Chris Anderson has been practicing ecological living since graduating from Transylvania University in 1994, beginning with farm and forest internships in West Virginia, Vermont and New York. He settled in Southeastern Ohio for several years, where he created his own market garden for farmers markets and co-established the Rural Action Environmental Learning Program, a mobile hands-on environmental education program that served over 2,500 students in twelve schools. It was in the creative back-to-the-land and back-to-nature mileu of Southeastern Ohio where Chris first became interested in wild and heritage foods.

Chris earned his Permaculture Design Certificate in 2001 through Permaculture courses with Culture’s Edge in North Carolina and the Ecovillage Training Center in Tennessee, and has attended three Advanced Permaculture Courses and a Permaculture Teacher Training Course since moving West in 2005. He became a Rainwater Catchment Systems Accredited Professional in 2008. Over the years, Chris has designed and created Permaculture landscapes with rainwater–catching earthworks and edible landscapes in radically different Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin. He co-taught the Northern Arizona Permaculture Design Course in 2009 and 2010.

With partners Josh Robinson and Karen Taylor, in 2007 Chris created Eden on Earth, LLC, an award-winning ecological landscaping company specializing in rainwater catchment and creating abundant native and edible landscapes that are irrigated naturally with rainwater and greywater. Turns out our projects were more resilient than our business plan, however, and all partners moved on after 2010 when the economic recession hit the business hard.

Chris draws on his diversity of experience while reading and revitalizing landscapes, growing resilient edible native and heritage plants “that want to grow here”. Chris enjoys giving public presentations about and consulting on Permaculture, rainwater harvesting, and the connections among water, soil, plants, people and wildlife. He was awarded the Norman B. Herkenham Award by Keep Sedona Beautiful at their 2015 Native Plant Workshop (“… for furthering the education of people about Permaculture, native plants and their use in native pant landscaping”

Chris currently works full-time at the ProBuild Garden Center, a local source for great plants and materials, in West Sedona.