![How to Start a Food Forest – STEP 1: The Tree Nursery [Video]](https://realizehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/How-to-Start-a-Food-Forest-YT-Thumbnail.jpg)
In this video, I'm going to share simple actionable steps you can take to start your own food forest. Twelve years ago, I started planting my first food forest. If I could start over, I'd begin with a small protected area where I could temporarily plant my baby...
![What is a Food Forest – And Why They Matter [Video]](https://realizehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Copy-of-Copy-of-Copy-of-Green-Photocentric-Bold-Masculine-How-to-Get-Profit-from-Trading-Youtube-Thumbnail.jpg)
What If Food Forests, Not AI or Crypto, Are the Next Disruptive Technology? I know that's a big "what if," but stick with me because in this video I'm going to explain what food forests are and why they're so revolutionary. And by the end of the video, you...
I was recently invited by Dan Kelly to be a guest on his show, The Farm Report, on the local radio station WUWU-LPFM 100.1, a low power radio station based out of Elberta, Michigan. It was a fun chat in which we talked about the land I'm homesteading on, the...
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Levi (@levimeeuwenberg) 💪 🥔 Potato Power! 🥔 💪 I found this story interesting and inspiring! I'd never heard about the Potato Uprising in Sweden before. (And you gotta love those cheeky billboards 😆) Potatoes are one of the...
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Levi (@levimeeuwenberg) Firstly, please enjoy the incredible flowers grown by the amazing @pennyok ! (The pollinators certainly are!) She's a garden painter and a painter of gardens. Now, heres a cool fact about butterflies...
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Levi (@levimeeuwenberg) Garter snakes help out in the garden by eating common pests like rodents and slugs. (and are non-poisonous!) 😎 You can attract them by creating snake habitat with a loose pile of stones. This...
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Levi (@levimeeuwenberg) Shiitake mushrooms are one of the tastiest and easiest to grow. 🍄 🍄 🍄 🍄This was the biggest flush of the season so far! They'll do this once or twice a year, but sometimes also produce smaller...
My parkour buddy, Brandon Douglas, invited me to appear on his Height Drop podcast. It was a fun chat, in which we discussed my parkour journey, getting into farming and sustainable living, existential threats, narratives, soil depletion, regenerative...
This past winter I had the pleasure of visiting my friends Randy and Libby Buchler and their family at their farm, Shady Grove Farm in Michigans Upper Peninsula. In 2009, they recieved a notice for alleged zoning violations regarding their agricultural activity. Through a ton of research and collaborations, they were finally able to win back their Right to Farm in a 2012 court case. Today Randy Buchler joins us to share their story of how they achieved success.
This weeks episode is about how to start your own edible permaculture plant nursery with special guest, Sean Dembrosky of Edible Acres. Edible Acres is a small homestead and plant nursery that Sean runs in the Finger Lakes area of New York State. Today, he shares with us some great tips to getting started or improving our own plant nurseries.
![Introduction to Apple Tree Grafting with Trevor Newman [Video]](https://realizehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_4229-scaled.jpg)
INTRO TO APPLE TREE GRAFTING (BENCH GRAFTING) WITH TREVOR NEWMAN
![Clever Tricks for Planting and Propagating Gooseberry Bushes (and Currants) [Video]](https://realizehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_4232-scaled.jpg)
CLEVER TRICKS FOR PLANTING AND PROPAGATING GOOSEBERRY BUSHES (AND OTHER RIBES, LIKE CURRANTS) WITH TREVOR NEWMAN
![How to Establish Understory/Groundcover Plants in your Orchard or Forest Garden [Video]](https://realizehomestead.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_4223.jpg)
A really good way to integrate ground cover species is overseeding either into the existing vegetation or into the compost mulch pits. We typically use a combination of like legumes like clover and veg and all that stuff and then top rooted plants like daikon, turnip, chicory, things like that they have deep taproots.
Today we’re talking to Peter Allen who runs Mastodon Valley Farm in Wisconsin. Before getting in to regenerative farming, Peter was a student of ecology and complex systems theory, so he brings a unique an informed perspective to the use of animal agriculture as a method of managing landscape for ecological health.
Today’s guest Bryce Ruddock, is an author, educator and avid forest gardener from Wisconsin. Today Bryce shares his favorite plants to grow from among the hundreds of species that he’s experimented with at his home. I definitely recommend getting your notebooks out for this episode because Bryce shares so many great species and resources that deserve a closer look by anyone interested in gardening like an ecosystem.
Today’s guest is Peter Bane who is the president of the Permaculture Insitute of North America, he wrote the Permaculture Handbook, literally, he has built and lived in eco-villages and self-sufficient homesteads for decades. and has taught dozens and dozens of courses and workshops all over the world. He’s the real deal, as you’ll soon learn.
