Integrated Local Harvests presentation by Brad Lancaster in Joshua Tree, CA
2023-12-13 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHERE:
Sunlight Ranch
62323 Belmont St
Joshua Tree, CA 92252
WHEN:
6pm, Wednesday, December 13, 2023
COST:
$10
Integrated Local Harvests:
Simple and Effective Ways to Enhance the Natural Abundance of Your Home, Community, and the Larger World
This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters; sun, wind, and shade; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how ancient sun- and shade-harvesting sites are informing passively heated, cooled, and powered modern homes and retrofits; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
This talk is both an invitation for you to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community, and a treasure map showing you the way—by planting the rain, dancing with the sun, growing fertile shade, and more—to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks!
Brad will have the new full-color, revised & expanded editions of his books for sale and signing, along with rainwater harvesting caps, shirts, & stickers.

16th Annual Saskatchewan Association of Watersheds Conference
2024-01-30
Conference theme: Building Resilience Through Urban Water Systems
Get all the details in the link below:
https://saskwatersheds.ca/2024-saw-conference/

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2024-03-04 - 2024-03-09 | watershed management group
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-spring-2024
Brad will teach the morning of March 5th, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday March 10th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2024-03-10 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, March 10, 2024
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT
Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Altar Valley Conservation Alliance Arroyo Hondo Restoration Workshop
2024-03-16 09:00 - 17:00
WHEN: Saturday, March 16, 2024
9am to 5pm (with optional camping Saturday night)

WHERE: Buenos Aires Wildlife Refugee, Southern Arizona
COST: Free

TO REGISTER: Click on this link

Join us for a hands-on workshop to improve and maintain restoration work at the Arroyo Hondo drainage on the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. This event will be lead by local restoration experts Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, Jeff Rhody, and Kyle Thompson.
The workshop is free of cost! We will learn about:
• Low-technology, process-based methods for stream restoration and wildlife habitat improvement
• How to monitor a stream’s response to your work
• Ways to use hand-built structures and machinery to maintain projects

For more information about the workshop, please contact Julia Guglielmo (Altar Valley Conservation Alliance): julia@altarvalleyconservation.org

28th Annual Dunbar/Spring neighborhood Rain & Native Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ
2024-04-13 08:00 - 10:00
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Saturday, April 13, 2024.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of 10:00 is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Meeting spot:
610 N. 9th Ave
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the following locations in the neighborhood, all just a block away from one another (in the following order):
124 W. 4th Street
127 W. University Blvd
920 N. Perry Ave
905 N. 9th Ave

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

We’ll do the West University Neighborhood Planting on Saturday, April 14, 2024

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

5th Annual West University neighborhood Rain & Native Food Forest Planting – Tucson, AZ
2024-04-14 07:00 - 10:00
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Sunday, April 14, 2024.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of 10:00 is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Meeting spot:
341 E. 1st Street
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the following locations in the neighborhood, all just a block away from one another (in the following order):
1001 N. 3rd Ave
604 E. 1st Street

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

We’ll do the Dunbar Spring Neighborhood Planting on Saturday, April 13, 2024

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Dunbar/Spring and West University Rain & Native Food Forest Planting (PART TWO) – Tucson, AZ
2024-04-21 07:00 - 10:00
Join Brad Lancaster and Neighborhood Foresters at this planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers occurring in the Dunbar/Spring and West University neighborhoods.
The planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Sunday, April 21, 2024.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration, then we plant the two sites. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of 10:00 is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Locations:
341 E. 1st Street (in West University neighborhood)
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the next and last site at:
920 N. Perry Ave (in Dunbar/Spring neighborhood)

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we also reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

Bonus: We’ll also help you identify desired native wildflowers to encourage – and pesky invasive weeds to pull – so next year we have more wildflowers and fewer weeds.

