permaculture

Episode 18: Planting for the next 200 years with permaculture master Alexia Allen

In this episode, Dr. Mark and Anisa join Alexia Allen on Hawthorn Farm in Woodinville, WA. In this inspriing conversation, we explore the concepts of true nutrient density, creating vitality from the Earth and its creatures, and what it can look like to be a steward of the land.

Alexia Allen has lived at Hawthorn Farm since 2003, crafting a vision of the world she wants to live in. This includes beautiful and productive gardens, ample wild space and creatures, happy farm animals, and vibrant, loving human relationships. Studying nature for the past 20 years has brought her a deep appreciation of the threads that weave ecological and human communities together. She is indebted to her many years of work at Wilderness Awareness School in Duvall, WA. Creativity guides her life, whether in making a stylish felt vest or a tasty goat cheese (and we can attest that that, it’s delicious). After many years of being vegan, she went on to become a YouTube sensation with a video on humane butchering.

After a year of eating all hand-harvested food in 2017, Alexia got passionately interested in growing nutrient-dense, year-round food for herself and the 10-person household she lives in. As a suburban homesteader, they eat well and diversely from the sunshine that falls in Woodinville, WA. She loves sharing the joy and possibilities to encourage others to grow and forage food. Her motto is "Good food within walking distance for everyone.”

Alexia offers garden consultations to aspiring gardeners and homesteaders all over and sells farm-crafted goods straight from Hawthorn Farm. You can learn more about her work and offerings at http://www.HawthornFarm.org and https://www.facebook.com/hawthornfarmheals

Join us on the farm and listen in! And just a note, because we’re recording outdoors, there are a few moments of wind that drown out our voices but please stay tuned, there are lots of gems in this one.

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Show notes

Episode 7: Why we long to live wild and free with Nate Summers

Path to nature connection and wilderness skills

A year living off the land

  • the experience

  • key learnings from failures

Permaculture- How she practices it on her farm and what it means to her

  • Plants that offer minimal tending, maximal nutrition

  • perennial food sources (nuts and fruits)

  • Rainwater harvesting

  • Heating a greenhouse with compost

  • Chickens scratching up a garden bed

  • “My job as a permaculturist is to orchestrate the landscape”

  • Rabbits as lawnmowers

  • Ducks keep the slugs away

  • Human community: growing, living and eating together

How did nutrition evolve through your life?

  • vegetarian at age 10

  • Devout vegan from age 12 through early 20s

  • Tempted by beef jerky while on a survival trip

  • Realizing that if she eats meat, it will be animals that she will kill/process herself

  • Not economical/ethical to raise meat chickens

  • Rabbits can grow a lot of protein from what we can grow here

  • Fat sources on the farm

Essential oil distillation

  • An offering to share that doesn’t require tons of compost and sending nutrients off the farm

  • The conifer branches are already falling down in a windstorm: Juniper, Douglas fir, Cedar

Rapid fire questions

What advice do you hear in the permaculture/homestead community that you disagree with?

“Just add more organic matter” this doesn’t always fix the nutritional deficiencies in the soil

  • how to identify nutritional deficiencies

  • Soil tests with Logan Labs

What crops are difficult to grow but rewarding in the process or in their harvest?

  • Squash

  • Field/flint corn (5 gal buckets of cascade ruby gold, Saskatoon white, hookers blue)- these are what get them through the hunger gap time of year in late winter/early spring. One 5 gal bucket will easily feed one adult as main calorie source for a month.

Most prized garden equipment

  • myself and my willingness to be connected to the landscape

  • Ponies and horse-drawn farm equipment


If there was one policy change you could make in our current food/agricultural system at a macroscopic level- what would it be?

  • Farmers will get paid by nutrient production not calorie production

Services

  • Kids programs

  • Garden/homestead consulting

Contact: http://www.HawthornFarm.org and https://www.facebook.com/hawthornfarmheals