There’ll be few main parts to this episode. I’m going to start out by doing a survey of kind of our basic biological human needs. So you know food, energy, shelter, connection, love that type of thing. (our global life support systems) And look at those within the context of how we go about meeting those needs and how that has changed over time especially from pre-agriculture revolution and then after the agriculture revolution and now into modern technological age.
Today’s guest is Ben Falk who created and runs Whole Systems Design out of Vermont, and is also the author of the book The Resilient Farm and Homestead. Today we discuss how to go about finding the right homestead property for natural living and some of key decisions like siting your house.
Today’s guest is film producer, author and teacher Justin Rhodes who has been running his 75 acre permaculture farm near Asheville, NC for many years. He’s here to share with us some of the many lessons he’s learned along the way, and give some pointers to those getting started.
Today’s guest, Dan Kittrege has been an organic farmer since childhood, and has been developing a deep understanding of how a nutrient rich soil leads to healthier plants and healthier foods and ultimately healthier people and planet. He created the Bionutrient Food Association to promote this understanding of growing nutrient dense food. He also runs Kittredge farm in Brookfield, MA where he does his research and practices the science.
Today’s guests Alec Gioseffi and Lauren Nagy run the CSA Farm Cooperative 518 in Princeton, New Jersey. They provide nourishing food to the local community using permaculture farming practices. The farm is home to chickens, cats, sheep, pigs, nine humans, veggies, herbs, flowers, a small upcycled greenhouse, a large seasonal hoop house, and two tiny homes.
Today’s guest is Jesse Tack based out of Ypsilanti, Michigan. Jesse founded and helps run the very active permaculture group; Abundant Michigan Permaculture Ypsilanti. Or AMPY for short. We get to hear about how AMPY got started and has evolved since then.
That’s a taste of some of the types of things you would learn by taking a Permaculture Design Course. Today I’m talking to Rhonda Baird about why you would want to take a PDC, what it covers, and what you get out of it. Rhonda has been a Permaculture teacher for 10 years and shares her journey from taking her first PDC, to today where she has a thriving homestead and teaches numerous PDCs a year. She will also be one of the guest teachers for the upcoming PDC here in Traverse City this spring.
Eric Toensmeier is the award-winning author of the books Perennial Vegetables and Paradise Lot, which describes how he converted his run-down city lot into a diverse plant sanctuary in Massachusets. He was also the co-author to Dave Jacke from episode 14 on the two volume set Edible Forest Gardens. Eric has a brand new book about to come out about Carbon Farming and the strategies that agriculture can use to sequester CO2 to help mitigate climate change.
Albert Bates is a longtime influential figure in environmental activism, and the ecovillage and permaculture movements. He’s a lawyer, an author and a teacher, who has been director of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee since 1994.
Today’s guest, Cliff Davis was telling me that having all those pigs and plants to care for makes it hard to leave home and travel to experience new cultures and perspectives. And he values those experiences for personal growth and expansion, plus their a great source for new ideas. But fortunately there’s a continual flow of students and interns coming through his place, Spiral Ridge Permaculture…
Today’s guest is Dave Jacke who has been mentioned several times already in previous episodes. He was the co-author of the book that I’m no longer allowed to call the “bible” of designing edible forest garden ecosystems, which is Edible Forest Gardens Volumes 1 and 2.
Today’s guest is Eran Rhodes of Sacred Earth Landscaping soon to be based out of his new family farm in Benzie County, Michigan. Before moving northwards, he started his own permaculture landscaping business in Chicago, traveled around working at many sustainable farms around the country, and also worked at Oikos Tree Crops nursery. Him and his family have a beautiful vision for their new farm. Check it out.
Our guest today is a creative individual who brings the community together, and connects like-minded people. She teaches and spreads permaculture, she’s an artist, a garden-farmer, a teacher, and can make a real tasty pie. She’s my good friend, Penny Krebiehl.
Today’s guests, Paul and Sharron May, run a small farm called The May Farm in Frankfort, MI near us here in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. They apply a permaculture approach to their homestead, and farm, and have been seeing some spectacular results.
An old-growth forest is a forest that has lived for many centuries, sometimes even millenia without significant disturbance and so they possess unique ecological features found no-where else on earth.
Today’s guest is Fred Meyer, who is the founder of the non-profit called Backyard Abundance in Johnson County, Iowa. Backyard Abundance creates beautiful, environmentally beneficial landscapes that produce food for humans and wildlife. Basically, Fred and his team are turning lawns into food producing ecosystems, or Forest Gardens all over town, both in public parks, and around peoples homes.
Todays guest is Mark Angelini, the other half of Roots 2 Fruits Ecological Design in Southern Michigan. We had his business partner, Trevor Newman, on here on episode 3. Mark is a generalized specialist. His work spans from art and design, to craft and woodwork, farming, gardening, forestry and of course, apple growing and cider making. Today we get to hear some updates on several of his projects, and his journies along the way.
