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

In The Resilient Farm and Homestead , Ben Falk gives us a delightful and inspiring description of his years developing a 10-acre permaculture farm in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Readers from regions outside New England, however, should not assume that Falks practical, hard-won knowledge will not apply to them. His discussions invariably transcend the specific applications revealing principles that should be useful to homesteaders everywhere.

Larry Korn ,
editor of The One-Straw Revolution
and Sowing Seeds in the Desert
by Masanobu Fukuoka

Ben Falk calls his book about reviving a worn-out hill farm in Vermont an example of resilience and regeneration; I call it pure natural magic. Grow rice in New England? Yes. Heat water to 155F on cold winter days at a rate of a gallon a minute by piping it through a compost pile? Yes. How about dinner tonight of your own rack of lamb garnished with homegrown mushrooms? Yes. Your choice of scores of different vegetables and fruits even in winter? Yes. Plus, your own dairy products from your own sheep. All the while, the soil producing this magic, on a site once thought little more than a wasteland, grows yearly more fertile and secure from natural calamity.

Gene Logsdon ,
author of A Sanctuary of Trees
and Small-Scale Grain Raising

The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a terrific book. Simultaneously inspiring and practical, Ben Falk takes you from the why to the how.... a journey where you will create a present and future filled with optimism and joy.

Shannon Hayes ,
author of Long Way on a Little
and Radical Homemakers

Imagine. Honoring biodiversity in a place we each commit to for the long haul is what it takes to address a rapidly changing climate. Problem solved! Plant trees, let greenness thrive, learn the ways of fungi, be joyful. Ben Falk provides the encouragement and critical know-how to create your own food-producing sanctuary in The Resilient Farm and Homestead . The time is now to engage in healing the land and secure an ongoing future for generations to come.

Michael Phillips ,
author of The Holistic Orchard

Ben Falk extends the conversation about resilience to deep resilienceresilience from the level of personal attitudes and skills to the design and creation of the maximally resilient homestead. The Resilient Farm and Homestead weaves together permaculture theory as modified by actual practice on a 10-acre Vermont farm with a thorough preparedness guide for times of climate change and greater uncertainties of all kinds and sizes. The book is greatly enhanced by numerous glorious photos of permaculture plantings as hedgerows, rice paddies, people swimming in swale-enclosed ponds, fruit and vegetable harvesting, and foraging sheep, chickens, and ducks. I particularly appreciate that Falk tells us what didnt work as well as what did. This book will be essential reading for the serious prepper as well as for everyone interested in creating a more resilient lifestyle or landscape.

Carol Deppe,
author of The Resilient Gardener

With The Resilient Farm and Homestead , Ben Falk has definitely planted the seeds of a positive, abundant legacy. This book outlines the process of designing ones homestead with not just the future in mind, but the imminently practical NOW! This one is going on my shelf next to Helen and Scott Nearing.

Mark Shepard ,
author of Restoration Agriculture

Copyright 2013 by Ben Falk.

All rights reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all photographs copyright 2013 by Ben Falk.

Unless otherwise noted, all illustrations copyright 2013 by Cornelius Murphy and Ben Falk.

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Patricia Stone

Editor: Makenna Goodman

Copy Editor: Eileen M. Clawson

Proofreader: Helen Walden

Indexer: Linda Hallinger

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the United States of America.

First printing May, 2013.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 13 14 15 16 17

Our Commitment to Green Publishing

Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlorine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible. This book may cost slightly more because it was printed on paper that contains recycled fiber, and we hope youll agree that its worth it. Chelsea Green is a member of the Green Press Initiative ( www.greenpressinitiative.org ), a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. The Resilient Farm and Homestead was printed on FSC-certified paper supplied by QuadGraphics that contains at least 10% postconsumer recycled fiber.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Falk, Ben, 1977

The resilient farm and homestead : an innovative permaculture and whole systems design approach / Ben Falk.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60358-444-9 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-60358-445-6 (ebook)

1. Permaculture. 2. PermacultureVermont. 3. Agricultural ecology. 4. Agricultural ecologyVermont. 5. Restoration ecology.
6. Restoration ecologyVermont. I. Title.

S494.5.P47F35 2013

631.5'8dc23

2013004638

Chelsea Green Publishing

85 North Main Street, Suite 120

White River Junction, VT 05001

(802) 295-6300

www.chelseagreen.com

For my parents, Marcia and Stephen Falk, with gratitude.

And for the generations after me, I hope this helps.

Contents

Chapter One:

Chapter Two:

Chapter Three:

Chapter Four:

Chapter Five:

Chapter Six:

Chapter Seven:

Chapter One

Creating a Positive Legacy while Adapting to Rapid Change

It is not the strongest animal that survives, nor the fastest, but the one most adaptable to change.

Leon C. Megginson , paraphrasing Charles Darwin

Regeneration involves seeing things as they could be, while resiliency requires dealing with things as they are. This book shares principles, strategies, and components being tested at the Whole Systems Research Farm (WSRF) and homestead that are helping to transform a beat-up old Vermont hill farm into a highly biodiverse and productive human-supporting ecosystem. These systems, we have learned, must be simultaneously regenerative and resilient, for without regeneration health and production are limited. This landscape, like much of the world, is a damaged place, and without enhancing the health of soil and water (and the human body-mind as a result), one cannot increase productivity in durable ways. Without increasing productivity of the land in a durable manner, ones resiliency is not bolstered. Yet without also focusing on specific near-term needs such as having a plentiful fuelwood supply, backup lighting, fuel or tools, and basic skills, ones ability to do regenerative work is limitedthe long work being too easily interrupted by bumps in the short term.