About Erik Ohlsen
Erik Ohlsen is an internationally recognized permaculture teacher, educator, and author; he is an award winning landscape contractor and a life long activist. He has specialized in homestead scale regenerative design: including water harvesting, food forests, seed saving, community organizing, habitat development, erosion control, and building topsoil for over 20 years.
Episode Highlights:
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About Erik Ohlsen
Erik Ohlsen is an internationally recognized permaculture teacher, educator, and author; he is an award winning landscape contractor and a life long activist. He has specialized in homestead scale regenerative design: including water harvesting, food forests, seed saving, community organizing, habitat development, erosion control, and building topsoil for over 20 years.
Episode Highlights:
Show Links:
Josh Robinson: 0:00
Welcome to the permaculture for the future podcast. I'm your host, Josh Robinson. The world is full of negative news, and the planet seems to be in an ecological crisis. And this can be downright disheartening and disenfranchising because we feel that there's nothing that each one of us can do is an individual that can make any difference. Well, I'm here to provide a different perspective. To tell a new story. Permaculture for the future Podcast is all about spreading positive and impactful stories, tips and ways that each one of us can transition into a regenerative lifestyle where we can make an ecological impact way. Talk about simple ways to make lifestyle changes as we interview authors, teachers and other folks that air collectively healing ourselves and the planet. So if you want to make an ecological impact, stick around because this podcast is for you.
Erik Ohlsen: 1:06
Hi, Welcome to up the foul number 13 permaculture and future podcasts. I'm your call host, Khloe
Josh Robinson: 1:17
Robinson. Well, here we are, episode number 13. I'm Josh Robinson, and today we're continuing down this path that we've been on for the last few weeks here, where we've been looking at the implications of the Corona Virus Cove in 19 and our daily Lives. But looking through this lens of permaculture to begin to arrive, a potential solutions and my guest on today's show is someone that has been in the permaculture space for over 20 years. In fact, he was one of the original co instructors of the permaculture design course that I took in 2000 and two. My guest today is Eric Olson. Eric is an internationally recognized permaculture teacher, educator and author, and he's an award winning landscaping contractor and a lifelong activist. He specialized in home scale regenerative design, including water harvesting, food, forests, seed saving, community organizing, habitat development, erosion control and has been building topsoil for over 20 years. And in our conversation today, Eric and I talked about looking forward, looking through this problem and for the opportunity for the solutions that are often right in front of our eyes. We start off looking at what Eric calls the two paths moving forward, first, starting what he called globalized localization, followed by acknowledging and keeling our local communities. And from there we get into a discussion on utilizing permaculture in moving forward through this crisis, so I hope you enjoy it. I hope you get a lot out of it and I'll see all the end. Hey, one quick thing before today's show. I just want to thank all the people that have contributed to this show for those that have given feedback in that if given us reviews and ratings on iTunes really means a lot. And then for a couple folks that have even gone above and beyond and even donated to the show, I really wanna shout out and thank you. So, Roy Houston, thanks for their ongoing contribution to the show. It means a lot. And then Tom Studio, just ah, donated to the show here, too. Tom looks like he's from the UK, so it's part of our UK contingent. All right, well, here's the show. Well, welcome, Eric, to the podcast today. I'm so excited to have you for guests that are just tuning, have never never heard of like what you do in some of the work that we do. And you want to give a little short introduction to You know how you've been involved in permaculture and some of the things that you've been doing
Erik Ohlsen: 4:10
absolutely When I was 19 I became an activist learning about genetic engineering. And in Northern California there was the Headwaters Forest fight to protect our old growth redwoods. And that sort of turned me on to some of the issues they're happening in the world. And Adam, at 19 years of age, I wasn't feeling drawn to go to college, and I discovered Permaculture and I discovered what for me was a system of design in a system of activation, really, that could generate resource is for a community that could heal the land, clean the water, build community in meaningful ways. And so, 20 plus years later, here I am. I started multiple nonprofit organizations. We've given away hundreds of community gardens over those years, started a couple educational institutions and done advanced trainings and permaculture design certificate courses, and then also have founded a few small businesses focused on permaculture design and ecological landscaping. And we now permaculture artisans is a let were license contracting company. We've got 20 employees. We work with clients all throughout Northern California and really create, you know, meaningful career paths for our staff in our community and so coming at it from all these different angles. Ultimately, for me, it's about how can I? How can we make the greatest positive impact in our society in our community, through the regeneration of ecologies through the regeneration of landscapes. And so bringing those two parts together, bringing together building topsoil and cleaning water with building local community, resilient systems connecting people back to nature and really, in many ways creating a safety net of a type of local economy that can thrive into the future?
