Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: Farming with Nature

While attending the Permaculture Design Course with Darren Doherty in Athens, Greece, a month ago, I had the privilege of copying more than 400GB of videos about permaculture that Darren has collected through the years.

Several of those videos have to do with remarkable people like Sepp (Josef) Holzer of Ramingstein, Austria.

We watched several of Holzer's videos one evening for entertainment. But Sarita and I have been watching videos ourselves most evenings before going to bed.

I thought I'd share a link to one of the most inspiring farmers I have had the privilege of learning about, and a blog worth perusing: the Permaculture Media Blog.

Post you'll want to read (and whose videos you will find inspiring): Sepp Holzer's Permaculture: Farming with Nature - A Case Study of Successful Temperate Permaculture - Documentary Film.

Minor quote from the post to give you a little taste of what Holzer is all about:

Called the "rebel farmer" because he persisted in [ecological farming, or Permaculture] practices despite being fined and even threatened with prison for practices such as not pruning his fruit trees (unpruned fruit trees survive snow loads that will break pruned trees). He has also created some of the worlds best examples of using ponds as reflectors to increase solar gain for Passive solar heating of structures, and of using the Microclimate created by rock outcrops to effectively change the Hardiness zone for nearby plants.

"Microclimates"? Yes! --He has planted a lemon tree--yes, outside, using nothing but the sun, vegetation and rocks to warm the tree--and successfully grown lemons in an area of the world where there is frost for eight months of the year and the average daytime temperature, year-round, is only 5 Centigrade (about 40 degrees F).