Our Origin Story

Sit a spell and let me tell you about how Sleepy mesquite came about.

Yes, that's me, the founder and owner of Sleep Mesquite Permaculture, as I appeared in 2004, just 3 years after purchasing the 20-acre parcel seen in this picture. My camera was of poor quality at the time.

If you're wondering what I'm doing, this is my second visit to the property. I am just sitting there thinking to myself, "I have land, now what?" I have been asking that question for 20 years. And during that time I had become quite familiar with this land. Not knowing I had fulfilled 1 of the requirements of permaculture design, long observation. I dreamed of living a self sufficient life out here in the desert, while I spent many trips here camping and hunting on the land.

Finding The Answer To My Question

In 2021 I came across the Greening The Desert Project headed up by Geoff Lawton. I watched all of his videos he made on this project and gleaned as much information as I could from them. At last I had some hope in what could be done on my land. But I found that the videos he had produced were always a bit vague on the details. He made 2 Videos in particular that stood out, "Mulch as a dry land strategy" and "Shade as a dry land strategy" He put out so much information in those 2 videos that I was waiting for the next one. But they never came. All the other videos were more of look at what we have done, with little useful information. It became obvious that he was with holding some permaculture secrets to sale his courses. Which I ended up taking in 2024. I highly recommend doing so if you have any ambition in pursuing a courier in permaculture. By 2025 I had completed my studies with Geoff Lawton and received my PDC aka "Permaculture Design Certificate" and here we are.

I couldn't wait to get started

In 2021 after seeing Geoff videos I hope in my subaru headed out to the desert to try out what I had learned. Immediately I set out to start building my first earth works It took 6 man hours to complete. I just wanted to know what that simple change would do to my land.

My Friend Mark Standing in the first earthwork we built together

6 months later signs of water flow and weedy growth taking hold and paw prints from local wildlife.

Notice The change form the 2 pictures above. In just six months with no irrigation or planting, left unattended. Than I promptly began to build another, with the same results. for the next 2 years I observed what I had done with these earthworks. While Observing the land for 2 years, I started a nursery of my balconing of desert pioneer trees. More specifically Mesquite trees.

Mesquite seedlings and saplings

While I was waiting for them to grow tropical storm Hillary hit in August of 2023 causing devastating flooding throughout the california desert areas. It took me a over a year to muster up the courage to go back and see what had happened to the earthworks. The trees where getting bigger and needed to be transplant soon so I started making trips again and this is what I found.

The earthwork survived

To my surprise the earthwork survived and suffered almost no damage at all. How ever the pit portion had nearly completely fill in with silt carried in by the flood waters not to mention larger plants had taken up residents in the silt bed. At that time I decided to digout the silt bed and plant trees in to pit straight away.

Some additional notes to the photo above. The pile of rock on the far side of the earthwork was place there to shore up the berm after it suffered damage during and normal monsoon season that had washed away several feet of the berm prior to the Hillary event which was a 100 year flood by the way. So this demonstrated the power of observation and adaptation. I was hooked. Shortly after that trip I enrolled in Geoff Lawton's permaculture design course and graduated about a year later.

Starting My Journey As A Permaculture Designer

In-order to Graduate from the course, one had to complete a final design exercise. A final exam of sorts, design to allow a student to demonstrate they had a strong grasp of the core curriculum and how to use it to create a unique design, with said design subject to peer review by teachers and staff members of Lawton's team. Followed with feedback and criticism of our designs. I found the course challenging and the amount of information conveyed to be almost overwhelming. I have never studied such complicated subject in such a short time. The hard part was connecting all the different elements together so they could function as a system. But I did it and did it well. Below is a copy of the evaluation e-mailed to notifying me of the acceptance of my final design exercise.

Hi David Herold,

Congratulations on completing the Final Design Exercise, and with it, the last step in this long PDC course. It has been quite a journey for everyone involved, so before we jump into the specifics of your FDE work and outline what comes next, please take a moment to acknowledge the tremendous effort you put forth in learning and absorbing this material. This is no small feat, so again, congratulations.

Now, I’m going to give you the good news: Your final design has been approved. This means you have passed the course and completed all of its requirements. While the whole submission is reviewed, there are a few key areas that are evaluated more carefully:

Content Mastery

An excellent grasp of the course content is demonstrated. Watching this site evolve and sharing in the journey would be greatly enjoyable.