Josh Robinson: 6:13
Awesome. I mean, I've been watching following kind of your work over those you know past couple of decades. I mean, how long have you actually been teaching permaculture? I got
Erik Ohlsen: 6:22
into teaching permaculture in my early twenties Star Hawk and Penny Livingston Stark. I was a mentee of theirs, and they called me right into the teaching team as early as when I was 22. When I was 23. I was teaching full P. D. C s already at that time. So it's been a long journey.
Josh Robinson: 6:40
Yeah, well, when I took my design course and those early in 1 4002 you were one of the guest teachers in that course. and ah, you know, ever since then, just been watching the work you've been doing with Permaculture artisans and then recently with the Skill Centre and some of these other projects. And it's it's really amazing just to see this movement really begin to progress and almost become, you know, its own thing where the this is the meaningful work as we're all moving forward and you know, you're of somebody that's been in this field. You've been not only actively teaching, you've been installing systems, boots on the ground, learning all of this kind of stuff and then working with that next generation of people that are also doing these types of things, I wanted to kind of shift and start to look at our current situation with the Corona virus and how that has really come through. And it's disrupted our entire civilization, you know, as we know it right now, everything is just, you know, we're realizing, like how interconnected you know, something like our health care system when that becomes jeopardized, how it pulls on the strings of all of these other systems that we rely on for our society and for our culture. And yet you know, in Permaculture we've been talking about, you know, building redundancy, building in resilience, building in thes backup systems for a long time. And that essentially, it's like the beginnings of the permaculture movement as this response to essentially crisis. And, you know, here we are and we're in it. And I'm curious from your perspective how you've been kind of viewing some of these challenges that we've been facing.
Erik Ohlsen: 8:35
First off, I think one of the things that pandemic has shown us, which we've always known under the surface, we know that we're part of this connected global community, this connected global society, where for better for worse, we're all we're all connected in a globalized economic system, whether it be food or medicine or material goods or education or or what have you were connected in these in these ways and we're physically connected, and a powerful revelation that this pandemic has brought was just how physically connected we are globally, that a virus that has to, you know, move from person to person can spread around the world in a short few months, and so we're all connected, and I think one of the spotlight's that's being put on our world and on human structures right now is all the weak points, all the weak links, all the ways that the systems have been propped up without a solid foundation. And so we're moving into recession. People are losing their jobs. Luxury service is air disappearing. You know, it goes on and on and on. And I think that while we're going to get into the opportunities of how we can shift into regenerative culture, also want to acknowledge all of the folks who are caught in the system right now and just my heart goes out. I feel grief for people who are losing their jobs, have an uncertain future or whose family members or sick or who are sick. And, you know, there's a lot of grief and a lot of intense trauma happening right now in the global community. So sort of like acknowledging that and waking up to the fact that we've our whole system has been propped up essentially on sand. You know, Castle built on sand and it's in, and things are sort of falling, collapsing around you even no matter what, Pete, someone believes it that can't pandemic is you know, just a regular flu or whatnot. It's having this economic impact. That's that's a reality, not a conspiracy. So I think part of what this moment offers us is two different parts, two different paths. And while we have an opportunity to look at hyper local development of systems now, how do we create hyper local structures that grow food that help people build their immunity preventive medicine that take care of each other in a communal way? The mutual aid service is through supporting our health care workers. You know all of that. How do we localize and hyper localize our entire society? Globalized localization? My friend David, soul mate, coined that term years ago on road. Great, but call globalized localization. And so I love that idea. But the other piece, too, is you're not losing sight of the community healing that can take place right now. So there's a urgent need to start building safety nets in our communities to grow food and protect those who are the most vulnerable. And there's an urgent need for us to look at the human experiment on Earth to look at the trauma toe. Look at the grief and turn a compassionate in a compassionate way towards healing each other towards loving each other towards forgiving each other. And it's this combination in my mind, which is the most powerful, not one or the other. It's both, and it's coming back home to the garden together, maybe not handing hands, you know, six feet apart. But coming back on the last and opening our hearts up to something that is new and something as different. And I think that's where permaculture has been so effective over the years. Is visioning something totally different than the globalized economy? The way it is visioning, something that's different than the food system, the industrialized food system, the way it is. And so there's a lot of vision that we've been cultivating for decades for how to transition away from this globalized economy into hyper local economies. And now that so much pressure is being put on the world in so many things, air destabilized. There is this moment toe sort of offer, the solutions in a way that's palatable, that's accessible and capture a CZ many hearts and minds as possible, and what could be a complete revolution in our food system in a complete transformation of our economy.