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Southwest Agroforestry Action Network (SWANN) 2024 Annual Conference
2024-04-24 - 2024-04-26
Agroforestry for the Southwest: Integrating trees and food to regenerate landscapes and people.
WHEN: April 24-26, 2024
WHERE: Tucson, Arizona on University of Arizona Campus (or Via Zoom on April 24)
Register and get more info at:
https://www.aztrees.org/event-5453333
Brad Lancaster will be giving a presentation and guiding a tour at the conference.

Webinar - Plant the Rain to Grow Abundance with Brad Lancaster
2024-07-09 16:00 - 17:30
Tuesday July 9, 2024 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
California (PDT) time

Contact
Debbie Gliksman
debbie@urbanoasis-la.com

Location
Zoom webinar

Cost
$10 Students $15 APLD Members $30 Non-Members

Sponsored by:
Greater Los Angeles District

APLD CEUs
pending

Description
Save the date!
This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and storm-waters; sun, wind, and shade; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how ancient sun- and shade-harvesting sites are informing passively heated, cooled, and powered modern homes and retrofits; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained storm-water, seed, and yard prunings.

This talk is both an invitation to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community and a treasure map showing you how to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks by planting the rain, dancing with the sun, growing fertile shade, and more!

SIGN UP at:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/planting-the-rain-to-grow-abundance-with-brad-lancaster-tickets-885287838757?aff=oddtdtcreator

Good Water Texas Master Naturalists conference
2024-07-27
Brad will be giving a virtual presentation at this conference, which also includes in-person speakers. You can see it all in-person or virtually when you register.
More info at:

https://txmn.org/goodwater/from-balconies-to-backyards/

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2024-09-09 - 2024-09-14
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-september-2024
Brad will teach September 9 or 10, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday September 15th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2024-09-15 08:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 8am – 10am, Sunday, September 15, 2024
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served!

SOLD OUT – come to the next tour November 10

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Special screening of Weathered Earth's Extremes Episode Three: As Heat Waves Worsen PLUS live interview with Brad Lancaster
2024-10-02 18:00 - 19:00 | Zoom or online

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2024-11-04 - 2024-11-09
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-november-2024
Brad will teach November 4 or 5, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday November 10th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2024-11-10 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, November 10, 2024
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT
Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Brad Lancaster presentation at Arizona Native Plants Society - Tucson chapter (in person and virtual)
2024-11-14 19:00 - 20:30
WHEN: Thursday, November 14, 2024 7pm to 8pm
WHERE: Tucson chapter of Arizona Native Plants Society meeting, ENR2 building, 1064 E. Lowell Street, room 215, on University of Arizona campus, Tucson, Arizona.
A video of the presentation will also be offered at a later time through the Arizona Native Plant Society website.
Brad will give a version of the following presentation at the meeting:
Re-hydrating and Re-enlivening Our Communities with Rain-watered Neighborhood Food Forestry
This presentation is about neighborhood forestry efforts empowering citizens, and contractors, to effectively plant the rain and native food-bearing vegetation to grow vibrant and resilient abundance where they live, work, and play. Then train them up and support them with the education, guidance, collaborations, and policy that enable them to better steward the plantings for decades to come. Dramatic results include cooler neighborhoods, healthier eating, a revitalization of indigenous cuisine, deeper connections with people and place, reduced flooding, skill building, greater soil fertility, and more beauty and joy. The strategies and practices are accessible to all and most are free or cost no more than the price of a shovel.

Presentation by Brad Lancaster: Planting the Rain (and other free on-site waters) to Grow Sustainable Abundance—virtual & in person in Tucson, AZ
2024-12-04 18:30 - 19:30
WHEN: Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024,
6:30pm – 7:30pm

WHERE: Arizona Senior Academy (ASA) Koffler Great Room
13715 E. Langtry Ln, Tucson, AZ 85747
and via Zoom (scroll to bottom for link)

