Douglas Crouch

I just wanted to connect with others in the area of Northern Kentucky, Southeast Indiana, and Southwest Ohio.  Sorry admins we don't fit into Appalachia, southern, or Midwest here .  Let me describe my operation as to begin conversation and networking possibilities.
It's a scaled up homestead with micro enterprises that sell on farm and venture outward.  
We raise goats for meat and for breeding a homestead hybrid.  
We raise sheep for meat and for breeding a homestead hybrid.  
We make compost with wastes, bulk for our gardens and vermicompost on scale.
We raise free range chickens for eggs and do meat birds, freedom ranger chickens.
We breed mini aussies as livestock guardians who love to sit on the couch and eat raw meat but also chicken feed.
We have an orchard garden, nearly 2 acre food forest/ alley cropping space for food production and nursery stock.  Also serves as research center for what varieties grow best in this bioregion.
We have an Edible nursery from this field and do online and local sales.  
We do nonnative plant management on farm and off with our goats.  
We tap maple trees for syrup making each winter.  
We run an educational center that offers classes and events.  
We run an edible landscaping company through this property as we grow plants, produce compost, test installs, and our HQ is here.
 The property is 60 acres near the Ohio River with a 12 acre lake.
The property has 3 main buildings as well as plenty of farm buildings.  The buildings are the educational center and HQ, my cabin and a really nice tiny house sitting empty.
We do general ecological stewardship with a focus on savannah conversion of forest and developing lawn into pasture, gardens, and silvopasture.
There are other homesteaders and laborers around that we build community with.  
I have 20 years of experience managing ecological systems.  My first PDC was in 2005.  I have taught permaculture globally for many years but decided to give that up for homesteading.  
I am wanting to connect again with the larger world through this bioregional eco garden center and regenerative education outlet.  
www.treeyopermaculture.com

Thanks for reading, I look forward to connecting

Hey i run a permaculture farm in Petersburg, KY, maybe 25 minutes from where you are off 275.  TreeYo Permaculture, lets talk

My next teaching opportunity: The next Year Long PDC with Cincinnati Permaculture Institute starts in a month! Once again we will lead you through a year long journey across the tristate capturing the seasons and different contexts. Learn ecological literacy, design skills, and join a community of growers.


https://cincinnatipermacultureinstitute.org/2023-24-ylpdc

After nearly 20 years of growing paw paws and months of production, we bring you the paw paw masterclass online. If you want to create a Paw Paw Paradise, just as i have done in Northern Kentucky at Treasure Lake, this course is sure to help.  Whether its how to manage wild stands in a semi cultivated fashion, propagate your own seeds, how to plant, or the design behind it all, we have you covered.  Its a wonderful native plant for us in the eastern half of the USA and up into lower Ontario, but I also have planted in the climate analogous of Central and Eastern Europe.  Its a plant that is making headway as well in Northern Europe and the temperate realms of Asia.  We also get into processing which allows to harvest the seed for propagation and to enjoy the fruits of the labor for time to come.  
https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/create-your-own-pawpaw-paradise/?fbclid=IwAR3YHm6WQc6NsLb0EWAfsYvdZrEQzelhiXv--G9AMljRhKy1F1V8VXn88vI

Beyond food supply, one of the ways in which humans have increased their life expectancy, in my opinion, is to have hot water on demand.  We all consume it, but have we ever thought just how much energy this consumes and how that energy is produced?  At nearly 20% of household consumption on average in the USA, well thats a lot and there are alternatives for sure! This article details appropriate technology features for just that.  https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/appropriate-technology/water-heating/

Excerpt:

Water heating is a luxury we have become quite accustomed to in developed nations and probably never really have thought about the vast amount of energy this demands. Our consumption of hot water comes at a cascading fossil fuel price through the electricity or the natural gas we employ. We may not think of hot water as such, but I feel having hot water on demand is one of the ways in which humans have increased their life expectancy. Hygiene has improved because who wants to take a cold shower when its cold out. Also reheating the body in the winter is such a beneficial approach to keeping the immune system robust. However, as always with the burning of fossil fuels, sunlight stored of ancient times, there is a fallout of negative impacts from air quality where it’s burnt to water quality where the fuel source is mined.


Consequently, this heating of water is one of the first appropriate technologies many will implement in a permaculture built environment. The systems are less complex than the electricity producing and storing ones (solar PV and batteries for example) and it helps to reduce your electric demand if wanting to go with renewables or go completely off grid. Whether it is showering or washing dishes or laundry (just do laundry in cold water), your hot water needs can be met through appropriate technologies.

I could throw a lot of numbers and conversion rates at you to provide more substantial evidence that heating water is energy intensive. If you do a web search of “how much energy does it take to heat water”, you will find the conversion factors. This shows the amount of energy and its relationship to the cost of electricity and it is actually pretty astounding how much the cost of hot water is. Furthermore, the amount of total energy used in a household for water heating is quite astonishing and see the graph below. With an average in 2015 in the USA of nearly 20%, this is a critical factor of societal energy consumption or production.


