Interested in nature from a very young age, cultivating my own vegetables at the age of 12, I set up my own organic farm at the age of 40.

I never had any conventional training – my learning consisted strictly of trial and error, an
overwhelming curiosity of how things work together, what individual plants need to prosper and how this process can be maximized with the least impact on the environment. Living in a semi-arid area of the northwestern US, water was a scarce resource and my efforts were very much concentrated on maximizing the use of it.

In 2009 I bought together with my wife, a property in southern Ecuador with one hectare of land. Completely depleted and neglected land, the challenge was once again to work with a small water resource.
That is why we use only biodegradable soap in the house and all the water from sinks and showers runs through a filter system and is reused in our gardens.

The beauty though is the climate - very even temperatures all year round. The property had mature fruit trees and a small coffee plantation. We terraced a big part of the property and implemented a water distribution system with pipes and sprinklers.

We started mulching the soil, planting trees for
shade, composting our green garbage, implemented Hugelculture and banana circles and are just starting a food forest

New Swales