I have been working for over 40 years across the globe in agroecological extension education and outreach support with a variety of international organizations in Africa, Asia and The Americas. While serving as the Global Agroecology Training Specialist for the US Peace Corps, I developed the Terra Firma Permagarden method to guide families how they could not only create their own climate-smart, nutrition-focused Permagarden but be able to easily teach others to do the same.
This low-risk, small-scale, decision-making and action-taking process can easily reach even the world’s most marginalized populations, engaging as ecosystem allies, thus allowing agroecosystem rehabilitation and family food security to become co-equal partners with community health and ecosystem growth and empowerment. The Permagarden was developed as a blend of the long-established practices of Permaculture and Bio-Intensive Gardening to help marginalized families combat the traumas of climate change, HIV, malnutrition, and social unrest.
The Permagarden, created through small doable actions close to home and using only those tools and materials already accessible by even the most marginalized and traumatized of the world, is the small thing we can all do in a great way. While having advanced degrees in Animal, Environmental and Soil Science from The University of Vermont and North Carolina State University, I owe my passion for Permagardens and the Terra Firma method to my father, who taught me how to create a compost pile when I was five years old. After just two days, this pile was steaming hot. The mystery and wonder of that life force, created from nearby waste literally just lying around, has stayed with me over the past six decades. It was my father who also taught me to appreciate the social justice teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The paraphrased quote which continues to propel me throughout my adult life of working and learning across the globe is this: “We may not all be able to do great things; but we can all do small things in a great way.” That first compost pile, that first contour swale, that first double dug garden bed, that first harvest for the family table… all started and continued because they were small acts. But small acts done in a great way.