The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach

Ben Falk

Chelsea Green Publishing, May 23, 2013 - House & Home - 320 pages

A practical, comprehensive, and essential how-to manual with information on growing perennial crops, soil fertility, water security, nutrient dense food, and more!

"Essential reading for the serious prepper as well as for everyone interested in creating a more resilient lifestyle."—Carol Deppe, author of The Resilient Gardener

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is for readers ready to not just survive, but thrive in changing, unpredictable times. It offers the tools to develop durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems anchored by preparation, regeneration, and resiliency.

Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose research farm has drawn national attention. The site is a terraced paradise on a hillside in Vermont that would otherwise be overlooked by conventional farmers as unworkable. Falk’s wide array of fruit trees, rice paddies (relatively unheard of in the Northeast), ducks, nuts, and earth-inspired buildings is a hopeful image for the future of regenerative agriculture and modern homesteading.

The book covers nearly every strategy Falk and his team have been testing at the Whole Systems Research Farm over the past decade, as well as experiments from other sites Falk has designed through his off-farm consulting business.

The book includes detailed information on:

• Gravity-fed water systems
• Fuelwood hedge production and processing
• Human health through nutrient-dense production strategies
• Rapid topsoil formation and remineralization
• Agroforestry, silvopasture & grazing
• Earthworks
• Species composition
• The site-design process and site management
• Ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation
• Tools, equipment, and appropriate technology guides
• A "Homestead Vulnerability" checklist
• Resiliency Aptitude quiz and skills list for emergencies
• And much more!

Complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings throughout!

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is more than just a book of tricks and theories for regenerative site development. It offers actual working results from a complex farm-ecosystems based on research from the “great thinkers” in permaculture, and presents a viable home-scale model for an intentional food-producing ecosystem in cold climates, and beyond. Inspiring to would-be homesteaders everywhere, but especially for those who find themselves with “unlikely” farming land, Falk is an inspiration in what can be done by imitating natural systems, and making the most of what we have by re-imagining what’s possible. A gorgeous case study for the homestead of the future.

Contents

• Permaculture: 7
• Fleeing: 13
• Becoming Useful in the Transition: 19
• The Designers Set and Setting: 25
• Resiliency and Regeneration Principles: 31
• Understanding Your Site: 45
• Slowing and Infiltrating Water: 86
• Quiet Ally to the Whole System: 110
• TallGrass Grazing: 119
• The Benefits of Mowing: 126
• Grazing and Perennial Food Crop Integration: 142
• Keyline Agriculture and Fertigation: 147
• Perennial Plants and Resiliency: 153
• Paddy Rice Meat Eggs: 160
• Annual Vegetables: 176
• Growing Food as a Response to Toxicity: 182
• Adaptive Shelter: 222
• Mechanical Systems: 235
• resIlIenCe and regeneratIon: 244
• Growing Health and BodyMind Resilience: 250
• Staying: 257
• Assessing Resiliency Aptitude Quiz: 263
• Tools and Materials: 271
• Vocabulary and Concepts: 277
• Resources: 285

About the author

Ben Falk, M.A.L.D, developed Whole Systems Design, LLC, as a land-based response to biological and cultural extinction and the increasing separation between people and elemental things. Life as a designer, builder, ecologist, tree-tender, and backcountry traveler continually informs Ben's integrative approach to developing landscapes and buildings. His home landscape and the WSD studio site in Vermont's Mad River Valley serve as a proving ground for the innovative land developments featured in the projects of Whole Systems Design. Ben has studied architecture and landscape architecture at the graduate level and holds master of arts in landscape design degree. He has taught design courses at the University of Vermont and Harvard's Arnold Arboretum as well as on permaculture design, microclimate design, and design for climate change. He recently served on the board of directors at the Yestermorrow Design-Build School, where he also teaches from time to time. He is the author of The Resilient Homestead: Innovative Permaculture Systems for the Home and Farm.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole Systems Design Approach
• Author: Ben Falk
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013
• ISBN: 1603584455, 9781603584456
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Gardening / Organic; House & Home / Sustainable Living; Reference / Personal & Practical Guides; Self-Help / General; Self-Help / Green Lifestyle; Technology & Engineering / Agriculture / Sustainable Agriculture