Sustainable Living Skills You Need to Survive
It might not seem so serious to the average consumer in the First World, but the future of the world as we know hangs in the balance. The media is full of bad news that can make changing things for the better seem hopeless, but there are simple and radical things you can do to reduce your impact and set an example for others. It's not just a choice, our survival depends on it.
Follow my YouTube Channel Hardcore Sustainable to find out how I've implemented sustainable technologies and techniques at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage to help me live more lightly on the Earth.
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Permaculture in the Sub-tropics: Urban Food Forest in Gulfport, FL
This is the second video about the urban homesteading community Hummingbird Hideout in Gulfport, FL near Tampa Bay. In just a few years they have established a food forest of tropical fruit trees and other useful and native plants on an urban lot. Things grow so fast in the sub-tropics that it only to takes a few years to have bountifully producing fruit trees and a lush forest. Malory gives us a tour of the food forest and all the many different kinds of plants they are growing, and Stefan tells us about native plants.
Even if you live in a city you can produce a lot of food on an urban lot. And you don’t have to live in the tropics, although it takes a lot less time in the tropics and there are a lot more useful plant choices. I personally find a productive food forest to be much more aesthetically pleasing than your typical urban yard, with a lawn monoculture and maybe some ornamental shrubs. And just imagine how much more beautiful and productive our neighborhoods would be if everyone turned their yard into a food forest.
Check out Stefan Babyak’s Youtube channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOpJ8BpZayCoJkLqkl07GQ
Urban Homesteading Community: Self-Sufficient in the City
On Hardcore Sustainable this week we travel to Gulfport, FL to visit Hummingbird Hideout, an urban homesteading community. It’s not easy to homestead out in the country without close neighbors and usually a family depends on a lot of technology to make their lives easier. Lots of stuff, like your own car, your own truck, your own tractor can cost a lot of money and make dependent on outside sources of income. With neighbors so distant, there is far less opportunity to share technology and resources. As well, a lot of people living in the city don’t how good they have it in terms of access to resources and the efficiencies that sharing with neighbors can bring. It might seem less likely, but there is a lot you can do in a city on a small piece of land to make your life more sustainable and self sufficient.
Folks at Hummingbird Hideout have set up systems to make even life in the city much more self sufficient by sharing with their neighbors and using permaculture systems to get more of their resources on site from the earth and the sky.
In this first of two videos, we get a tour of the systems they have set up at Hummingbird, and in the second video we’ll get a tour of their food forest and native plantings.
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The Neighborhood Soil Making Movement
Josh Whiton from Makesoil.org came through St Petersburg, FL last winter teaching classes on community composting, or soil making, as he calls it. He’s organizing an effort to set up neighborhood scale composting worldwide and better connect people to the land and their community. He explains his plans and philosophy around creating a regenerative economy that will restore the planet instead of destroying it.
Join the movement!
How are plastic rings back?
25 years ago or so beverage companies voluntarily did away with plastic can rings under pressure from concerned consumers and environmental groups. Now they are back, and provide a great example of how capitalism is relentless in its drive to destroy the planet, and how in order to keep it from destroying the planet even faster, we have to be constantly vigilant in keeping it in check. It’s exhausting and requires way too much mental, financial, and political resources.
Rebuilding and Improving a Rocket Mass Heater
The rocket mass heater in Skyhouse at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage was in need of some repairs and improvements. It was at least 15 years old and had always had some issues with efficiency in heating the space it was supposed to. Mark Mazziotti, of nearby Red Earth Farms, was hired to do a total rebuild of the stove because of his experience in building rocket stoves and mass heaters. I happened to find out he was doing the rebuild and asked him if he would help me make a video about the project. It’s a little longer than some of my usual videos, but it’s interesting to hear the thought and planning Mark put into the rebuild.
Mark wants me to add that he miscalculated his estimate of his experience in natural building. It’s more like 15, not 20 years of experience he has.
My 25 Year Old Seed Collection: So Many Seeds, So Many Stories
Now is the time when in the dead of winter everyone is ordering seeds or just looking through their seed collection and deciding what to grow next season. Everyone’s champing at the bit for the cold to go away and the ground to green up so they can start a new season in the garden.
This video is really for the avid gardener and seed saver. I go through my 25 year old seed collection and tell the stories of how I can to be saving certain varieties.
I’d love to hear your seed stories too, so leave a comment in the comments section if you have a good one.
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