Josh Robinson: 13:06
Yeah. I mean, I love that kind of two pronged approach. I mean, much of what I've been thinking about over the last couple weeks here, as we've also been isolated and tryingto kind of wrap my mind around this situation is I mean, one. Like you're saying these hyper local systems air. Really? It's the only way that we can secure our you know, basic necessities in a way that has, you know, resilience and redundancy built into it. And there's no way that we can look at these kind of globalized systems of, you know, many parts that could potentially break and having that that localized piece that would help stabilize it in the one piece that I think a lot of folks don't often think about. When we start to look at these localized solutions, it's not like a or the way I see it, a you know, one or the other. You know, it's it's a way that we can kind of work in tangent with. You know, the global system is a way of kind of like, you know, getting our feet in the door, setting up our systems toe have in place because I do know that you know things like the food crisis that we've been seen as a result of. You know, all this panic buying if our communities were set up, say, with ah whole diversity and a whole host of different ways of producing food from having way more farms to, you know, just about every neighborhood having neighborhood gardens and community gardens and ways of kind of working that that we wouldn't really be feeling that same level of stress. When you look at the grocery store shelves, for instance, and you're just not seeing anything, they're
Erik Ohlsen: 14:46
total luck. And I want to just add that, like what you said about it's both and the hyper local system development in tandem with the global economy. That's a really important point because we don't want to be so privileged. Are thinking that everybody has space for a garden that everybody has. Resource is for access to developed, being hyper local. We've got communities all around the world that are lacking in any kind of resource is to mobilize themselves. And so I want to acknowledge that and say that that it's a transitionary moment, right, and that we still are relying on this global system. But some communities were goingto quicker into local production than others just because of privilege and resource is and things like that passion. And so we've got a, you know, look at both and and then share the surplus, share the wisdom, share the knowledge, do the training, share the seeds, share the plants and start spreading out and helping more and more communities. It's going to take years to accomplish a complete transformation, but we've got a good beginning.
Josh Robinson: 15:53
Yeah. Now, the second part of what you are talking about there, I can't remember what you exactly said. Was that community healing?
Erik Ohlsen: 16:00
Yeah, yeah, looking at our trauma, feeling our grief, looking at the inequality in the system Because really one thing that I've learned of 20 years doing permaculture and activism and teaching thousands of students, and we call it you nose permaculture teachers. It's like we have conversations that okay, After two weeks, you realize that you're also sort of like a therapist at times because people are up against their programming up against their emotional challenges up against their traumas and one of The failings of doing the work at times is that we're not including people's emotional journey in the process of understanding how they are nature that needs restoration as well. And if we can't look at the mind and the body in the heart and how that affects our decision making, I don't think we're going to be able to massively grow the physical land based side of this work without looking at that mind body heart side.
