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Summary
part 2 of a 2 part podcast
Paul continues the discussion on creating permaculture communities with Stephen Brooks from Ecoversity.
They talk about an amazing fruit which takes 2 years on the tree to be ready to harvest, after flowering. Paul's aim is to have a giant harvest window. This fruit has maybe a 6 week window to pick it. There are a lot of people who have limited time for gardening and often miss harvesting stuff due to being too busy. Larger harvest windows make life easy.
Stephen mentions Joe Hewitt's facebook group Grow all the Fruits as an example of how plant collectors have changed and are spreading fruit or veg around rather than hoarding it. Stephen wants to integrate all these new fruits into their communities.
They talk about the problems of innovating when it's hard to get government approval. Stephen says there are sundry annoying regulations they have to meet in Costa Rica. With that said, people are managing to set up communities despite the governments. Stephen mentions Bill Mollison's autobiography (Travels in Dreams) where he says more or less that practical solutions can only be suppressed for a short while. The more people get organized doing stuff the harder it becomes to suppress.
Paul mentions that in most communities he's seen, even if the community itself has endured, there's a lot of turnover of people so that most members haven't been there more than 2 years. He asks Stephen what his recipe is for an enduring community. Stephen says there's quite a bit of turnover especially in the first community they started. The latest community has been running 4 or 5 years with little turnover. He thinks people like to feel empowered and feel that they are co-creating their community. It's also important to keep it fun. Stephen describes the management model for the community which has a lot of similarity to a HOA but with permaculture values. He also describes the new community they are currently building.
Relevant Threads
south america / central america / mexico Forum
Permaculture community forum
Ecoversity
Grow All The Fruits Facebook page
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This podcast was made possible thanks to:
Dr. Hugh Gill Kultur
Kyle Aster
Sasquatch
Bill Crim
G Cooper
Mehron Kugler
Bill Erickson
Julia Winter, world's slowest mosaic artist
Sean Benedict
Rita Bliden
Brent Lawson
Song Zheng
Dana Martin
David Lucey
Janelle
thomas adams
Clay McGowan
Shay Riggs
Dr. Jackie
Keith Kuhnsman
Cindi Duehmig
Banter Couch
Eric Tolbert
Paul Tipper
Paul F
Gerald Bernard
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