This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters; sun, wind, and shade; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; how ancient sun- and shade-harvesting sites are informing passively heated, cooled, and powered modern homes and retrofits; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
Brad Lancaster is the author of the award-winning Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond and co-founder of Neighborhood Foresters. Since 1993 Brad has run a successful permaculture education, design, and consultation business focused on integrated regenerative approaches to landscape design, planning, and living. In the Sonoran Desert, with just 11 inches of average annual rainfall, he and his brother’s family harvest about 100,000 gallons (378,000 liters) of rainwater a year on an eighth-acre (0.05 ha) urban lot and adjoining right-of-way. This harvested water is then turned into living air conditioners of food-bearing shade trees, abundant gardens, and a thriving landscape incorporating wildlife habitat, beauty, medicinal plants, and more. Brad’s overall goal is to empower his clients and community to make positive change in their own lives and neighborhoods—by harvesting and enhancing free on-site resources such as water, sun, wind, shade, community, and more.
You can connect to Zoom either by using the following URL: https://zoom.us/j/95456511620?pwd=[REDACTED] or by opening a browser to zoom.com/join and typing in Meeting ID: 954 5651 1620 and Passcode: [REDACTED]

Link to the event created by the organizers of the talk below:
https://asa-tucson.org/dec-4-planting-the-rain-and-other-free-on-site-waters-to-grow-sustainable-abundance/

Montana Green Expo
2025-01-09 08:00 - 13:00
WHERE:
Hilton Garden Inn, 3720 N. Reserve St., Missoula, MT
Brad will give his presentation
“Planting the Rain to Grow Regenerative Abundance: Water-harvesting principles & practices for rain gardens & more”
January 9, 2025 from 9:45am to 10:45am then sell and sign books afterward.
Presentation description:
Plant the rain before you plant your plants (or as a retrofit) to boost production, conserve water, save money, mitigate temperature extremes, and create sustainable oases around your homes and community infrastructure. Rain gardens and other small-scale earthworks quickly infiltrate rainfall, snow melt, and other free on-site waters (such as household greywater and street runoff) into the soil where less is lost to evaporation, while reducing erosion, and controlling flooding. Living ‘pumps’ of food- and medicinal-bearing rain-irrigated vegetation then enable us to filter and access that water in a way that buffers both drought and deluge. Come learn dynamic principles and tips to leverage greater success as you implement these simple, beautiful, and effective passive systems. Thriving examples and case studies will be highlighted.
The conference is from January 7 to 9.

For more info see:
https://www.plantingmontana.com/event-5605661

Community planting of new in-street, water-harvesting, traffic-calming chicanes in Dunbar/Spring neighborhood – Tucson, AZ
2025-02-15 09:00 - 12:00
Come help us plant four new water-harvesting, traffic-calming chicanes or curb extensions at the intersection of two bicycle boulevards at 9th Avenue and University Blvd — an installation in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
Its also a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere—such as your neighborhood.

Date: Saturday, February 15, 2025.
The chicane basins (each having over 5,000-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 9:00 am for a planting demonstration, then we all plant, seed, and mulch together. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of noon is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help
Meeting spot:
SW corner of 9th Ave and University Blvd by the community bulletin board
Once we finish planting there, we’ll move to the other three chicanes around the intersection.

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health for all and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding, we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater.
This effort builds on the 2010 installation and planting of water-harvesting, traffic-calming strategies in the neighborhood that were funded by a Pima County Neighborhood Reinvestment grant, plus a nearly 30-year Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters program of planting rain and native food forests in street-side street-runoff-harvesting eddy basins.
Brad Lancaster and the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters got the neighbor, neighborhood, and city approvals, applied for—and got funding through—the Inflation Reduction Act Grant Program—via the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management, and did the design and project coordination; Logan Byers did the autoCAD drawings; Tucson Bird Alliance (formerly Tucson Audubon) is our fiscal agent; KE&G Construction, Inc. did the concrete curb and asphalt work; Dryland Design did the basin excavation and rock work; Churchman Sand & Gravel provided the catalina granite rock and boulders; Desert Survivors and Spadefoot native plant nurseries provided the plants; the project; while the planting will be done by the amazing volunteers who show up (supervised by Brad Lancaster).

