Podcast 251 – Review of Sepp Holzer’s visit Part 5

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Paul and Bill are back together again to talk about Sepp Holzer’s visit to the United States in the spring of 2013. They start off talking about hugelkultur raised garden beds. Paul mentions about the issues he had with the way Sepp built those hugelkultur beds. First of all, he thinks that they were located in a frost pocket. Then he points out that they were built too close together and that once the vegetation grows, it will be nearly impossible to go in and harvest. Paul was also disapointed that the beds were only 4 feet tall instead of the usual 6 feet. The last point he had was about the sticks at the top and pointed out that they would act as a wick and remove moisture from the hugelkultur beds.

Paul and Bill then talk about how windy the place seems to be and Paul likens it to Great Falls, where he recorded a podcast. Paul solution’s to mitigate the wind effect would be to build tall berms. He hads that they would also act as a privacy barrier and reduce the noise from the road.

Paul mentions that he is sorry that he cannot have a dialogue with Sepp. Bill points out that it is probably due to the language barrier. Nevertheless, Paul is sad that he cannot get as much information from Sepp as he would like to. He mentions that during this visit, the only new information he got from Sepp was about not drinking too much rain water. Bill replies he thinks that in the future the Holzer AgroEcology team will probably cover the basics and then when Sepp will give workshops it will be some sort of a master class. He thinks that Paul would then get a lot more information out of that type of workshop.

They then talk a bit about the Holzer AgroEcology certification and Bill explains that the requirements are still being defined. They move on to talk about the visit of greenhouses that happened during the workshop. Paul points out that he is not a fan of greenhouses but that he was happy to see full ecosystems in the one they visited, although he voices many concerns. Bill and Paul agree to say that Zach Weiss does really advanced stuff with greenhouses. His website is Elemental Ecosystems One highlight of the visit is that Mike Oehler himself showed up and that was a big surprise to Paul who was not expecting to see him at all.

They finish the review talking about the great value of the Holzer AgroEcology certification because of the time requirement that is much longer than the one for a PDC.

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