Archived Posts

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Perennial Vegetables DVD review in Permaculture Activist

Permaculture Activist  #88, May 2013 Five segments show perennial vegetables of every shape and size growing in climates from Massachusetts to Mexico and back by way of Florida. Eric is photogenic, poised, and delivers in a beautiful voice. He’s a … Continue reading →

Paradise Lot review in HortIdeas

Nice thoughtful review of Paradise Lot in HortIdeas: HORTIDEAS, March 2013, 30(3) BOOK & DVD REVIEW Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One-Tenth of an Acre and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City, by Eric Toensmeier with … Continue reading →

Staple Fruits of the World

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Legume Trees with Pods Edible by Livestock

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Perennial Cereal Grains: A Promise Requiring Patience and Prioritization

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Carbon-Sequestering Perennial Industrial Crops

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Industrial Starch and Bioplastic from Non-Destructively Harvested Perennials

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Siberian Pea Shrub – a Potential Perennial Bean for Cold and Arid Regions

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Perennial Egusi – A Staple Seed for the Arid Tropics

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

Resources for Gardening with Edible Native Plants of the Eastern Deciduous Forest of North America

Recent decades have seen excellent work in prioritizing gardening with native species. However, most all–native gardens are not sufficiently ecological in that they do not provide the food and other needs of human inhabitants, nor accept and cycle their wastes. … Continue reading →

Coppiced Nitrogen-Fixing Firewood Species of the World

This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which … Continue reading →

To save the planet we may need to turn it into an edible paradise… help me write the book that explains how and why.

Check out my kickstarter campaign and learn about this hopeful solution to climate change and how you can be part of making it happen.

Upcoming Courses

I’ll be hitting the road soon. Here’s the spring schedule: Subtropical Food Forestry April 5-10 Homestead, Florida   Introduction to Edible Forest Gardens May 3-5 near Philadelphia, PA   Backyard Bioshelter Workshop May 18 Holyoke, MA    

Ecosystem Mimicry in Subtropical Florida

Ecosystem mimicry is one of the concepts at the heart of permaculture. The food forest or edible forest garden, for example, strives to replicate the structure, relationships, and successional pathways of natural forest ecosystems. I’m fortunate to have had the … Continue reading →

Paradise Lot gets huge spread in the New York Times!

We are pleased and honored to have our book and garden profiled in the New York Times on Valentine’s Day! The article is in the Home and Garden section and is by garden journalist Anne Raver. Anne came here a … Continue reading →

A Global Inventory of Perennial Vegetables

A GLOBAL INVENTORY OF PERENNIAL VEGETABLES Eric Toensmeier   This post is to celebrate the release of my new Perennial Vegetable Gardening DVD! Perennial Vegetables Defined These are crops that fit my definition of perennial vegetable: living three or more … Continue reading →

Paradise Lot: Two Plant Geeks, One Tenth of an Acre, and the Making of an Edible Garden Oasis in the City

Hey my new book is out! It tells the story of our home garden. Check out the Paradise Lot blog.

Financial Permaculture podcast

If you’ve been interested in the Financial Permaculture course but can’t make it (or want to learn more before deciding), you can check out my new financial permaculture podcast interview with The Permaculture Podcast. I give an overview of financial … Continue reading →

Financial Permaculture Course – Save $80 on Registration

Announcing the 2013 Financial Permaculture & Local Business Summit. Earth Learning, the South Dade Economic Development Council, Financial Permaculture Institute, and Miami Dade College will host community investment/financial experts, permaculture designers and sustainability entrepreneurs for this dynamic gathering and integrative … Continue reading →

Edible Plants of Central America

Fantastic new book available free online on edible native plants of Central America. If you read Spanish you should check it out!

