Steve Gabriel - Agroforestry
My guest today is Steve Gabriel, a permaculture instructor with the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute, and an extension office aide at Cornell University, who researches Agroforestry and Mushroom cultivation with Dr. Ken Mudge.
Our conversation, broadly, covers Agroforestry, what it is, the various techniques, and what we can learn from these practices as permaculturists. Mushroom cultivation and forest gardens are woven throughout. Two terms of particular interest are Analog Design and Upcycling, which I leave Steve to explain. His experience with academic research blended with permaculture, and his articulate explanation of the material at hand, even when I throw some unplanned curveballs in the process, make this a nice extension to several of the past interviews, including Ethan Hughes and Dr. Bern Sweeney.
After you listen to Steve, I recommend going back through the archives, if you haven't heard them, and listen to those other guests or any others that catch your eye (or, should that be ear?). The pieces start to fall into place about how all the conversations, past, present, and yet to come, about both visible and invisible structures are connected within the web of Permaculture. Help Steve, and Dr. Mudge, with their project to document forest farms! If you are a forest farmer: Take the Survey. If you're interested in Forest Farms: Support the Book (Indie Go Go).
Resources:
Steve Gabriel
Dr. Ken Mudge
Farming the Woods
Indie Go Go Campaign to Support Farming The Woods
Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute
North-East Mushroom Growers Network (Cornell)
The Redesigned Forest by Chris Maser
U.S. Forest Service Climage Change Atlas