Josh Robinson: 17:04
Yeah, I mean, that's a really important insight, you know, looking at the holistic perspective of what we're working with and something that's not often acknowledged. I think in the permaculture movement where you know Bill Mollison himself was definitely opposed to a lot of those kinds of avenues, and I think that's kind of radiated out. But if we're being honest with you know where we are and and how we actually work, it's like we have to acknowledge our own feelings and our own Ah, you know, relationships. And you know just how we operate. Yeah, I think a very beautiful way of looking at it
Erik Ohlsen: 17:41
because it all comes down to decision making. It comes down to having a willingness to make a change, a willingness to take the time and energy that you have and devote it into a certain direction and all of those decision making mechanisms and all of that inspiration and the passion to do one thing or another to make a choice to go. I'm gonna grow food out my backyard or, uh, I'll just go down to Costco and I'll just live off that or whatever. It might be you That's their inner those air in er, er, decisions that are being made there, coming from inside people, not outside people. And the amount of times I've seen permaculture students just essentially go come out of a permaculture course that was super cool, super overwhelming and then have no application of it would be totally turned off by it. Or, you know, And so it's just is trying to be realistic honestly, and I and I love the, you know, get shit done attitude, and I and I also agree with, to the degree that in the permaculture community we talk about, let's not make this spiritual or religious or anything like that. Let's just keep it to the science into the work actually agree with all that, But we're all human beings. Were all people. We all have these inner mechanisms, these inter college ease, that affect what we do and how we show up and and and how we make decisions. And especially in a time of trauma we're experiencing now, especially right now, it's even more important to look at that side so that we can make decisions in a positive way. And we could really help and support and heal each other. I mean, just in our own families right now, it's like, how many folks were having arguments with their spouses, and it's really not about the argument is just about the fear and the panic and unknown and and and then people without each other. We're at each other Well, how is that helping to facilitate developing those regenerative systems? If you're expending so much energy in panic, so much energy and anxiety. So much energy and communication. Um, so, yeah,
Josh Robinson: 19:40
I think that definitely brings up some really valid and important discussion points, you know, as we begin to move forward and start to look at okay, you know, here we are. And we're in this this extremely challenging time. It's It's something that none of us in, you know, at least here in the U. S. And much of like, you know, Western cultures around the world. We've never been in this kind of situation that we can recall in our lifetimes and, you know, even going back to our grand parents, I mean, this is kind of new territory, and a lot of people aren't sure how they're gonna be able to pay their bills for rent mortgage, whatever it is, you've got people out of jobs, and there is gonna be a lot of fear and grief around that. Now, for me personally, one way that I tend to kind of work through that is to look for things that are going to be these positive ways rather than trying to dwell on like, Okay, well, this is happening. It's Ah, it's a negative experience. I'm really freaking out. But, you know, if I have something to begin to kind of work towards where I can kind of see that light, you know, so to speak at the end of the tunnel, that is going to be this optimism. You know that at least can get me through that initial, maybe fear or initial grief. And I'm curious from what you've been seeing over these last couple weeks, like, have you, like, what are some of these ways that you've been kind of looking at to mobilize your local community,
Erik Ohlsen: 21:16
gardens, gardens everywhere, every last bit of soil and land that we have access to? This is the message we've been spreading in our community. This is the message we've been spreading around, you know, really the world. I have a webinar that I did. Yesterday, 500 people came on this Web live webinar called Building Your Pandemic Victory Garden There from all over the planet for having this amazing conversation right now. Which is the revitalisation? The renewal of the kitchen garden? Really, it's really It's the kitchen garden. We could call it a Victory Garden or Homestead Garden or Resilience garden. But you know, our ancestors for thousands of years have cultivated thes kitchen gardens and these air places that are essentially surrounding your home with all the food that you need for your family and folks. One of the messages we need to get across is that everybody has some kind of landscape, whether it's asphalt or it's gravel or it's a lawn or, you know it's a dirt law or its natives. There's land around, you know there's even if it is covered in concrete. There's still a lot we can do with straw bale of gardens with container gardens Grow mushrooms. There's a lot that we can d'oh in almost every type of system and ecology, and now people are realizing, Wow, I need to grow food and I have a lot of time right now stuck at home, isolated and quarantine. Let me do something productive for my family. And so what we're seeing is like this resurgence of interest. And so what we've been doing over the last couple weeks is really trying to meet those needs. And one things we've discovered is there's a lot of folks who have never gardened before. I've never grown food before, never put a seed in the ground who are super turned on right now, and they are just craving information and craving support and craving guidance. And so one of the things that were saying to folks is one start right outside your back door or your front door and to get a seat supply together. Whether it's bordering seeds is getting it locally from the nursery of the hardware store or sharing with neighbors or friends or people you know in the community, you know, really lean on your local communities. Lean on the master Gardeners lean on, the farmers lean on the permaculture. People in the ecology peep Well, because a lot of these folks