I spoke about resilient communities at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Cooking for Solutions” event this week.

It’s an unusually cool conference in that it uses ‘good food’ as a way to get leading farmers, fishermen, scientists, chefs, and environmentalists together in one place to explore long term solutions to global food production.

Needless to say, it was lots of fun and I learned quite a bit. I’ll write more about it this week.

Here’s one of the things I spelled out at the conference:

A trillion square feet.

In the US alone, lawns take up a trillion square feet of space.

Not only that, we spend over $30 billion a year (and countless hours) maintaining them.

In thirty years, those lawns will be gone.

What will replace them? Foodscapes. Community gardens. Backyard orchards.  Richly productive spaces.

Why will people convert their yards into foodscapes?

• To eat fresh food at an affordable price.
• To eat fresher, tastier, and better food than anything available in the supermarket.
• To protect themselves from disruptions, breakdowns, and failures of the global system.
• To share with family and friends.
• To stay connected to the world in a positive way (a need that increases the more time we spend online).

Aquaponics Containers

Here’s a prototype of an enclosed aquaponics system that’s pretty interesting.

It’s basically a greenhouse built on top of an ISO shipping container.

In the variant above, it’s being set up as an aquaponics system.

Solar Farmers

Devin sent this in from Canada. It’s a picture of a farmer adding a new crop to the mix:

My back of the envelope calculations on this suggest that this array might be single best source of income this farmer earns (assuming DIY installation) over the next couple of decades.

Not only that, if this farmer is able to join with others in a co-op to sell this electricity to the utilities, the profits might be significantly more than that.

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

Survival training is both tough and challenging. I’ve done plenty of it and I’m glad I did. It provides you with a toolbox of tactics that you can use to get through a disaster.

However, one thing I did learn by going through this training: survival is not something you want to do over the long term.

It’s not a way to live your life.

Instead, it’s something that you should only put into use (for real) when you are absolutely required to and as for short a time period as possible (unless you like living like a hermit).

This means that it is absolutely not a way to deal with the slow moving, but inexorable, economic/financial/climate failures we face today.

Those failures are going to play out over decades.

To deal with these long-term failures, it’s important to adopt a strategy that provides you with a lifestyle worth living. A strategy that reduces the need for any use of survivalism the longer you follow it.

Resilience is that strategy.

Simply, the more resilient your home or community is, the less survivalism is needed.

Not only that, resilience is the path to a better, more prosperous life.

So, get out of your comfort zone!

My job is to help you bridge the gap.

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

Here’s something that is important to understand:  Resilience isn’t passive.

You can see it in the words used to describe it.

• Plant, grow, and harvest food.
• Catch, filter, and store water.
• Capture, generate, and distribute energy.
• Design, collaborate, and make things.

These words are full of vitality.   They will mold your mind and body as you accomplish them.  Making you more vital than you were before you started.

Here’s some items that are interesting:

Flexible Water Tanks

If you need to store water that you harvest, and you don’t have the space for a conventional cistern or tank, a flexible water tank could be a solution.  It’s essentially a big plastic bag that can hold thousands of gallons of water.   It can be place on on any smooth, flat surface.  Here’s one in a crawl space.

Solar Sheds

I need to build a new shed for my equipment.  One of the best ways to get more out of the effort is to add some solar panels to it.  So, I’m on the hunt for elegant solar shed designs.   These sheds are so big, the solar arrays are almost large enough to power a home.

Here’s one from a Texas property that incorporates water catchment and storage.  Nice.

Since I’m betting that electrical rates are going to become more dynamic, I’m going to orient the shed to face southwest to capture that very valuable late afternoon summer sun.

Anyone reading this have a solar shed they would like to share?

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

I’ve known the global financial system has been broken for years, but it’s much further gone than I initially anticipated.

Not only has the system devolved into a mountain of toxic, incredibly volatile financial instruments called derivatives that nobody in the industry can seriously claim to understand, the core features of the system have been corrupted in a very meaningful way. We are now constantly on the precipice of a financial meltdown.

What Happened?