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

After-planting baby goat social
We have baby goats a 100-foot walk from the planting site.
So for those who are interested, once we are done with the planting, you can play with our baby goats. They are very social and love to be held.
ALSO COME TO OUR SUNDAY PLANTING EVENT in the West University Neighborhood. Details here.

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Community planting of new street-side, water-harvesting basins in the public right-of-way of West University neighborhood – Tucson, AZ
2025-02-16 09:00 - 12:00
Come help us plant six new street-side, water-harvesting, eddy basins at the SW corner of 1st Street and 5th Avenue— an installation in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Sunday, February 16, 2025.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) were just completed – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 9:00 am for a planting demonstration, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of noon is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help

Meeting spot:
SW corner of 1st Street and 5th Avenue (945 N. 5th Ave)
All six basins are next to one another on 1st Street between 5th Ave and N Arizona Avenue.

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood/waterhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

We will have two more such plantings either late February or March once we finish more street-side basins—check back to our Events page for when we post the dates and times.

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Water Harvesting Design Certification Course – Tucson, Arizona
2025-03-10 - 2025-03-15
For more info on this Watershed Management Group course, plus how to register see:
https://watershedmg.org/event/water-harvesting-design-certification-march-2025
Brad will teach March 10 or 11, and he will also offer a guided tour of his place and some of his neighborhood’s rain-irrigated native food forest work, Sunday March 16th.
Sign up for the tour once it is posted on Brad’s Events page.

Grassland Restoration Workshop utilizing water-harvesting, erosion-control strategies at Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge, Altar Valley, Arizona
2025-03-15 09:00
See the flyer for details.
Strategies we will teach and build include: rock-mulch rundowns, one-rock dams, sheet flow collectors (media lunas horns down), sheet flow spreaders (media lunas horns up), and plug and spread – all of these are explained with case studies in the full-color edition “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 2, 2nd Edition“.
These strategies work well in rural, suburban, and urban settings.
Register at avcarestorationworkshop.eventbrite.com.

Be prepared to be outdoors all day, dress accordingly. Bring gloves and simple hand tools such as pointed shovel if you have them. Otherwise we’ll have extra.
Also bring water and the lunch and snacks you’ll need throughout the day.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Block Tour with Brad Lancaster – Tucson, AZ
2025-03-16 09:00 - 11:00
WHEN: 9am – 11am, Sunday, March 16, 2025
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $15 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.
SOLD OUT.
Check back on this Events page for future tours.
We regularly do fall tours and a late winter tour.
Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding block of the neighborhood.
100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions and improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the newly released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.

For self-guided water tours in Tucson see:
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/tour/

Here is a video of a 2016 tour of my place (more evolutions have since occurred)…

Community planting of new street-side, water-harvesting basins in the public right-of-way of Dunbar/Spring neighborhood – Tucson, AZ
2025-04-19 07:00 - 10:00
WHEN: 7am – 10am, Saturday, April 19, 2025
WHERE: 224 W. 2nd Street, Tucson, AZ

Come help us plant six new street-side, water-harvesting, eddy basins along 2nd Street (and University Blvd) — an installation in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Saturday, April 19, 2025.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) are being wrapped up now – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration led by Brad Lancaster, then keep going to various parts of the neighborhood. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of ten is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help
Meeting spot:
224 W. 2nd Street
Five of the six basins are within a half block of one another on 2nd Street. The one on University Blvd is at 40 W. University Blvd—we’ll do that one last

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners. Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood/waterhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!
Thanks to Little John Excavating for doing the basin excavation, Churchman Sand & Gravel for the catalina granite rock, and Dryland Design for doing the excellent rockwork.

