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My guest for this episode is Dave Jacke, ecological designer, teacher, and co-author, along with Eric Toensmeier, of Edible Forest Gardens.
Excepting Misters Holmgren, Mollison, and Hemenway, Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier were two of the authors whose names were well known in my local permaculture community, and I added their two-volume set to my library as early as I could afford to. Dave was one of the first guests I wanted to have on after relaunching the show, but it took me this long to finally get our schedules to mesh and make it happen. In the end, I think it was worth it, even with some of the audio issues we encountered along the way. He was open and honest, leading to a great deal of candor in the conversation, so much so that I had to edit out some things both of us said that were better left as a personal exchange, not for airing in public. You still might be surprised by what we both agreed to leave in.
We begin, as always, with his background, and move into a discussion of his work and permaculture, including a critique of the material, how we can build more sustainable systems by engaging our social structures and intentionally designing them, and wrap with some listener questions and his final thoughts.
During the conversation we touched on the idea of being impeccable with your word. That phrase “Be Impeccable with Your Word” comes from the book The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz. I don’t know how you’d classify this book, as it’s cataloged under Philosophy, Mental Health, and Social Science, but the four ideas include not only be impeccable with your word, but also Don’t Take Anything Personally, Don’t Make Assumptions, and Always Do Your Best. They sound pretty straight forward, but the author spends time working through each of them and how they relate to freeing ourselves to be able to take care of ourselves, and use that centered personal space to begin building the social structures we need to build to keep systems working. Check a copy out from your library, give it a read, and let me know what you think.
Also, check out Dave’s website at edibleforestgardens.com for more information, including worksheets and errata available for download, as well as upcoming events. One of those that may be of interest to recent and upcoming Permaculture Design Course graduates is a teacher training to be held in Tennessee from March 21-30, 2014. One of his co-teachers is Cliff Davis, a past guest on the show. This course focuses on whole systems and designing educational ecosystems. If I could make it, I’d be there, but it looks like I’ll have to wait and see if he offers this course again in 2015. If you go, let me know about your experience.
Resources:
Edible Forest Gardens Dave Jacke’s Website. You can contact Dave and order a copy of his books.
Events Page – Find out about Dave’s upcoming classes and other public presenatations.
Thank you Scott and Dave. Yes, Dave, vulnerability is strength. I totally agree. I appreciate your honesty. I am the woman who asked about the caterpillar-type worms eating the jostaberries and gooseberries. Scott, I am not a super techie…and I had hunted and hunted for this interview hoping to hear what Dave had to say about my question, and could not find it. I just saw the link to your interview with Marisha on her Facebook page and when I went to listen, there was the link to this interview. 🙂 Seek and ye shall find. Thank you for covering the question. Thank you for your humility and honesty, Dave, in openly saying you had to research it. That was empowering to me. You will be happy to know, Rotenone is out of the question. Plant nutrition will be part of the solution. The ones that were hit hardest were in pots, although ones in the ground got zapped, too, but later, and not as badly. They did hit twice last summer. 🙁 It makes sense to me that predatory wasps would get them. So I will do all I can to encourage wasps…give them habitat and put in plants that they like. I am pleased that I thought of that also as I contemplated the solution. At our community garden there is a planting of gooseberries and jostaberries in the common area, not in my plot, and they do fine, in spite of the fact that they tend to get neglected. I have never seen these caterpillar types on them. And I have looked. The community garden is about 1/2 an acre and has been there for about 20 or more years. It is made up of 20’x20′ plots. There is quite a diversity of plants there, and it is in a larger greenspace of about 5 acres, so there are many places for wasps to nest, and much for them to eat. Inspiration… I will plant some gooseberries in my plot there and see how they do. I will definitely let you know if I find a solution, although I may not know which of the things which I implement are really the factors that are working. I will let you know how it is going. The gooseberries and jostaberries just keep growing through all this, so they are survivors. Some even produce fruit…so I am sure i can solve this problem. Thank you for your books, which I read voraciously and from which I have learned much. Thank you for this in depth interview…much to reflect on. I was glad to hear what you had to say. Blessings <3