The big global banks and brokers have colluded to rig the prices of key underlying benchmarks and rates that the entire system relies upon.  The first example of this was news last year that the big global banks had conspired to manipulate the LIBOR, a key interest rate that determines what we pay on mortgages, credit cards, and much more.  To put this into perspective, this makes what Enron did to manipulate energy prices in California (remember, “burn baby, burn…“) look like a playground prank.

The news hasn’t gotten any better since then.

The corruption of key rates and benchmarks is a BIG problem (worse in that nobody was punished for doing it).  A failure at this level is usually a strong indicator that the global financial system is in serious decline, a decline that will do serious damage to lots of people currently dependent upon it.

The Financial Tsunami

Of course, you can’t mitigate the impact of this financial tsunami on you, your family, and your community by buying more financial assets, of whatever type.  In a financial tsunami, all financial boats sink.  There isn’t a safe harbor.

The best way to mitigate its impact of inevitable financial failure is to put your time, money and effort into building productive assets.  Assets that produce more and better food, energy, water, and things locally.

How?  By slowly replacing expensive imports with local alternatives.

The key to doing this successfully is to do it in a way that improves your life.  A way of producing food, energy, water, and things that makes it tangibly better.

Productive, Local Assets

Let’s look at growing food (the same is true with water, energy, and locally produced products) as an example:

If you foodscape your yard to produce organic food, don’t just grow high caloric staples. Those foods are inexpensive, and the labor you put into growing them often exceeds the value you get.

Instead, grow the foods that radically improve the quality, freshness and variety of the food your family eats.  Eat better.

Not only that, experiment with new things.  Push the boundaries of what’s possible. Grow heirloom melons and try to grow new types of potatoes (there are over 6,000 varieties available).  Plant fruit trees and berries that can yield for decades.  

Further, take the time to build systems that simplify the process of growing this great food.  Soon, you’ll find that many of your neighbors will be doing the same, based on your example.

In time, you’ll find that the degree of dependence you and your neighbors have on the global system that’s clearly in decline is too little for worry.

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

I’ve been experimenting with the limits of foodscaping.

My goal is to convert my entire yard into a bountiful source of delicious food for the coming decades.  Of course, I want to accomplish this in a way that increases its potential for success by minimizing the work and expense required to maintain it.

I’ve found the best way to do this is to think in terms of systems.  It’s the same whether you are planning a special ops mission with Seal Team 6 or building a successful company that will be worth billions (I’ve done both).   A systems approach makes it possible to turn success into something that is routine and easy to accomplish.

In terms of foodscaping, this means working with natural systems.  Here’s a small example of what I mean.

I’ve been planting blueberry bushes since they love acidic soil and I have lots of it. I could have simply stuck the bushes in the ground, but instead, I’ve put a few systems in place to increase their potential to produce.  A little work upfront should pay off over the long-term.

Here’s a picture from my phone.

The blue arrow points to the blueberry bush (I bought small, inexpensive bushes).  The other arrows point to the components of my blueberry system:

• White arrow.  A rock-lined drainage system.
• Purple arrow.  Wood-chip mulch above and below a layer of soil composed of compost and peat moss.
• Red arrow.  A large flat stone above the rootball. This moderates and warms the soil below.
• Yellow arrow.  A small, mulched hillock on the north side to block cold northern winds and trap moisture.

This is just one small part of the bigger system I’m working on.

I’m learning more every day as I meet more of the experts working on the edge of what’s possible.  Are you using systems to foodscape?  If so, what do they do?

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

The weather this week was cool, dry, and sunny in my corner of New England.

So, naturally, I spent lots of time outside, getting my mind and body in shape doing real, meaningful work to improve my home’s resilience (this stands in stark contrast to the make work people do in gyms).

The bulk of my time was spent on building some foodscaping prototypes:

• A new raised bed design that I’m experimenting with.   
• An innovative potato tower — the tower that I introduced in last month’s Strategies report — that promises to deliver superior results.
• An aerated pot design that an aspiring entrepreneur sent me.

