marketplace and have experienced a shipping issue, where do you ask about that?

I don't currently have a temp logger. Probably makes sense to do some tracking...  I have a techy buddy who's helping on some projects and might geek out on making that happen.  My greenhouse is fairly different from others (insulation wise) so I doubt much could be drawn from a comparison

To the best of my observation, it's doing just fine. The shallow frost protected foundation design keeps the frost from getting under the foundation so it can be shallow. It's also very sandy and well draining here. In my area, with snow on the ground, the ground rarely freezes more than a few inches deep. Except where snow's been removed or packed down. The ground on the inside of the greenhouse doesn't freeze so the warmth of the earth is rising up and helping heat the greenhouse a little bit.

It's a "shallow frost protected footing" if I have the words right.  Cinder blocks a foot or two high, sitting on around a 8" by 24" shallow footing with the bottom around 2' deep relative to grade.  Then R20 closed cell styrofoam outside of that vertically for 2' and then sloping away for another 2' to give 4' of frost protection.  Which is what I think you're suggesting so...  Yay!

Thanks Kevin! I think the bubble wrap "Reflectix" between the poly layers has some real potential if it can be extended and retracted uneventfully. I suspect if that worked and was programmed well, and the vent doors at the bottom were fewer in number and sealed better, it would at least stay above 20F in my zone 4b climate. And I think "tropical" would be possible down south by Chicago...  Or in somewhere sunnier like WY

alas I did not save any seeds.  I think mine just benefited from a good location