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Sustainahillbilly:

n., Any hill dweller who knows that the best path to the future is through the arts of the past mixed with the smallest possible dose of newfangled ingenuity.

“How To” Archives

How to Attend Hands-On Classes in Gardens, Kitchens, Forests, and Even a Late 1800’s Cabin

It’s here. The garden classes are in gardens, the cooking classes are in kitchens, the nature study is in forests, the raspberries taste like raspberries, and the snozzberries taste like snozzberries!

Photo Caption: My daughter and I inside the Hagood Mill cabin where I’ll be teaching sometimes.

I worked for weeks on the lesson […]

Update: Public Permaculture Demo Garden Progress

When I founded the SC Upstate Permaculture Society I had no idea we’d be this popular, but we’re up to 644 members with multiple people joining each week. If you live in upstate South Carolina (or nearby) we welcome you to join us. Last October we broke ground on a huge new garden that is […]

How to Grow and Harvest Feijoa

One thing that I have really come to love about living in upstate South Carolina is the sheer diversity of fruits and vegetables that we can grow. Having come from Vermont, where the short summers and extremely cold winters put a major limit on what can be grown each year, South Carolina has struck me […]

How to Tour Local Permaculture Sites – Part 1

Touring, photographing, and sharing permaculture gardens in my area seems like I task I will never get tired of. With that in mind, welcome to my new blog series.

I will be showcasing “official” tours as well as informal visits to existing and aspiring permaculture sites in the region. Learning from the ingenious little ways […]

How to Learn About Permaculture

When I started signing up for more permaculture classes this year, my friends and family made fun of me. The thing is, permaculture is more like an artist’s palette than an exact formula. Anyone can use it, but the more you learn and practice, the more likely you are to make a masterpiece. Plus, I […]

How to Feel Inspired by Ornamental Gardens

For me, guilty pleasure isn’t buying a bag of Doritos or reading People magazine (especially since I have no idea who most celebrities are these days). Instead, I feel sheepish when I grow plants without being able to explain what they’re good for.

“Useless” plants is how I got in to gardening in the first […]

How to “Permiculturefy” an Urban Farm

I often do or learn a heap of things at once and think I’m going to break it down into a series of bite-sized blog posts. It almost never happens — I post the first segment and then get too distracted to finish the rest. The orphaned contents of Appalachian Feet’s “drafts” folder is bursting […]

How to Find Permaculturalists in the Upstate

On Tuesday evening we created the brand new SC Upstate Permaculture Society. Barely three days later we already have 80 members!

Here’s the description of our group:

Free & beginners welcome! Permaculture is an agriculture/garden movement that tries to be sustainable and self-sufficient. It incorporates the home and community as well. We’re planning to have […]

How to Attend Our Classes (and Other Great Classes) at SC’s Organic Growing Conference

We love the Organic Growers School in North Carolina and are delighted that we now have a similar version for South Carolina! This is the 2nd year for the annual SC Organic Growing Conference which occurs on March 2nd, 2013. It’s run by the SC Organization for Organic Living (SCOOL) which you can find on […]

How to Stop Worrying About Food in Spite of all the Hype (the Answer is “Eat Local”)

I’ve noticed more and more people seem fed up with trying to choose what to eat.

Attempts to make good food choices are often derailed by yet another media blitz announcing our dinner is unhealthy, contaminated, ruining the environment, inhumane, or causing human rights violations. How can any sane person navigate […]

Free Permaculture Course, Homesteading Blog, & Update

I wanted to share this free online “Introduction to Permaculture” course offered by NC State University. It’s a high-quality, 40 hour college course taught by Professor Will Hooker that really explains the fundamentals.

Click here to watch the lectures.

Photo Caption: E.V.A. Lanxmeer Permaculture House (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The first lecture mostly covers […]

How to Get Excited About Poke Sallet (Native Options for Permaculture Nutrient Accumulators)

That may be the wordiest title I ever came up with on this blog.

The short of it is, “can poke sallet be highly desirable in the garden?” Poke sallet (as in pokeweed, pokeberries, polk salad, or any of the other myriad common names and spellings you want to label Phytolacca americana) is a plant […]

How to Find Out When We Sell Things or Give Talks (and a Garden Update)

We started an Appalachian Feet Market email list last year for people who want to know when our urban farm products are for sale or when we are giving talks the public can attend. Then we planned a wedding… and never used it.

If you live in the Greenville, SC area and would like to […]