do have seats Stashes and a lot of these folks have Resource is to share. And we've been in many ways, at least in the permaculture community. You know, we've been setting up the safety nets for decades, and so that's been one of the big important things in here in California. It's spring, and there's a lot we can plant in the ground right now. We could be sowing spinach, carrots, beets, lettuce, kale. No, All this could get sewn in the ground putting potatoes in the ground right now and in seed flats under a little cold frame or little hothouse or in a greenhouse. We could be planting our squashes and our tomatoes and our peppers and our cabbages and one of the important and specks of helping people set up their food systems. Now is the concept of sex succession in rotation that if you only have a limited amount of space and you want to grow food and be able to go out there and harvest every single day, month after month after month, then you're going to want to plant a mix of quick growing crops like radishes, spinach, lettuce, kale or fairly quick and get those in the ground right away, and you could start harvesting in a few weeks. Then you want those longer term crops cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, things that take longer. And you start working a succession like lettuce and greens, for instance. I mean, we've been having a salad in my house every night for the past, you know, many weeks. But if we don't keep planting our greens every couple weeks, what's going to happen is at some point, all of our lettuce is gonna either be harvested or it's going to school to seed, and then we don't have any to harvest. And now our cycle has been off. So I've really been encouraging folks to think about this idea, succession and rotation. If you get a packet of lettuce seats don't plant all the legacy today. Plant maybe 1/4 of it today. Wait two weeks. Plant quarter of it, wait to explain 1/4 of it. And this is how we're going to start creating and growing, producing an incredible amount of food in every one of our backyards. Front yards on our porch is in our window sills, and the other aspect is one. The food will most likely be higher in nutrient value. It's gonna be fresher, higher nutrient value. And things like kale and spinach are very high and zinc and other minerals that are proven to help build your immunity fight off viral infections. So we're also literally growing medicine, immune building, preventive medicine in all of these growing spaces and because, well, here in Northern California, we're still getting a little bit of rain. I don't know if you guys had a knee in Southern California.
Josh Robinson: 26:32
Yeah, we've had a great last few weeks.
Erik Ohlsen: 26:34
So with the fact that we still have a little rain coming in, there's a chance to get some seeds in the ground to let the rain help water them in. We'll just say for all the listeners out there. If you're planting seeds, you want a water them every single day. Unless a rainstorm came through, just keep him wet until they until they sprout. And there's no time like now to literally have a revolution in backyard in the backyard garden.
Josh Robinson: 26:59
Yeah, I mean, I don't think you could really underestimate the value that could be derived from a garden. And you know, permaculture is so much more than the garden. But often times is like we could look at that, really has this metaphor for supplying and solving so many of our complex problems and and food right now, is that one that everybody's kind of looking at? But, you know, when we started to get into, like, carbon sequestration and water and the hydrologic cycle and nutrient cycling and all of that, it's like it all happens right there, And that's always what gives me so much optimism. And I feel lucky even, you know, even trying to move for the last couple weeks onto a new property that we've been developing. And so our home garden at our rental. It's been a little, you know, under the under the weather, just so to speak. And as we've been kind of like packing up and then this whole thing happened, which is really, you know, pointing out some of again that fragility of just those times where you, you know, you try to plan for these catastrophic events and you never know. You know, by definition, when that's going to happen and something that I've also seen, you know, locally here with, this is one like you're saying there's a huge boom in interest of people gardening and particularly the's first time growers. Or maybe that some people that have a little experience, but they really want, you know, dive in there. And at the same time, our economy has kind of come to a halt and being able to distribute a lot of these resource is whether we're talking soil, compost, seeds, plants starts. You know, all of that is kind of also taking a hit, you know, much like the grocery stores. I mean, what I've seen here is like nurseries. They're getting wiped out of their veggie starts. They're getting wiped out of their seeds. Local seed companies, which around here we'll only have ah one as far as I can think of. And so if you're not saving those seeds, you're finding a really hard time even procuring some of these materials. Which gets me thinking and kind of where I wantto go here is, yeah, having a garden's great and there's lots of opportunity there. I think for us to mobilize and build a movement around that to essentially inoculate our culture into a whole nother paradigm. But there's the's community aspects that I think are going to be even more valuable right now of trying to facilitate that kind of rapid transfer of knowledge, experience and all of that. They can kind of, you know, elevate us to that next level. But I really love about these kind of I mean, as hard as they are, and as traumatic and fearful is, we're all in. I oftentimes think, you know, bring back to like the permaculture language. I mean, this is kind of putting us all in our edge of what our comfort zones are, and what I tend to experience is that the further we kind of moved to those edges of our comfort zone is often when we have, like these great breakthroughs and these great, you know, moments of insight and kind of come out the other side stronger and more resilient as a result. So what are you seeing? Or some, you know, ways that we can be in at this point right now, too. Engage our communities and begin to, you know, push some of these other, uh ideas or make them available for quick and rapid adoption.