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

ALSO COME TO OUR next planting event in the West University neighborhood in one to two weeks.
Details coming soon

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Arizona Illustrated Native Plants Screening & Panel - Tucson, AZ
2025-04-19 13:00 - 14:30
WHERE: ENR2 building, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Brad Lancaster will be part of the screening’s panel moderated by Tony Paniagua.
More info in the link below.
www.azpm.org/plants

Community planting of new street-side, water-harvesting basins in the public rights-of-ways of Dunbar/Spring & West University neighborhoods – Tucson, AZ
2025-04-27 07:00 - 10:00
WHEN: 7am – 10am, Sunday, April 27, 2025
WHERE: We start 7am on the south (2nd Street) side of 902 N. 10th Avenue in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood.
Then around 8am we plan to plant a basin on the west (2nd Ave) side of 612 E. 2nd Street in the West University neighborhood.

Come help us plant two large new street-side, water-harvesting, eddy basins — installations in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the Dunbar/Spring & West University neighborhoods, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.

Date: Sunday, April 27, 2025.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 4,500-gallon annual capacity) are being wrapped up now – so now we can plant. Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!
Time: 7:00 am for a planting demonstration led by Brad Lancaster and community planting, then we’ll keep going to the next basin. The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of ten is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help
Meeting spot:
South side of 902 N. 10th Avenue
in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood
Then with that site planted we will move to the west side of
612 E. 2nd Street in the West University neighborhood

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way. The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners.
Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood/waterhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!
Thanks to Little John Excavating for doing the basin excavation, Churchman Sand & Gravel for the catalina granite rock, and Dryland Design for doing the excellent rockwork.

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

ALSO COME TO OUR next planting event in the West University neighborhood in one to two weeks.
Details coming soon

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

Brad Lancaster water-harvesting presentation followed by Q and A and book signing - Sedona, AZ
2025-05-08 17:30 - 19:30
Prior to Brad’s talk at 6pm, there will be a screening of Episode 4: Country roads, City Roads” from the 5-part documentary series “Thinking Like Water“.
This episode shows how water-whisperer Bill Zeedyk and those he has mentored are transforming dirt roads, paved roads, and driveways that dehydrate and devegetate the land, into roads that rehydrate and revegetate the land, while also reducing flooding, erosion, and costs of the roads themselves.

Brad’s presentation then starts at 7pm

Planting the rain to grow abundance
Simple and effective ways to create true oases that enhance the health and hydrology of our communities

This dynamic presentation shares patterns and strategies to harvest, integrate, and enliven free local resources—such as rain-, grey-, and stormwaters; along with soil fertility, wild foods, and community fun—in a way that generates far more potential than the sum of their parts. Scarcity is re-visioned and transformed into abundance simply through creative cycling and utilization of what is already at hand. Costly and consuming habits and infrastructure, disconnected from their surroundings, are reoriented and reconnected to maximize enriching opportunities.
You’ll see many examples of such transformation, including how once-dying wetlands and creek flows are being regenerated with simple hand-built structures made of on-site materials; and how once-blighted, overheated neighborhood streets are being rejuvenated into thriving greenbelts of water, people, wildlife, art, food, and celebration by planting once-drained stormwater, seed, and yard prunings.
This talk is both an invitation for you to engage and partner with your natural surroundings and community, and a treasure map showing you the way—by planting the rain, dancing with the sun, growing fertile shade, and more—to live as one of your community’s inspirational sparks!
(Duration: 1 hour plus Q&A and book signing afterward)

Cost for the just screening and Brad’s talk is $22
More info and tickets here

Location:
Sedonya
Conscious Living Center
120 Deer Trail Drive
Sedona, AZ 86336

Tel. (832) 748-0777

Community planting of new street-side, water-harvesting basins in the public commons of West University neighborhood & Catalina Park – Tucson, AZ
2025-05-10 06:00 - 10:00
WHEN: 6am – 10am, Saturday, May 10, 2025
WHERE: We start 6am on the northwest corner of Catalina Park (5th Avenue and 1st Street)
then head to 3rd Ave and 2nd Street,
and finally 3rd Ave and 1st Street.