Of course, since my mind was focused on growing a diverse variety of organic food, here’s what I found interesting this week.

Pyramid Gardens

My local community gardening group has been looking at ways to help older gardeners more.  One good way to do this is to build vertical gardens at and around retirement homes.

Here’s a pyramid garden from France that is interesting.

As you can see, vertical bins increase the accessibility of the beds.

If you don’t have that much space, here’s another version of a pyramid garden.

This site has some details on what it takes to build one of these.

Wicking Gardens

Wicking gardens are a cross between hydroponics and irrigation.

Essentially, you water plants from the bottom up.

The benefit of a wicking garden is that it can reduce water use considerably, which makes them interesting for drier climates (you can find them in Australia).  The downside is that they require a pump mechanism/electricity.

There’s lots to how this works and I’ll dive into it more in a future Strategies report.  Here’s an example of a wicking garden that uses fibrous pots to wick water that flows along a sheet.

Solar Herb Drier

Here’s a pretty cool system for saving herbs from your garden for the winter months.

It’s a solar herb drier.  You put herbs on a screen tray.  The sun heats the air inside drying out the herbs.  The hot, moist air flows out the top of the container, fresh air from the bottom.

Here’s a nice design from Sepp Holzer:

Well, the day is still young.  I’m back to work outside.

Take care and stay resilient,

JOHN ROBB

Resilience doesn’t only improve your ability to withstand disruptions.

If done correctly, it will improve what you eat.

The Logic

I’m in the process of sourcing a Concord grape vine I can utilize in my home’s foodscape.  They grow wild locally, so the goal is to find a good specimen for a cutting.

Concord grapes were developed near to where I live, by Ephraim Bull (quite a name!) in 1849.  Here he is with the original vine.

Concord grapes were so popular they became the source of the taste we commonly refer to as “grape.”  You can still find Concord grapes in jellies and grape juice, but it’s hard to find a fresh bunch in the store.

Why?

The commercial bureaucracy that supplies our food narrowed our choices down to a few types of grapes (mostly the “white” Thompson grape).

As a result of this limited choice, few people have actually tasted a fresh grape that tastes like a “grape.”

Not only that, few people have even tasted a ripe grape.  The industry picks them before they ripen, at a great cost to the taste, to make them easier to ship.

So, the Concord grape vines around my home won’t only be strong additions to my home’s resilience, they’ll provide my family and neighbors with table grapes that are far better than anything we could buy at the store.

Resilience +1

Quality of life +1

Simple.

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

What’s a resilient income look like?

In some cases it’s very diverse.

Here’s an extreme example.

Sepp Holzer, one of my favorite farmers, runs a financially successful farm (seen below).  

It’s been successful for decades, even during tough times when other farmers went out of business while following government advice on crops and scooping up subsidies.

His secret?  

It wasn’t due to the quality of his land.  His land is mostly marginal hillside at a high altitude.

The secret is that he doesn’t produce just one product.  He produces forty.

That’s not a typo. 

His farm produces nearly forty different products — everything from fruits to vegetables to flowers to livestock to mushrooms.

This diversity allows him to:

• Always have something that is popular with buyers.  Tastes and needs change.  Prices change.  It’s important to be ready with product when the opportunity emerges.  
• Reduce exposure to changing weather conditions and diseases that can wipe out a single crop with ease.
• Keep his work interesting and challenging.

As you can see, this approach has its merits.

However, in order to pull it off, you will need learn one more trick.

It’s the trick that allows allows just Sepp and his wife to run the entire farm without help.

Sincerely Yours,

JOHN ROBB

PS:   I’ll send this to e-mail subscribers tomorrow (so make sure you sign up).

I spent a good portion of this week foodscaping my home.

What is foodscaping?  It’s the act of creating a landscape that produces food.

I’ve found it to be both fun and challenging.  In fact, it’s proven to be such a rich topic of exploration that I’m writing a report on it (it should be out next month).

In the meantime, here’s what I found interesting this week.

Natural Disasters

A good reason to become resilient is that natural disasters are on the rise (mostly due to climate change).