Interestingly enough, Nature produces its own hot water on demand in the form of hot springs. Warmed by underlying volcanic/geologic figures, humans once did pilgrimages to source this heat and mineral rich waters. Now we simply open a tap and voila; no real thought on energy. Thus part of this articles desired outcome is for readers to simply even think about hot water and what that implies. Sitting in hot springs is my top pilgrimage choice and am grateful for this blessing of the earth.


read more at: https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/appropriate-technology/water-heating/

Timber and Forestry: Its actually the reason I got into Permaculture, not agriculture.  So this article is a special one for me full of different viewpoints, designs, and videos.  Check it out as this is a vital topic in how ecosystems are managed worldwide.  https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/chapter-6-trees/timber-and-forestry/

Excerpt:
While much of what permaculture focuses on is agriculture, one of my main impetuses of getting involved with the movement was indeed timber and forestry. Seeing the affects in both my hometown state of Ohio in Wayne National Forest and then out west in the Redwoods in Northern California, well I was shocked and appalled.  While the local foods scene has grown in order to combat industrial agriculture, it is indeed harder to enter into the local timber scene but a very vital crux of reversing the damage.  It is not impossible and the aim for this article is to highlight just how pivotal this issue is and options.  Humans seem to have an insatiable thirst for lumber and pulp. Consequently, forestry monocultures still remain an enormous production system and its cascading negative environmental impacts such as a decline in biodiversity and the hydrological cycle.  While it would be great if we didn’t use lumber, well it is indeed part of our modern system.  And we can lessen this need but most likely, we will never eliminate it.

Trees are grown like any other crop, for a harvest in the end.  The end product of a trees life maybe high end furniture for the Chinese market, pulp for toilet paper in the EU, or a wooden spoon sold at Ikea or a local farmers market.  Forests hold crops of diversity while a key distinction must be made around language in this moment.  Plantation, is a monoculture and not a forest.  Forests have inherent diversity with multiple layers.  While plantations may have multiple layers through the weeds that have grown, the monoculture style does not make it a forest.  It is the diversity that makes it a forest.  In forestry operations trees are most often grown in plantations for the end goal of harvest or clear cuts of biodiverse forests occur.  This is because like any other monoculture, it requires specialized and expensive equipment juiced up on fossil fuels. So when people say trees are being planted, if they are a monoculture, they are most likely not providing the ecosystem services that forests do. Moreover, timber is extracted from diverse forests as well, sometimes sustainably, which can actually spur growth and forest health, and mostly it is not sustainable. Monocultures can also lead to devastating and horribly tragic fires as is the case nearly every year in Portugal these days with its extensive pine and Eucalyptus production.

2019 has been a dynamic year for me fully back to Treasure Lake and really starting to make bigger moves there and in the area.  My blog details this, entitled tree planting recap 2019.  Check it out!  lots of video, text, and designs to help explain.  and yes 2020 there will be more climate positive action! https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/2019/12/26/tree-planting-recap-2019/

Excerpt: Lets face it, I love planting trees.  Doug the Digger. And after moving back to Treasure Lake in Northern Kentucky in summer of 2017, I have been busy planting and caring for trees.  However in 2019, it took a large step forward building on top of what was before and planting in new spaces framed by a new zone zero; the tiny house.  And this planting extends beyond just Treasure Lake, both in Petersburg, KY as a part of community building through my tips for tree planting jar, and also urban permaculture in Cincinnati. And yes I have been planting Paw Paws, and you can to with confidence after taking this new course, Paw Paw Master Class. Below is a list of locations and descriptions along with design visuals, videos, and pictures.

alone: my tiny house from across treasure lake, Northern Kentucky and part of the banks development below it.  Terraces, elongated and individual tree planting terraces of fruit and nuts below towering burr and Shumard oak and sugar maple.

I have tons of them in my 40 acre food forest, turning a native forest into an edible playground slowly but surely.  Been at it for nearly 20 years off and on.  I call it semi cultivated but now planting in more with intention into certain pockets where it makes sense.  I raise my own from wild seeds and two trees that we seedlings of cultivars that i planted 11 years ago.  I have just released a paw paw masterclass online for those interested in going into depth on this one.  
https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/create-your-own-pawpaw-paradise/

After nearly 20 years of growing paw paws and months of production, we bring you the paw paw masterclass online. Very thorough, sale now, USA customer get some free seeds as well! Give the gift of education this holiday season!!! https://treeyopermacultureedu.com/create-your-own-pawpaw-paradise/

The course covers the following:

Paw Paw Propagation and Planting
Turn a hand full of seeds into a forest.
Doug will start you with the foundations, so that you understand not just what to do for success but why. Become fully equipped with expert knowledge and have the best shot at paw paw propagation through systematic seed saving and planting success. Learning to work with what genetics you have will allow you to become a plant breeder, an age old tradition and noble cause.

Planning, Pollination, and Management
Learn techniques to leapfrog your tree’s growth cycle.
The difference between a small PawPaw grove and a prolific orchard is proper planning, techniques, and management. Learn advanced strategies for leapfroging your tree’s growth cycle while improving soil fertility and fruit production.

Picking and Processing for Food and Storage
Learn to add value to your fruit with some simple techniques.
Although quite seasonal, there are immediate usage recipes and storage capabilities.  By getting bananas out of our diets for months on end in the temperate climates, we will reduce our carbon footprint as they come great distances to those who live in climates where paw paw is grown easily.  

Design Strategies for Various Contexts
Techniques for leveraging the resources around you for success.
Advanced course content that guides you through the longer term management of a number of different scenarios- a must for reaching peak PawPaw production.

Advanced Strategy, Tools, Recipes, and More!
Get on your way to becoming a PawPaw Master-
This holistic offering of eight different sections overall gives you the full run through of paw paws.  This plant is in high demand and its fruits.  You can be the next to create a new grafted variety, the next best recipe, or lead people on tours through your paw paw paradise just as Doug Crouch does.