A Boom Book Review: The Resilient Farm and Homestead: An Innovative Permaculture and Whole System Design Approach

The Kindle, Amazon Synopsis:The Resilient Farm and Homestead is a manual for developing durable, beautiful, and highly functional human habitat systems fit to handle an age of rapid transition. Ben Falk is a land designer and site developer whose permaculture-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 unworthy farmland. 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 earthworks; gravity-fed water systems; species composition; the site-design process; site management; fuelwood hedge production and processing; human health and nutrient-dense production strategies; rapid topsoil formation and remineralization; agroforestry/silvopasture/grazing; ecosystem services, especially regarding flood mitigation; fertility management; human labor and social-systems aspects; tools/equipment/appropriate technology; and much more, complete with gorgeous photography and detailed design drawings.

Our Boom review: Guy and I, have both read the book and enjoyed it immensely. This book is a must read for all permaculture people and non-permaculture people will find it very interesting and may change their outlook on how they are living life at home. Our key takeaways from the book were plant nut and fruit trees as soon as possible,  partner with perennial crops and we are very excited to plant and partner with Sea buckthorn or seaberries on our land – a drought tolerant-nitrogen fixing-berry producing-perennial.  We live in a way different climate than Ben Falk and he doesn’t even suggest following what he does, he is just offering his advice through experience and one of his main tips was design for your environment – you must provide or offer to your land, life, work based on what your environment is wanting, needing, asking for; nothing can be designed the same way twice. My other favorite part of the book is Ben has amazing life experience and advice to offer across the board. Here are few of my favorite quotes from the book:

“A tractor and horse are comparable in the amount of work they can achieve on a small piece of land, yet after a time the tractor dies and the horse makes another horse. Only life processes are regenerative. Hence, our prospects for thriving on this planet depends on our ability to partner with life forces.”

“Skills are one of the only things no one can every take from you.”

“We may at time be rich or poor, socially connected or relatively alone, but for the most part our skills are ours to keep. Our attitude manifests everything else. If you don’t believe you can do something, you certainly won’t…”

“Regeneration involves seeing things as they could be, while resiliency requires dealing with things as they are.”

“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. “

“When the bad news of the world starts to overwhelm me, I always remember one piece of overwhelmingly good news; that in this work of facilitating abundance, life wants to live. “

If you want more quotes you will have to go read the book, download it on amazon here
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Also, Ben and his wife Erica offer workshops on their homestead @ Whole Systems Design Research Farm in Vermont. Go check out the website http://www.wholesystemsdesign.com/wsrf/ and look at all the photos from their design course and if you are serious you can enroll into their design course, the fee is $350 upfront, so they are seeking serious candidates.

Have a Booming Day!
@theboomstead