Come help us plant six large new street-side, water-harvesting, eddy basins — installations in the public commons, planted and stewarded by the participating public.
This planting of rain, trees, understory, & wildflowers is occurring in the West University neighborhood, but the planting event is open to anyone from any neighborhood, and is a great opportunity to see how such an event, or other Neighborhood Forester endeavors, could be organized elsewhere.
The stormwater eddy basins (each having over 5,000-gallon annual capacity) are being wrapped up now – so now we can plant.
Got to plant the rain before we plant the plants!

We begin with a 6:00 am to beat the heat with a planting demonstration led by Brad Lancaster and community planting, then we’ll keep going to the next basin.
The demonstration will show you how to plant the rain to maximize its potential, how to plant food-bearing native trees and understory plants by seed and/or with nursery stock to maximize passive summer shading/cooling, and how to recycle/plant prunings and leaves as fertility-building, carbon-sequestering, pollutant-filtering, water-harvesting mulch.
End time of ten is approximate (with a good showing of folks we’ll likely finish up early).
Cost: FREE—plus your planting help
Meeting spot:
Southeast corner of 1st Street and 5th Avenue
in the West University neighborhood

Come join us in planting native shade trees, understory vegetation, wildflowers, and seed within or beside water-harvesting earthworks in the public rights-of-way.
The idea is to plant native food-producing, flood-controlling, wildlife-habitat-producing, beautiful, air- and water-filtering, living air conditioners.
Street trees that shade up to 75% of the street’s surface can also cool summer neighborhood temperatures by up to 20ºF.
This enhances the walkability and bikeability of our neighborhoods, which improves health and drops crime. When we harvest street runoff to irrigate the street trees, we reduce water consumption as we reduce downstream flooding we naturally bioremediate/filter pollutants, and help indirectly and directly recharge our groundwater. Thus far this annual event has resulted in over 1,700 trees being planted in our neighborhood/waterhood, thousands of understory plants, and contributed to annually harvesting over one million gallons of stormwater that used to go to the stormdrain—let’s keep going!
Thanks to Little John Excavating for doing the basin excavation, Churchman Sand & Gravel for the catalina granite rock, and Dryland Design for doing addition excavation plus the excellent rock work.

What to bring: Work clothes, sun hat, gloves, and water as we’ll be working outdoors. A pointed shovel, pruning tools, and/or hard rake would also be great (and we’ll have some extra tools on hand for those lacking them).

For info and photos from past plantings see here

For more info on our Annual Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Food Forest Planting see here

For more info on these and many other water harvesting strategies, check out the full-color, revised editions of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond available at deep discount direct from the author Brad Lancaster.

2025 International Master Gardener Conference
2025-08-25 - 2025-08-28
This is a virtual conference, so you can attend from anywhere.
Get all the details including how to register in the link below:
https://www.imgc2025.com/

Brad Lancaster will be giving a presentation on Day 3 of the conference. See below for presentation description…

Since 1993, Brad has operated a successful permaculture and regenerative design, consulting, and education business rooted in integrated, sustainable approaches to landscape design, planning, and daily living. His journey into this work began with a deep fascination for how we can live in better harmony with our environment—especially in drylands like the Sonoran Desert, where he lives.

This session will include how he got into working with these natural elements—how observing the intense desert climate sparked a passion for harvesting water, capturing shade, and harnessing the sun to create comfort, beauty, and abundance. Through his work and lifestyle, he has developed many fun innovations and shared countless adventures in collaborating with the environment.

Integrated Sun- & Shade-Harvesting for Buildings, Neighborhoods, Gardens, and Landscapes will explore simple, cost-effective strategies for harnessing winter sun and summer shade to improve comfort, conserve resources, and boost garden productivity. Topics will include seasonal sun paths, ideal tree and building orientation, passive solar design, optimizing roof overhangs, integrating wind and water strategies, solar cooking, solar rights, and retrofitting structures and landscapes for greater energy efficiency. Along the way, you’ll be inspired by the power of working with the elements rather than against them.