Hi, Dave, and folks, This is Pamela Melcher again, with an update, as of December 2016, on the caterpillars that used to badly infest our Gooseberries and Jostaberries in Portland, Oregon, that I refer to above. I have not been able to identify exactly what they are. They were the worst problem when the plants were still in pots. That all was a harsh lesson in the fact that it is really best not to obtain plants until there is a place prepared for them where they can be permanently planted with minimal delay. Now that they are in the ground, there is dramatically less of a problem with these creatures. The general trend is that the plants in the ground have less problems the longer they are in the ground. The ones that are in more fertile soil with more mulch do dramatically better. They still infest for 2 rounds a season. They can easily be controlled by picking them off by hand. I keep a lookout to get rid of them as soon as they appear. We are encouraging a wide diversity of plants that attract a wide diversity of insects that like to eat other insects. We have lots of Feverfew, Lemon Balm, Rosemary, Sage, Catnip, and Lavender. It is not possible for me at this time to pinpoint which plants are the most helpful. There is plenty of mulch and fantastic habitat for wasps and othe predatrory insects. We are developing an edible forest garden on 1/4 acre. The Jostaberries are not bothered much at all as of 2016. This does not surprise me, as Jostaberries are known for their vitality. I was not able to get the Jostaberries in the ground when I first bought them in 2012, and they have done better and better since being put in the ground in 2013. I planted 2 Gooseberries in our Community Garden in early Spring 2014, in 2 foot deep composted street leaves. They are thriving and growing fast, and have had no problems with these caterpillars, although I noticed a few caterpillars on the Gooseberries which have been growing, seriously neglected, in the common area of the Community Garden for years. It would not surprise me if were is a whole community of insects that love these tiny green caterpillars in the Community Garden. My guess is that as the soil improves and they get more deeply rooted, the problem will fade away. I will watch for a pattern of light infestation one year, then heavy infestation, or some sort of pattern. My guess is that will even out as the soil gets better. I will check back with a report. I like having the responsibility to share information, since we are all students here. It brings out the best in me. Blessings.
I am so used to Facebook where <3 creates a little heart. Here I can only add a 🙂
The worms are actually not on the currants….there are red and black currants in my garden, and there are no worm-caterpillars on them. Only on the gooseberries and jostaberries.
Dave Jacke’s emphasis on the fact that even the most knowledgeable people in the field we think of as permaculture know very little compared to what there is to know reminds me of one of the key principles of Holistic Management: always assume that we are wrong.
Even after going through a rigorous process of developing goals, assessing the land and other elements of the system – including the people both directly involved and who will be affected ‘downstream’ as it were, Holistic Management principles state that we must always return to the observation and evaluation portions of the process with the assumption that we got it wrong. This allows us to see whether our plan or design is really functioning a we intended, or as well as it could, and to alter it as neccessary to acheive the intended results.
For a more accurate description of Holistic Management – which is often associated with a set of techniques, particularly managed intensive grazing, just as permaculture is associated with herb spirals and hugelkulture, but actually can be applied to any human endeavor – please search on HMI or Allan Savory.
Like permaculture, when properly applied, HM is about more than permanance or sustainability; it’s about mimicing the function of natural ecosystems to promote both production and regeneration of damaged landscapes (some of which we don’t even realize are damaged). It is about working with nature, not against it; isn’t that what drew most of us to permaculture?
Assuming that everything we think we know may be wrong allows us to continue to learn, especially if the kind of learning we seek is not merely a catalouge of ‘facts’ but includes a desire to grasp the underlying principles. (That the collection of facts and unwillingness to re-examine what was ‘known to be true’ has significantly hampered the advancement of science many times is well documented, but the custom persists. Peer review, while valuable, is one of the tools used to thwart new ideas and the re-examination of scientific beliefs that even the scientific community sometimes refers to as ‘doctrine’. Ideally, science is the pursuit of knowledge and truth via a systematic process, but this goes to show that permaculture is not the only field where the ideal and the implimentation “ain’t exactly all that similar”.)
