Doug’s Projects

Doug’s career in permaculture began in water, when he was hired to refine the aquaculture system at a permaculture and biodynamic farm in Costa Rica. Drawing from his technical college training in Fish and Wildlife Management, he designed a plan for a productive, low-input aquaculture system centered around a polyculture of ducks, tilapia, local crayfish and aquatic plants.

Aquaculture Pond Stocking

In addition to aquaculture, this work offered Doug an understanding of land-based agriculture in the tropics. Soon after, he was helping to develop an ecological living and sustainable agriculture program at this farm – and his teaching career began.   Doug’s work in tropical Malaysia allowed him to revisit tilapia aquaculture and increased his plant knowledge for these systems due to the high demand for water-based food production in Asia.  Consultancy for aquaculture continues to be one of Doug’s specialties.  It soon led him to the system seen below.  The resulting outcomes of this particular system when installed at a site in Arkansas, was improved water quality, food production, and a greater infusion of dissolved oxygen.

The round terrace of shallow water that the cattail was planted along the edge of this polyculture pond of catfish, bluegill, bass and ducks

Water-based projects have always been one of Doug’s main expressions of the art that is Permaculture.  The chinampa systems in Panama and their enhanced ecosystem yields were an especially inspirational experience for him.  Since then, Doug has been dedicated to ditch-and-mound, chinampa-style thinking.  He soon utilized these methods while doing wetlands restoration in New Zealand, which quickly transformed the problem of excess water into a valuable and functional resource by growing aquatic plants for fertilizer and mulch for crops.

Azolla and Duckweed in Chinampa

Additionally harvesting rainwater in other ways has recently involved Doug in a few swale digging projects.  Swales are a staple in permaculture design and lately a staple in Doug’s endless permaculture diet.  Malaysia, Singapore, USA, Bulgaria and Portugal have all been spots where these ditch-and-mound techniques have been implemented including the one below in Cincinnati which totaled 100 ft long and 9 ft wide in a suburban lot.  This mound now doubles as the planting bed for a mixed species food forestry plot.  To see a video about another one of Doug’s swale projects at Escola da Terra in Portugal during and after a PDC check out t the following link: http://vimeo.com/11942953

30 meter long swale beautifully filling up

The care, maintenance, and planting of tree crops is also one of Doug’s passions.  Seeing the bounty from a more permanent agriculture, Doug has taken on planting food forests as a way to provide food security to a struggling global population.  The highlight of this initiative was planting the seven-layer system of forest gardening in a subtropical and temperate mix. Through careful observation and detailed documentation, Doug was able to grow avocados next to currants and elderberries at the top of South Island in New Zealand.  Using specific micro-climate techniques, this food forest really pushed the limits with planting quite far down the hillside where avo’s would normally die.  One system that is under his management currently is the Parkwalk Permaculture Project’s edible landscaping with over 40 perennial edible food crops.  It won’t be a full on food forest but it will mock this style while blending with the neighboring community landscaping.  This allows for this planting strategy to reach the suburbs in a more traditional form yet edible.

Avocado Overstory with comfrey as the herbaceous layer in subtropical Food Forest

Natural building projects have also been a focus during Doug’s Permaculture journey.  From cob to papercrete, Doug has dabbled in several techniques.  Two of his long-term projects were a bamboo meditation hut with thatch roofing, and a renovation of a rustic cabin using light earth.  Both projects were great learning opportunities and yielded success in many ways.

Circular Bamboo hut with Razor Grass thatch

Doug is currently teaching design courses, focusing his energy on refining that facilitation process as best he can. Further public speaking engagements and the consultancy work round out his contribution the permaculture world.  Working on educational material especially around complex topics that the learned at the Carbon Farming Course covered has been given lots of attention.  Doug loves to design with Powerpoint as a way to incorporate these basic ideas into slideshows (http://permaculture.org.au/author/Doug%20Crouch/).  Furthermore, the refinement of the groups PDC schedule is a never ending process which in reality is a design process of its own  Always finding ways to teach the material in a more interactive and creative way is the approach we take.

Some of Doug's Design in his intro slideshow

He currently is engaged in a degree program to finish his bachelors degree in Small Business management.  While not a green program, the online format does give plenty of room for expression and nearly every assignment can be geared to learning about sustainability issues on numerous levels.  It is giving him time and space to give attention to the entrepreneurial side of TreeYO and his aspirations of running a farm, tourism facility, and educational center at the family land in Northern Kentucky, USA.  “The lake” will be a micro-enterprise center with an organic market garden, permaculture systems, and a focus on sustainable forestry including non-timber forest products. This degree program is starting to help really solidify the ideas and communicate deeper with the family about a succession plan.  He currently does the marketing for the small business that is already there and can be viewed at http://ctlake.wordpress.com/ .  The eventual business will help add to the overall sustainability and local foods movement of the Cincinnati, OH, USA tristate region where Doug grew up.

Aerial and Topo of "The Lake", 60 acre slice of heaven with an 18 acre lake

Out of this continues delving deeper into Keyline Design, Compost Tea, and Holistic Management for broad-scale design and regenerative ag small business development.  Along with that Doug’s upcoming work in 2011 will include more facilitation of courses and development of sites globally.

Keyline Plow and Pattern

For further networking check out his WiserEarth page at the following:

http://www.wiserearth.org/user/Douge/section/main

or professional network at Linkedin at:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougecrouch

or download his Permaculture PowerPoint Presentations at:

http://www.slideshare.net/DougeCrouch