Erik Ohlsen: 30:43
Certainly there's a gift economy that is happening right now, and I believe this is part of the solution to that is folks are showing up and they're saying, Hey, I'm gonna do a free webinar free training. I'm gonna do this live thing. I'm gonna play music for you. I'm gonna street stories to your Children. You know, this people are just showing up in these beautiful, miraculous ways, even through just online thio gift knowledge and to gift of support and things like that. So I think that one part of how this emerges that how we build the connections and start and start to share knowledge is that we're re learning what it means to have a gift economy truly have a widespread gift economy in our culture. And that can be really scary. A cZ Well, because folks who have small businesses and generally might provide the service is for a fee are you know, now I got to give it away, and, you know, other than that person's giving it away, and so I should probably do that, too, and and so there's a lot of uncertainty economically. But I think it's all gonna work out in the end because essentially what we're doing is we're bringing in tens of thousands of new folks into an ecological consciousness. And I think that the garden is a great place to start because soon as you start looking at your guard and you're starting to think about my kitchen waste, should I do with that? Okay, I guess. Composting worms. Okay, I need to learn about that. And then, Oh, we start getting this summer how I can keep all this watered A water bill. Do I have water catch, man? Oh, boy. Water. And so the beautiful thing about the garden is it's kind of initiates this experience that starts at you start asking all these questions about energy and fertility and water, and you also as you get outside, you start to observe natural systems more. Or what are the bird that's birds are doing that and the squirrels are doing that. It's like, Oh, I didn't even realize that that burn ever came to my yard. So I think there's there's an opportunity just that the garden is this great initiator for that. But I believe that the gift economy that's emerging in combination with this sharing of knowledge is going to change. I hope that a new type of economy sort of emerges out of this where there's a wider spread, sharing of knowledge, of bigger focus on community support, supporting each other who need different things. The mutual aid efforts that are happening around the world are incredible people going out, buying groceries, getting supplies for other folks who can't go out. That's that kind of good will. And that's the kind of way we want to show up as humans, for art, for each other and in our communities. And so I think there's a lot of great online tools right now that can help capture the energy and then create platforms to disseminate knowledge and create training. We just started a Facebook group yesterday called Pandemic Victory Gardens, and there's already a few 100 people on there and folks are from all over the world and we're sharing hate. Anyone know where I could get seeds? I'm in this community and it was really amazing. We just had two people from Croatia with same name living in towns. Next order each other just connected on that group, and I want to share. Resource is so I think, that creating up if we can all start creating more opportunities that are really accessible for people to engage, to connect with one another and then share resource is. And I also think that the local farmers are one of our biggest resource is right now in our local communities. Not everybody can get the garden like you said, I can't find seeds. I can't get compost delivered, you know, or I'm homeschooling my Children and they have special needs and I'm not really able to be in the garden all day. There's a lot of scenarios that aren't going to allow people to go build their resilience gardens, and then that's where the local farmers are showing up. I've got we've got lots of sea essays and lots of farmers around here. I know of at least to see essays that added over 100 extra members within, like, a two or three day period in the last week. Oh, my God. Totally maxed out. We just added another 100 members. I mean, the 100 members is like enough for an entire C S A. These farms were big enough. Thio, absorb that. And those farmers, you know, if we can start creating that education system if permaculture people can step up and master gardeners can step up what we could do while we teach our communities how to grow food is we have time. Then if our local farmers can keep supporting the community with fresh food than folks who want to learn and you don't quite have the seeds. And the resource is now we have time to teach people about how to save seed, and we need to think succession. Aly, we're in a bit of a response phase right now, your reaction phase and which is important. But I think that as designers, as permaculture designers, we also need to step back and look at Well, where does this moment fit into a succession. And what are we gonna need six months from now? What are we going? How are we gonna move what's possible in a year from now? And we use our visionary skills. And one of the things that I think we could do, like the seats shortage, is that each community could start their own seed bank in their own local seed bank. And it's only going to take about on, what, seven or eight months. And if we're if everyone starts growing seed those who can you're gonna have a seed bank with tens of thousands of seeds available for the community, hundreds of pounds, lots of different varietals. So it's one of the angles I've been educating my community A lot about is, Hey, you know, let a few of those lettuces bolt, Let them go to sea. It's okay if it doesn't look great. I think this is another piece to is. The cultural aesthetic is something that is, it is the time to shift our cultural aesthetic grounds. The in the United States and Western culture kind of born out of the English Rose garden. There's a need for very clean lines, very very, you know, well managed and manicured systems and, you know, all that kind of thing. And there's definitely gonna peel to that that I get. Um, but natural ecosystems aren't always looking perfect, you know, And especially if you want to get the harvest of seed, then you're really are allowing things to kind of look weedy and ratty and and and maybe not as aesthetic it's people like So I got a shift that cultural aesthetic around and teach people how to grow seed, develop those local seed banks and then continue with this gift economy for now, in ways that we can disseminate information.
