More expensive than tunnels, but much cheaper than glass are the awesome Keder systems from the UK.  Utilising plastic air bubble sandwich material has been specifically developed to combine high light transparency with good heat insulation, and individual panels can be replaced without re-skinning the whole thing.   Available in 2 metre widths, with a welded weather seal this material can withstand high winds and heavy snow falls.  I've seen a picture with a couple of burly guys stood on a 2 x 2m section.  They have nicely designed frames, with integrated guttering for rainwater collection, good venting and door systems.

The skin design  produces a considerable scattering of light (up to 83%) allowing the growing area to be evenly lit, without shadows, so plant exposure to direct radiation is reduced. The layer of sealed air also provides a high level of insulation and heat retention, allowing for longer growing seasons. Keder material is guaranteed for 10 years.  I know it's manufactured in Germany, so perhaps it's possible to buy the material from the source.  For larger tunnels the company only sell with their own installation, to ensure the guarantee.  I have a friend high in the mountains in Extremadura who had one delivered and constructed on the condition he told the boss where the good fishing spots were- so perhaps they will find their way out into Europe more!

It's always worth keeping an eye out for free commercial greenhouses. Twice we've found commercial glass houses being given away and carefully numbered, photographed, dismantled and painstakingly re- erected them.  Often garden centres will replace theirs every 10 yrs or so to keep things fresh.  It's a LOT of work for a 60 x 10m span, but can save 10's of 1000's of pounds and create very high value growing space.  For cool/ cold climates where additional/ extended growing space can be crucial, it's always worth the work.

Humans spent many thousands of years breeding out grasses into the staple grain crops we are addicted to in the majority of our global diets today.  The problems with corporate, monocultural, machine, oil, energy, capital & resource intensive annual- based agriculture are self- evident looking at the state of soils, communities & economies globally.  Perennial plants have the potential to restore degraded ecosystems and provide for our basic carbohydrate needs with much lower external inputs.   Badgersett are doing awesome work in the US breeding out hardy and disease resistant Hazel & Chestnut (amongst others).  Future-proof farming will incorporate a lot more solid perennial crops and holistically managed grazing systems, it's why we are designing our farm primarily around these systems.  We need a lot more advocation and incentives for people working to breed up productive hardy lines here in Scandinavia.  This video shows a chestnut product developed by Badgersett- a polenta that is steamed, extruded in a "ricer", then dried; can be used like either corn meal or whole wheat flour, is gluten free, and will keep for a full year at room temperature. Work involved is about the same as canning tomatoes.

Continuing on the theme of money for our free book giveaway we decided to gift a copy of our friend Mark Boyle's Moneyless Manifesto.  Mark is an awesome writer and speaker who has dedicated many years to writing & talking about our relationships & embedded philosophy of money as well as demonstrating how to live well without participating in a degenerative economy.  Mark lived completely without money in England for two and a half years which formed the basis for his first book, The Moneyless Man. He is also the founder of Freeconomy, an alternative economy which has local groups across 171 countries.

Mark very kindly came as a guest speaker to a PDC we ran near Bristol, UK, back in 2012 and together with his partner Jess (who is also an awesome writer) is currently in the process of creating a fully localised, land-based gift economy in Éire which will demonstrate how all the ideas and practical solutions described in The Moneyless Manifesto can be integrated into one holistic system design.

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

Jag sitter här i vintermökret och planerar vårt nya liv på Åsen, Värmland. Den lilla gård på 10 hektar mark vi just köpt men knappt ännu satt vår fot på. Vi kallar det Ridgedale, ”Åsdalen”. Det står klart för oss att vi vill skapa ett hållbart kretsloppsystem på gården, sett ur ett ekologiskt, ekonomiskt och socialt perpektiv. ”Hälsa” är det ord jag finner som bäst sammanfattar.

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

This is part 2 of a series of 5 articles looking at design considerations for our Cold Climate Permaculture site using the Keyline Scale of Permanence as a organizing framework, as well as an informative read for anyone interested.

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them? Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures. By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting. Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them?  Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures.  By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting.  Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them?  Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures.  By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting.  Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making. 

Having spent the past few years on a busy international schedule Richard Perkins has purchased a farm in Sweden where he is establishing ridgedale  PERMACULTURE  This is the first of a series of 5 articles looking at design considerations for our Cold Climate Permaculture site using the Keyline Scale of Permanence as a organizing framework, as well as an informative read for anyone interested.

We can think of at least 180 great forest garden & perennial crops for cold climate Sweden.  Want to hear about them?  Over the course of the next year we will profile 5 a week on the blog. Perennial plants and crops offer a low energy, oil & resource input based foundation for future-proof agricultures.  By default if an agriculture is to be called regenerative the bottom line is that it must be soil building, not soil depleting.  Relentless deep tillage & poor soil husbandry (wifery?!) contributes to the majority of the 24 billion tons of topsoil lost every year on planet water.  We are going to be focused on holistic polyculture grazing and perennial production at ridgedale over most of the site as this represents the most effective way to restore our degraded landscape, produce high value produce and ensure the future resource base we are managing holistically for in our decision making.