Sepp Holzer is Coming to Missoula!

By PAUL WHEATON

The mighty …. the glorious … the amazing ….  Sepp Holzer.

Of all the people in all the world, nobody is more important.  To me.  And probably to you too, only you don’t know it yet.

And he’s coming to Missoula.

Missoula is an eco savvy town.  And if you care about the earth, wholesome living, people, goodness and decency, you become aware of the accomplishments of some great people and what they have done.  Art Ludwig has taught us the benefits of using graywater.  Ruth Stout has taught us about having a garden without digging. Masanobu Fukuoka has proven that we can feed the world’s population without chemicals.  Ianto Evans and Mike Oehler have taught us about how we can build our own beautiful home for less than $5,000.

And then there is the man that has done it all and then some more. And he’s coming to Missoula.

Sepp Holzer has done so many huge things, that his property is crawling with dozens of doctoral students doing their thesis work based on Sepp’s work.  Sepp has a farm in Austria that has a climate that is almost identical to Missoula.  He’s at a slightly higher elevation and has slightly warmer temperatures.  He produces huge amounts of food, but he does not fertilize, irrigate, control pests, prune fruit trees … and a lot of his annuals are self seeding.  Once an area is established with growing food, he can go years with doing nothing more than harvesting.  He raises trout that feed themselves. In a desert in Spain, he brought back lakes.  He has been able to get fish to breed where experts said was impossible.   He has proven that a farmer can earn a professional wage.

While people are arguing about fluorescent light bulbs and calling that eco, Sepp Holzer is blazing trails in things that are really saving the world.  Some people might protest against chemicals being used in agriculture.  Sepp Holzer is proving to farmers how they can earn ten times more money per year by not using chemicals.   As the word spreads, I suspect that eventually everything at Safeway will be beyond organic because farmers just make more money doing it that way.

Oh, and it is my opinion that he has cured most forms of cancer.  And several other lethal ailments.  And that would take me 20 pages to explain.

I got a call from a woman up in the Flathead a few weeks ago asking me about Sepp Holzer.  Apparently, she had visited his place in Austria and talked to him.  She was thinking of arranging to have him come to Montana.  Well, a lot of people think about having rock stars come to their dinner parties – but okayfine, I’ll come up and have a look at her place and tell her what Sepp would say.  I put her off several times because I was getting flooded with people wanting a bit of my time and then it happened ….

I got an email from Sepp Holzer.  Praising my work.  Talking about how he is definitely coming to Montana and would like to hear about this property.   He doesn’t speak a lick of English, so I had to run it through the Google translation contraption, but there it was. Wow.

Okay, this woman now has my full attention.  I dropped everything else and buzzed up to have a look at her place and start talking about Sepp Holzer coming to Montana.

It really is happening.  Very cool.

I can’t stop telling everybody:  Sepp Holzer is coming to Missoula; Sepp is gonna be here.  For two weeks.

I was up at the thousand Buddhas project in Arlee explaining that Sepp Holzer is coming to Montana.  And they said “Who is Seth Hoser?”  I explained that in their world, the ultimate cool guy is the Dalai Lama, and in my world, it’s Sepp Holzer.

(Today I learned that you spell “Lama” in “Dalai Lama” with one “L”)

Here is a pic of me and Sepp a few years ago standing in front of one of his root cellars under construction:

Here is a video I took at about the same time where Sepp is talking about his time as a boy genius tinkering with horticulture:

Here is a quick overview video of Sepp’s farm:

So you heard it here first.  Sepp Holzer is coming to Missoula.  He will be here in early May of 2012. Now is the time to make lots of web pages and get lots of plans made and get the ball rolling. So much to do!

In the meantime, I’ll be presenting at the library on permaculture and Sepp Holzer.   This was planned months ago – before I knew Sepp was coming.   Always Thursday 6:30, Missoula Public Library (301 East Main Street), large conference room:

April 14:  Introduction to Permaculture

May 12: Sepp Holzer Films “Farming with Nature” plus “Terraces and Hugelkultur”

May 14:  Sepp Holzer Films “Agro Rebel” plus “Aquaculture”

For more info, see the full details on these missoula presentations.

Click here to see Paul Wheaton’s blog archive.

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BIO: Paul Wheaton is is the tyrannical ruler of two on-line communities. One is about permaculture and one is about software engineering. There is even one for Missoula. Paul has written several permacutlure articles starting with one on lawn care that he presented at the MUD Project 17 years ago, including articles on raising chickens, cast iron and diatomaceous earth. Paul also regularly uploads permaculture videos and permaculture podcasts. In his spare time, Paul has plans for world domination and is currently shopping for a hollowed out volcano in the Missoula area, with good submarine access.

See all of Paul’s contributions to MakeitMissoula on this Blog Homepage here.