Todays episode focuses on water. A broad topic for sure, but a pretty important one since basically all life forms depend on access to clean water to survive. As you probably know, our bodies are 60% water. Water is vital for lubricating our joints, flushing out toxins and waste, and transporting vital nutrients to all of our cells.
Our homestead started off with just two pigs, and we got hooked. We’re up to 13 now, and we’re even breeding our own piglets! Over the years we’ve experimented with many different types of pens, fencing and paddocks for them. By no means have we “arrived at” or discovered the perfect system. But we’ve made a portable pig pen system that meets three important design criteria for us:
First we created winter pig pens using pallets that were freely available at many warehouses in town. Then we fed the pigs old vegetable waste from town throughout the winter, then covered the left overs with leaves. Many squash and tomato seeds from the food waste germinated in the spring and sprouted up through the mulch. The abundance of fertility in this location provided much plant food, and the leaves helped keep them from drying out during the summer.
For the last couple years we have been experimenting with movable pig pens (pig tractors) and cover crops in order to build the soil fertility, and plant diversity of our pasture.
The results have been overwhelmingly positive! In just two years, we’ve transformed patches of our knapweed and beach sand site, into a thick lush pasture with diverse forage crops.
We’ve still got a LOT to learn about plant propagation, grafting, pruning and the other arts of tree cultivation. We’re blessed to have many experienced tree-whispers in our region like Archangel, and today’s guest, Trevor Newman of Roots to Fruits.
Today’s guest is Samantha Graves of Healing Tree Farm at the historic DeYoungs farm in Northern Michigan. There, Samantha and her family are planting a Permaculture orchard and have had livestock like chickens, sheep and alpacas and are getting involved in fiber production. Their farm actually neighbors my families farm, and we’ve been working together for a few years now.
Today’s guest is one my good friends and mentors Peter Bane, who is one of the most experienced permaculture teachers in the midwest. He’s the author of the Permaculture Handbook; Garden Farming for Town and Country. He’s also been the publisher of Permaculture Activist magazine for 25 years, which recently changed to Permaculture Design Magazine.
Over the last few years we’ve been collecting unique and useful perennial plant species from all over the world. (except invasive species) Some we get from friends with farms and gardens, some are responsibly transplanted from the wild, and some we order from nurseries like Oikos Tree Crops. (http://oikostreecrops.com/)
Bryan Mets is a great friend, permaculture wizard, and founder of the Great Lakes Permaculture Portal, based in southern Michigan (Macomb). Last year he attended Mark Shepard’s Permaculture Design Course at Mark’s “New Forest Farm” in southwest Wisconsin. Ever since we devoured Mark’s book, Restoration Agriculture, we have nerded out on the fact that his farm is an actual working example of a large-acre permaculture based farm, incorporating keyline principles, swales, ponds, animal grazing, and perennial polycultures. He even grows his own biofuels to run his tractors and equipment! I’m excited to hear more about what Bryan learned at this 10 day, Permaculture farmer bootcamp. So, for both our enjoyment, I introduce the illustrious Bryan Mets!!
After our pigs escaped the electric net fence AGAIN, we were seeking out better ways to fence them in. Andy Gale of Bay Area Recycling for Charities mentioned that they had an abundance of pallets and we could use them to build a perimeter fence. It seemed like a great idea to me, especially considering that most of the fencing I was pricing out…
Realeyes Homestead and Bay Area Recycling for Charities are teaming up to turn city waste streams; Old Produce, Food Waste, Pallets, …into marketable products; Nutrient Rich Compost for amending gardens and farm soils, Pastured Pork, Poultry and Eggs.
In short, life will be very very different in the future than the relative stability we’ve seen for most of our lives up to this point. Some geologists have described the current epoch as the “Anthropocene.” This is a period when almost every ecosystem on earth bares the mark of human presence. How we go about meeting our basic needs…
Let’s begin with food, since it’s one of our main needs that can have a large impact on our surroundings. So humans, in this current form, have been around for about 100,000 years. Until agriculture went mainstream about 10,000 years ago, most cultures lived as hunter-gatherers, only making minor modifications…
Why bother with all the extra chores of trying to produce your own food, fuel, and other products when you can simply buy them at the store for cheap?
Well this is actually a daunting question to answer since it sort of crystallized into a clear picture after a lot of reading and reflecting on the multitude of challenges we face and how they’re all interconnected. Then also critically analyzing the lifestyle choices I make every day without thinking. This requires a systemic understanding of the industrialized modern world, as well as knowledge of the historical context in which we live. But I’ll attempt to summarize and hit the key points here, leaving all the juicy details for later posts. BTW, this