This is not intended to induce fear of taking action, but is analagous to the process of self reflection, a process neccessary for personal growth. (Which is not the same as beating ourselves up for any real or percieived shortcomings or errors, but that is another topic.)
As always, gratitude and appreciation to you both for your work, and for your willingness to share it.
[…] Listen to a podcast with Dave Jacke about this subject and more here […]
The compresion of the overview of ‘what is wrong with the world today’ from a 3 day lecture to a 1 day brainstorming session is very interesting! What an innovative way to engage people in discovering for themselves both the extent and the inter-relationships between the issues that the world is facing today.
It is hard to say that Mollison’s approach lacked value, especially since few then recognized that the root of many (most?) of the social problems in the world (famine, much war, a lot of political problems, etc) and ecological problems (ecosystem collapse, massive pollution of air, soil, water – our homes,our bodies, flood, drought, famine…) have their roots in the disconnect between humans and the ecosystems that support them.
Even the very fact that we are ALL intimately dependant upon healthy, functioning ecosystems, even if we never set foot outside – is one that many people are unaware of; they think that technology can provide everything they need. It is hard to blame Mollison for hammering people with these issues when most people in America are oblivous that:
– to the fact that their lovely clean homes are exposing them to dangerous levels of toxins;
– essentially everything they eat contains synthetic man-made chemicals (even USDA Organic food can contain residues from air, soil, water, etc, OR pick up chemicals from contact with plastic packaging);
– babies (the young of humans) are BORN POLLUTED with 200+ chemicals, even the babies of the wealthy and privledged. Adults who thought they had minimal exposure to synthetic chemicals have been shocked to learn how many were found in their blood;
– ‘There is no such place as ‘AWAY’ ” to throw things!
Or to put nuclear waste. Plastics are choking the ocean, and when the oceans go, so does life as we know it on the planet…
In short, many people -including those who consider themselves to be concerned and/or aware- don’t SEE or directly experience the worst of the impacts, as Jacke says – and either are unaware how bad things are – OR think most thing are just fine.
That said… the recuperative powers of the biosphere are truly awesome. That said, regeneration of the planet is not a given, not as long as the damage being inflicted by human activities is novel and/or continues at the current rate (and it is increasing, (NOT just because of human population increases)).
The frustration regarding what ‘permaculture’ means, and what it involves is the same problem that occurs whenever any word or term comes into relatively wide usage. Still, though it may not just be about agriculture (the production of food or fiber (among other products)) – but it is the basis of EVERYTHING else humans do.
That may be a ‘bottom up’ view; Jacke may be approaching the issues from ‘the top down’ – ie from the social end, rather than the biological end.
Thank you Scott, and Jacke for both his deeply relevant interviews, packed full of insights and wisdom.
[…] It used to be back in the Eighties if you didn’t have an herb spiral you weren’t doing permaculture. And it seems to be a similar thing [now]; if you don’t have hügelkultur you’re not doing permaculture. Well, phooey to that! Dave Jacke on The Permaculture Podcast […]
[…] 2. Edible Forest Gardens and permaculture with Dave Jacke – Dave Jacke is a permaculture practitioner and co-author of Edible Forest Gardens that tells it like it is. Like Ethan Hughes, Dave asserts the importance of inner landscape work if any external actions are to have lasting results. His work with perennial food forestry is comprehensive, and the content of this conversation has given me a more clear understanding of how to move forward in my path, both internally and in the outer landscape, specifically with regards to food forestry. […]
[…] Resources: The Sacred Gardener Returning to Eden: Polyculture Gardening with Steven Martyn Orphan Wisdom School The Hundredth Monkey Effect Edible Forest Gardens and Permaculture with Dave Jacke […]