Founders Writings
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Be the Change
Written By David Braden The system is a pattern of interactions. To change the system is to change the way you interact. The system is what it is. There is no part of it that is good or bad (1). Every part of it depends on every other part of it. One can change the…
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Growing Our Own: More Than A Lifestyle Choice
Written By David Braden The story of the Reinhabit Cooperative is about a community coming together to find a place for all of its residents to contribute to the well-being of the community. We do that first and foremost by producing our own food. The following ideas form the basis for the services that our gardeners…
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Suburban Forest Islands: Creatively Use and Respond to Change, and Produce No Waste
Written by David Braden and published in Mother Earth News Often the design feature of a suburban yard is a big shade tree. What do you do when that big tree in your yard begins to die? For a suburban lot there can perhaps be no greater change. All of a sudden that deep shade…
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Year-Round Food Production: More Than a Greenhouse
Written By David Braden and published in Mother Earth News For anyone eating on a budget, or living in a food desert where it is difficult to get to the grocery store, protein and fresh vegetables become luxuries. Without protein and fresh vegetables human health is compromised. Access is particularly limited where fresh vegetables cannot be…
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Deep Mulch Gardening
Deep Mulch Garden Details Written By David Braden Laying out the Garden Space A family home needs a space for the family and friends to socialize. We can think of this as ‘enough lawn for the fourth of July party’. But it might also include space for the kids soccer practice and/or a place for the…
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Seed Saving and Line Breeding: Preparing for Climate Change
One of nature’s key strategies to respond to environmental change is maintaining the genetic diversity of the ecosystem. Unfortunately, the trends are toward decreasing genetic diversity while the risk of climate change is increasing. Whether or not our industrial system is the cause of climate change we will have serious problems if our food system…
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Healthy or Sterile? Creating Biodiverse Systems
Written By David Braden Here is the question; “Do you want a healthy system or a sterile system?” When we choose to use a poison to eliminate some species from our yards there is a series of consequences. It is not only the collateral damage from the poison . . . all the other bugs…
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Agents of Habitat
Written by Living Systems Institutes founder, David Braden, this series of lessons describes how we can take action to move a place toward greater health, abundance, and beauty. Welcome to The Agent of Habitat curriculum! We participate in an eco-economic-social system. That system expresses itself in different places on a continuum. At one end of…