Integrating Livestock in the Food Forest

Integrating livestock seems to be the best way to have a larger-scale food forest (anything over one hectare or a couple of acres). If done properly, livestock integration can greatly reduce labor and fossil fuel needs.  It can create the … Continue reading →

Considerations in Designing a Commercial Food Forest

It seems that everywhere I  teach these days I am meeting people who are interested in  scaling up the edible forest gardens model. Indeed, this form of carbon–sequestering food for stray could have a major impact on climate change if … Continue reading →

Designing Edible Food Forests Course – Occidental, California

Location: Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, Occidental CA Offered: Nov 2 – 4, 2012 Instructors:  Eric Toensmeier and Brock Dolman Cost: $495/445 if registered three weeks in advance (includes meals and lodging).  The deposit amount for this course is $100.  For … Continue reading →

The All-Native Ethnobotanical Rainwater-Harvesting Food Forest

One of the basic ideas of permaculture is that its principles remain the same though they are reflected uniquely in every site. Recently I’ve done plantings at two different food forestry courses that demonstrate this quite nicely. The first course … Continue reading →

Forest garden fun at Green Light Plants

On my way home from a great “intermediate forest garden” weekend workshop at Green Light Plants in Landenberg PA. Dale Henricks of Green Light was our host, his house is lovely and the garden is pretty fantastic. Green Light Plants … Continue reading →

Nitrogen fixing podocarpus with Rhizobia partner!

Thanks to Taylor Nelson for pointing out that Podocarpus macrophyllus, in the Conifer division, fixes nitrogen. In fact it has Rhizobium in the roots but does not have nodules and may not fix very much nitrogen. Edible fruit! Talyor also … Continue reading →

Cucurbitales Features Nitrogen Fixing Family!

As I speculated in my recent blog on Insights into Nitrogen Fixation from Higher Order Taxonomy, there is in fact at least one group of nitrogen fixers in the Cucurbitales order. This was the only standout order in its lineage … Continue reading →

Maximizing Omega-Level Diversity

Note: this is a piece that was originally to be published in Edible Forest Gardens which I coauthored with Dave Jacke. Yes, there are parts we cut out, it would have been even longer! Dave reviewed and edited that version … Continue reading →

Insights into Nitrogen Fixation from Higher-Order Taxonomy

Nitrogen fixation is an important ecological phenomenon and a critical element of agroecological systems. Nitrogen fixing plants, through a symbiosis with various microorganisms, can convert atmospheric nitrogen to essential nitrogen fertilizer. A great diversity of species from many widely-separated orders … Continue reading →

Higher Order Taxonomy: Nature’s Filing System

When I started to learn about useful plants and their scientific (Latin) names, I quickly came to realize that there were many more than I could easily keep track of. Fortunately botany comes with a pre-made filing system to organize … Continue reading →

Cuba Mass-Planting Moringa and Mulberry

Fidel Castro’s REFLECCIONES de FIDEL column of June 17, 2012 titled Healthy Food and Jobs reads (my translation): “The conditions have been created to begin large-scale production of Moringa oleifera and mulberry, inexhaustible sources of meat, eggs, and milk, silk … Continue reading →

Intermediate Edible Forest Garden Design Workshop near Philadelphia September 7-9, 2012

Join author and educator Eric Toensmeier and friends for a hands-on and fun-filled weekend of Edible Forest Gardening (EFG) – gardens which mimic the structures and functions of natural ecosystems while producing food and other products, with an emphasis on … Continue reading →

User–Generated Food Forest Resource is Online

The Apios Institute for Regenerative Perennial Agriculture has spent several years developing a user–generated resource on food forests. Users can add content on species, polycultures, and sites. This content ranges from videos, text, recipes, and photos, and emphasizes personal experience … Continue reading →

All Nitrogen Fixers Are Not Created Equal

Nitrogen fixing species are a cornerstone of food forestry and other permaculture practices.  Through a partnership with symbiotic organisms in their roots, these plants can turn atmospheric nitrogen into nitrogen fertilizers useful to themselves but also becoming available to their … Continue reading →

Addressing Global Problems with Permaculture

Welcome to www.perennialsolutions.org. Here I’ll be profiling regenerative food production practices that can feed us while healing degraded land, fighting climate change by sequestering carbon, and addressing a host of other social and ecological challenges. Some of these practices are … Continue reading →