Josh Robinson: 37:24
Yeah. I mean, I think that's ah, a lot of incredible and points there. I mean, that we need Thio. You know, reassesses would Are you No vision of what beauty is is kind of like one way to look at that. Another way that I'm seeing this these particular situations is that all of these shortages air really pointing out the opportunities that haven't been taken advantage of. You know, if we're kind of looking at it from a site assessment perspective, it's like, Okay, well, we have unfulfilled niches here and There's lots of opportunity both from, you know, people that could have potential business is doing that as well. It's just, you know, if you want to have security growing out and you don't have to, that's the one piece that I think a lot of people get turned off on is thinking that they have to do it all, you know, in terms of saving. And it's like, you know, just doing it starting off with like a lettuce or a tomato. It's thes air, not hard things. I mean, tomatoes are probably one of the easier ones because your harvest and I'm essentially at the same time that you would for eating. You're just keeping the seeds. Those are, you know, a lot of really easy pieces there. And then I think a lot of people also get turned off a little bit on the, you know, thinking that this is something complicated that, you know, like it's a left to the realm of the experts and, you know, it's like, well, there's a reason that they're certain seed companies out there and they must be doing something right or what if it's crossed with something, you know, it's not gonna be the same. It's like, Well, that is this beauty of this 10,000 year old tradition that we have. Those created these amazing varietals that we have around the planet, and they do it themselves. Really, You know, a lot of seed saving is just kind of. I almost consider it neglect.
Erik Ohlsen: 39:15
It really can be.
Josh Robinson: 39:16
Yeah, you just kind of walk away, and there they begin to kind of pop up. I
Erik Ohlsen: 39:22
will say, though, that tomato seeds do need to be fermented. Yes, so they are a little bit trickier, but still very easy. And there's a lot of great books out there. The Seed Savers Exchange put out some great seats saving books that help you with your pollination stuff. But like you said, a lot of this is a lot easier than people think. And I really want to take a lot of the hurdles away from folks the mental hurdles so people can just know that it's okay to make mistakes, and it's natural. But nature is very forgiving, and you're gonna have a lot of success. You can have some failure and you're all screwed up a lot of success. kind. No matter what you do, if you get out there and get seeds in the ground and start watering them things were just going to happen.
Josh Robinson: 40:00
One piece that you were mentioning there was, you know, looking at this situation with current virus from a kind of succession point of view. And right now we're essentially kind of in this, you know, triage side where it's like, Okay, we're hit. We're taking assessment in stock and trying to kind of, you know, make some immediate actions. Get the gardens in the ground, get our food supply and security kind of underway. But moving forward, I would love to hear like what your vision would be and where your passion is and what really kind of drives you in some of this work that you're doing and keeps you motivated and going through even these challenging times as well.
