What if the most radical thing you could do right now is go gently?

That is what this conversation left me with. Not a strategy, not a framework, not a list of actions — but this nugget of advice — an invitation. Go gently. Tend what is in front of you. Trust that your bones already know more than your head gives them credit for. Root yourself so deeply in the place you are that you can feel the seasons change in your body before the calendar tells you.

Jade Miles lives this — her philosophy and daily practice — in the soil, in the shadows, in the quality of light on a cold north east Victorian morning, in the women's circles by the dam and the school groups sitting barefoot around fires and the 100 varieties of apple that fruit across six different months because someone paid close enough attention to plant them that way.

She is the kind of person who makes you feel, within minutes, that rootedness is not a retreat from the world. It is the most generative place from which to tend it.

Jade is a local food advocate and educator, author, podcaster, and regenerative heritage fruit farmer at Black Barn Farm in north east Victoria on Palanggang Medang country. She is the CEO of Sustainable Table — supporting the regeneration of food and farming systems across Australia — and the author of Futuresteading and the newly released Huddle, a book about the quiet, necessary art of coming together in the places where we live.

We recorded this conversation late last year, not long after Jade had returned from a vision quest — raw, liminal, and freshly cracked open, as she put it. What came through was some of the most honest thinking I have heard about what it actually means to belong to a place, what local food systems can and cannot do alone, and why the tools in our back pocket will never be enough unless we also learn to collectivise them.

We talked about Black Barn Farm — 100 varieties of apple, kilometres of berries, school groups arriving weirded out and leaving calm, women's circles by the dam, potluck dinners in the woolshed. We talked about growing up in Gippsland as a permaculture kid, about being locked outside by an eccentric artist father and eating cho

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This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute, where she mentors people to design and teach permaculture in their own unique contexts.

Morag has been asking a central question for thirty years: How are we to live? These podcast conversations are part of her ongoing attempt to think that through in public, in community, with people who care.

Morag is also host of the Ethos Fellowship, Ethos Foundation, International Permaculture Festival of Wild Ideas, steward of Fritjof Capra's international Alumni Network, and member of the Ecocivilistation Coalition.

Discover Morag's permaculture design and teaching courses here.

If this episode meant something to you, share it with one person who needs it. That is how good ideas travel.

Morag records from her solar-powered studio in a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/moraggamble/
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Coral reefs are often spoken about as beautiful places we visit. In this episode, Sam Teicher brings us into a much bigger understanding, reefs as living systems that support marine biodiversity, sustain livelihoods, protect coasts from storms and erosion, and hold deep cultural meaning for many communities.

Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the sea floor, yet support around 25% of marine life. Already 50% have been lost, and 90% may be gone forever in 25 years.

Sam is the co founder of Coral Vita, an Earthshot Prize winning reef restoration company that grows corals on land and replants them onto damaged reefs. We talk about what is driving coral decline, including heat stress and bleaching, and why restoring reefs is both an ecological and human imperative.

We then explore the practicalities of restoration. Sam explains how Coral Vita uses land based coral farming to control conditions, accelerate growth through microfragmentation, and improve survivorship by identifying and propagating more heat tolerant genotypes, all while working with local communities and building education and employment pathways.

We also unpack the idea of a restoration economy. Who pays for reef restoration, how restoration as a service works, what nature positive brands are doing, and why policy, insurance, public health, and security conversations all converge when we talk about ecosystems.

Find out more about Coral Vita.

Coral Vita
Coral Restoration Consortium
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This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

CLICK HERE to learn permaculture design, gardening, education, communication and leadership with Morag Gamble

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far. Visit our website & Youtube channel

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

In this episode of Sense Making in a Changing World, I speak with regenerative farmer and Bionutrient Food Association founder Dan Kittredge from the United States.

Together we explore what it really means to grow nutrient dense food and nourish the microbiome, in the soil and in our own bodies.

Dan shares decades of experience and research that reveal just how wide the gap is between food that truly nourishes and food that simply fills us up. We talk about the huge variation in nutrient levels between different samples of the same crop, why this happens and what it means for human health and climate.

We touch on:

• How two carrots from different farms can have four to ten times difference in key nutrients
• Why labels like organic or local only tell part of the story of food quality
• What happens when we take soil out of the equation and grow food in hydroponic systems
• Why Dan says we should be growing for the microbiome in the soil and in our own bodies
• Practical ways gardeners and farmers can start shifting their practice toward truly nutrient dense food

My hope is that this conversation helps you look at the food on your plate and the soil under your feet in a new way, and encourages you to keep experimenting in your own gardens, farms, kitchens and communities.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

_____________________________

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

CLICK HERE to learn permaculture design, gardening, education, communication and leadership with Morag Gamble

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far. Visit our website & Youtube channel

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.