Have you ever wanted to go a step beyond organic gardening and buzzword-y sustainable practices? To grow food, flowers, community, and even society in relationship with the land? This week’s guest, Debby Ward of Prior Unity Garden, helps her clients and students do just that in their own yards. This week she joins Erin to talk about two systems she draws on in her work: permaculture and biodynamics.

Debby shares her own journey in organic gardening and her mission to help clients understand their gardens, not just to maintain them. She and Erin compare notes on the principles of permaculture (Observe and interact! Use small, slow changes! Stack functions!) and the ethics that underpin it (earth care, people care, fair share). Then Debby introduces Erin to biodynamics, another holistic approach to food production that seeks to marry the scientific and the spiritual. The conversation emphasizes the debt owed to Indigenous ways of knowing, the interconnectedness of gardening practices, and the importance of building community relationships with both the human and the more-than-human worlds.

Debby offers courses, coaching, blog posts, and resources a-plenty at her website: http://priorunitygarden.com/

You can also find her on social media: 

Pinterest: https://ca.pinterest.com/priorunitygarden/ 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8PXaUp3Y5_8QXmu4Wt2vKQ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/priorunitygarden/?ref=embed_page#

Comments? Feedback? Want your garden question to be featured in a future Q&A segment? Email us, reach out over social media, or get Q&A priority by supporting us on Patreon. 

Discord: https://discord.gg/K6wF9dY4Ja 

Bluesky: @plantsalwayswin.com 

TikTok: @plantsalwayswinpodcast 

YouTube: @plantsalwayswinpodcast

Website: www.plantsalwayswin.com 

Credits

Website Design and Illustration by Sophia Alladin

Intro and Outro Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/soundroll/when-my-ukulele-plays

License code: GWOIMMBAS15FG6PH

Timestamps

00:12 Intro

00:48 Introducing Debby Ward

2:07 Prior Unity Garden

05:17 Defining Permaculture: Integrated, Evolving Systems

07:00 The Permaculture Ethics: Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share

08:25 The Permaculture Principles

11:12 Permaculture Origins

15:20 How Debby Applies Permaculture with Clients

18:32 Water Break: Giveaway!

19:30 Biodynamics: Relationship with the Spirit of the Land

22:15 Applying Biodynamics as a Home Gardener

24:10 Provings, Research, and Radishes

26:45 Using Biodynamics with Clients: Everything is Connected

29:09 Resources and Contact Debby

30:08 What the Horticulture Industry Could Learn from Holistic Practices

32:20 Find Debby on Social Media

33:49 Outro and Contact Us