Not only are the number of natural disasters increasing (mostly storms), the number of people impacted as well as the costs are growing quickly (see below, click to enlarge).

Is there a silver lining?  Yes.  The data also shows that fewer people are dying from these disasters.

This data implies that natural disasters are becoming more about frequent economic loss than loss of life.

The best way to mitigate this type of danger is to produce more locally and network for the rest. That way, your economic well-being isn’t dependent on your location.  Fortunately, this strategy is exactly what we’re learning about here, on this site.

DIY Solar Tracker

Solar panels are substantially more efficient if they face the sun.  Unfortunately, solar tracking equipment is more expensive than it’s worth.

Of course, there are DIY options.  Here’s a way to use old bicycle wheels and an LED light sensor to build your own solar tracker.

I’m surprised that someone doesn’t smooth out kinks on this approach and productize it.

Flexible Raised Beds

Here’s a way to get started with gardening quickly.

It’s a raised bed made of fabric (woven polypropylene that’s both very strong and UV resistant).  It’s also something you can sew yourself (thanks for that Niall).

Kim (a reader) found that her long bed, like the one above, lost structural integrity when the sides bowed.  This can be addressed by connecting the long sides together using an interior strap.

A Living Air Filter

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a bit about how plants can clean the toxic chemicals found in the air in almost every home.  Here’s another way to look at it.

In the US alone, people buy 14.5 million air purifiers and filtering systems a year!  That’s nuts.  Imagine 14.5 million rubber plants, ferns, and other living filters being installed instead.

I’m back to my foodscaping.  I have some blueberry bushes to plant.

If you have any recommendations on other fruiting bushes to plant with them, I’m all ears.

Yours,

JOHN ROBB

“My dad had one job his whole life, I’ll have seven, and my kids will have seven jobs at the same time.” via Henry Mason/Seth Godin

That quote is spot on.  I’ve said pretty much the same thing at least a dozen times, but never so concisely.

To understand this quote a bit better, here are two examples of how it may be possible to hold seven jobs and enjoy life.

Ad-Hoc or Instant Work

The first example centers on person-to-person economics over the Internet.  We’ve already seen a bit of that with people making a living on eBay and Craigslist, but that was just a warm up.

This new work will be ad-hoc, fast-moving and you’ll find it via the Internet.

A good example of that is Sidecar, a company I talked about before.

Sidecar makes it possible for anybody with a clean record to become a taxi.  A bi-directional (both driver and rider) reputation system keeps the quality high.

Using person-to-person systems like this, you could have seven ad-hoc “jobs” going at any moment.

Is this resilient?  Yes, it’s likely that there will always be work available for you to do, since holding many such jobs reduces any reliance on any single employer.

Why is this attractive to people?

• It’s a very flexible system.  You can scale the amount of work you do up or down as you need.  You can move freely and live nomadically (which is great if you are young).
• Your success is actually based on your reputation.  Character matters (it hasn’t for a long time).
• You don’t work in a bureaucracy.  You don’t have a boss or cubicle to report to.

Optimally, most of the systems that make this possible will be cooperatives.

Self-Employed, Locally

The other approach is based on self-employment at the local level. This is very similar to resilience I write about on this site.

In this situation, the jobs held would be:

1. Foodscaping your home.  I’m writing a report on this right now.  It goes way beyond simple gardening.  
2. Generating energy at home (with the excess sold to the grid to generate a nice retirement income).  I just finished a report that shows you how to do this.
3. Water harvesting from your home (I show you how).
4. Making things at home and selling them to world online (wearing multiple hats as you do so).
   – or –
5. Selling knowledge as a consultant via a global telecommute or at a local coworking space with 3-4 different clients.

I think this is likely the most resilient approach.  It’s also the approach that allows you to afford a family, help your community, and grow old without fear.

Hope this gives you some insight into how things are changing.

My goal is to provide everything I can to help you become a successful at all of your “jobs.”

Yours,

JOHN ROBB

PS:  If you are interested in getting my monthly reports and weekly interviews with the experts making resilience real, check out Resilient Strategies.