by Dan 

Permaculture in The Chihuahuan Desert

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July 30, 2021 in MindSet

A Collections of Permaculture Ideas to regreen the Chihuahua desert building a better off-grid lifestyle in partnership with nature 

Once a thriving land full of life greed ranching for money pillaged vast areas of life to create death of an ecosystem creating what economic systems do best, almost useless desert with greatly reduced life.  This page will host a collection of ideas to stimulate the possibility of an abundant life is a harsh dry part of the world and hopefully undo or regreen some of this damaged land so that it can support abundant life for families who choose to life off-grid.


The ideas may be a bit unorganized at first, but as we find our footing while building an succeeding here on the land a more coherent body of information will emerge.

We are building AirCrete Pueblo Style Houses to support our family and provide a place to stay for those who venture out for a workshop or alternative building school.

These shelters keep us insulated from the hot climate and establish a foot hold that we can work from.  These are made of AirCrete, portland cement which is inflated with air bubbles to give us an insulating structural wall.


With our shelter in place we can now begin bringing life to the desert.

The Primary source of life anywhere, but especially in the desert, is water

Most people believe that there is no water in the desert.  However, they would be wrong.  There is plenty of rain.  The issue that the water pools, collects and runs into washes, then creeks then the rive and off to the ocean without staying long enough to bring life.

One rapid down-pour inch of rain and water is flowing away

A Few days of sun and wind and we have this

So Water to establish a food forest is where we must begin.  As this is a new project I will have to leave you now.  Once our water catchment is complete we will add more information here.


Below are inspirational information and ideas to imagine what is possible


A Site local to us.  The CMO.  Christmas Mountain Oasis. A quick walkthrough of a small forest created in the desert created by catching the rain water instead of just letting it run away

Bill Mollison, one of the founders of permaculture, had a vision for a super abundant desert garden using the trees and plants from the worlds deserts.  HE never did build that garden, but in the video clip below be shared the basic idea during his early permaculture design course.  This sections is about desert dry lands from 12 hours of video.  This video condenses all the relevant information into a much shorter video.


Geoff Lawton Reviews The Terlingua Land in the Chihuahua desert Land of the Terlingua School of Alternative Building


Cowboys are restoring the grasslands in the Chihuahua desert by mimicking buffalo hers that once visited the land


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