Erik Ohlsen: 40:43
I've seen the most agree did landscapes, ones that have been compacted and asphalted over neglected turn into ecological edible forest gardens in like two years. And those experiences seeing how quickly a damaged piece of land can't become an oasis for life a food production medicine production system. It just gives me so much hope. And while there's so much to feel down about in the world that has been before this virus, you know there's a lot there's I've personally felt as an activist, a lot of grief around around things that happened in the world. I just find so much hope in the Garden and I want to just share that hope with everybody. I want everyone to have that experience because I feel like in some ways we've were living in an illusion in our minds about the kind of world we have to be in that this world that we're in now, this global economy, this high technology and the way things are, it feels like the dominant paradigm of our culture is believes that that's the only choice. You and my goal is to say it's not. That is not the only world that we have to live in and that there's this completely other part of our experience of being human on Earth, which is directly rooted in soil and plants and wildlife and ecology and water, any community, and that if we turn our attention towards the natural ecosystem, we're going to find abundance. We're going to heal our physical issues. We're going two feet. Hell or emotional issues were going to come together community and we're going to create something where people can really thrive. And that's what drives me is knowing that this possibilities there for our world, for people around the world, that this arriving life, this Dr Ling livelihood, this local way of being in our communities is possible and that nature is is a gift. And those are some of the things that drive me a lot because I've seen it. I've seen it happen firsthand, and I've also been in activist circles, actress trains. I've been with organizing communities. I've worked with all different kinds of people all over the world, and I see what happens when people come together for a garden party. I mean, let's bring celebration back into the work because we are species that celebrate. We need to bring that joy back into the work that we d'oh and I think that a lot of the work that people do in the world don't bring them joy. It's not a joyful experience, and people are feeling stuck and trapped in the lives that they have. And so So I'm just so encouraged when I'm out in the garden, them out on the land in community, and we're doing it together and we're singing and playing music. And we're sitting around the fire and we're planting seeds and building gardens were cooking together. And I think that that world that life, everyone's birthrate is to be able to live like that.
Josh Robinson: 44:15
Yeah, what a what a beautiful vision. And and when I think all of us can really, you know, see ourselves in. It's something that I think is ingrained in what people want in this existence of this, you know, life that we're all in. And, you know, at the same time it's like we get caught up in just the day to day of whatever it is. And sometimes we lose sight of that. And you know what I love about, You know, the work that you're doing is that you're constantly out there and just, you know, making that awareness visible. And, you know, it's like we need people in all of our communities that are literally showing these solutions that are setting the example and and really painting the vision of what could happen because, like you said, in two years, you could have a really amazing you know, ecosystem of food, medicine, fiber. And all of that is, well, a cz the community side that we can begin to build through these metaphors of, you know, looking at the lens of permaculture in the garden. Yeah, So if people want toe, reach out and learn a little bit more about some of the work that you're doing, do we have some particular websites? I know you have to permaculture skilled center and permaculture artisans, but you also have a couple books.
Erik Ohlsen: 45:34
I've got some books. You just google. My name Erika. Lt's in. You can get in touch with my books. I've got a short ecological landscape professional book for folks who want to start their own businesses doing this kind of work. But I've also created a bunch of Children's books, 11 called The Forest of Fire. We've been hit by a lot of wildfire over the last few years, and that one teaches Children and adults about fire ecology. In a little story illustrated story and yeah, permaculture skill centre dot or permaculture artisans dot com and then, you know, on Facebook, we've got a lot of different groups. There's the Pandemic Victory Garden Group, which is really taking off right now. We also have a couple online courses, and she confined about our website. We've got a regenerative Agra forestry course, Penny Livingston Stark, which is an amazing experience learning about how to set up your regenerative Agra forestry, which could just be your home kitchen garden based on perennials. Or it could be larger scale restoration agriculture models. And we have the ICO Landscape Mastery School, which is an online school for folks who want to start careers becoming professional designers and installation contractors doing permaculture and regenerative design.
Josh Robinson: 46:47
Amazing. Well, I want to thank you for taking the time here just to chat with us. Um, do you have any final thoughts or things that you wanted to say to the listeners?
Erik Ohlsen: 46:57
Well, thank you so much for having me. I just want to say to everyone wherever you're at right now getting out into your garden, getting out onto the land, finding a way to get your hands in the earth will be healing medicine for you. Put those seeds in the ground and don't worry about making mistakes. That's part of the process. Make those mistakes and persevere and keep going, and you will reap pundits.
Josh Robinson: 47:26
Well, that wraps up the show. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got some value out of it. I know I did. I love chatting with Eric about permaculture, and particularly in this challenging time of looking for these points of optimism and for ways that we can collectively move forward because we can do this. There's so much to be learned, and we will continue to learn how to thrive in these scenarios. So stay tuned for more episodes. As we talk about Maura about permaculture and navigating through this challenging time, that Corona virus pandemic is really presenting. Show notes for today's episode can be found at permaculture for the future dot com slash episode 13. That's permaculture for the future dot com slash Episode 13 and stay tuned for next week. We're bringing on Rob Avis from Canada to talk about permaculture. All right, so we'll see all then, in the meantime, get out there and do something good