Soundness of Design

This design functions very well with the existing landform and fulfills the client’s requirements. You communicated the design details clearly, and the proposed design fits the context of the site and the client’s goals. Great work!

Diagrams/Graphics

Some of the diagrams could use some additional adjustments for clarity, but these are acceptable. In some, there is room for additional details or labels which would add to the understanding of the design, and in other places, additional detail drawings would add to the presentation. With that said, however, you have done a good job working with the tools and expertise you have and your familiarity with these tools (or similar) will deepen over time.

System Connections

Your detailed explanation of systems connections in the written portion is much appreciated. I am sure you will realize even more new and exciting ways to connect elements on your site as it evolves and your observations deepen. Revisiting to remap your site connections every year or two might be an entertaining thought exercise you would enjoy.

Communication

Thank you for taking the time to prepare the extended writing requested in the FDE form. It cannot be overstated how important the explanations are for permaculture design presentations given the level of complexity and connections that may not be obvious to the untrained eye, and it is clear you worked hard to produce this excellent submission. We may use a sample of your writing in future cohorts as an example of excellent written descriptions.

Some additional commentary:

Over and over again in your writing, you illustrate how your mindset (and the permaculture philosophy) is so important to how we approach good design. Thank you for demonstrating so clearly that the message we are trying to spread is coming through loud and clear.

It is good to see you are already approaching this project with stages in mind and have a plan that will carry you through several years of adjustment and observation as improvements are made. I expect you will find many additional adjustments that will improve overall conditions and yields as the years pass. Consider laying out a specific timetable with goals and deadlines to put on the calendar. You will probably try to fit too much into a year, but you’ll be amazed at how much you can accomplish in 3-5.

Your spillway sizing of 50’ with a 2’ depth of flow would need quite a bit of reinforcement where the water exits the swale. Consider adding riprap, gabions, or some other solution to prevent a large scour hole in this location during those heavy events. You may also concrete the spillway to make it extra secure and since you are spilling into zone 5, consider how you may be able to create a new braided water pattern by directing the overflow into specific channels. The catchment area map you provided shows many of these braided streams which would serve as a good model.

There was no planting plan provided for the swale area. You are in the appropriate climate and context to use the berm of the swale as access, but you should still be sure to plant trees all along the basin where the water is collecting and below the swale mound as well. It sounded like you were planning on this, but we didn’t see it in the final drawing so we wanted to make the note.

Overall, excellent work! We usually use this space to comment on a few things that could use improvement or revision, but your design fits well with the context of the site, client, and climate. The use of media-lunas for broad acreage in the desert is excellent, and your attention to the details of phasing your plantings shows a clear understanding of stacking time into the design. This site will surely become a beacon of hope in your community. Best of luck on your permaculture journey!

There are always many possibilities in a permaculture design, especially starting from a blank slate. The original design is just the first step in the ongoing journey and will be no doubt revisited and adjusted over time. Don’t be afraid to make decisions now and allow yourself to make changes as you observe the site while the design is being implemented.

I know some PDC courses issue a pass / no pass response with “little-to-no” feedback, but because this is just the next step for you in your permaculture journey, we hope the feedback provided above will prompt you to further explore and develop your skills. Every design you prepare, every new site you observe, and each new learning experience you absorb is an opportunity to grow and will affect the designer you will become.

The PDC certificate itself (your PDC certificate, now) comes with some very interesting features built in. It’s not just a piece of paper to hang over the desk anymore.

Unique Online Delivery: Through a partnership with a San Francisco-based technology company we are able to deliver next-generation digital certification for you. Our partner is an industry leader in credentialing platforms, serving as the official certification provider to Rosetta Stone, Stanford University’s Udacity, Google, Hootsuite, Telefonica, and hundreds of other academic institutes and organizations. As far as we know, we are the world’s first permaculture-based institute to work with them.

Secure and Tamper-Proof: Your certificate is secured by blockchain technology. Allowing for nothing short of revolutionary benefits in data handling and security. I won’t bore you with the details here, but if you are not familiar with the term check out this 2-minute intro video on the topic. The upshot: Your certificate is secure, is impossible to tamper with, and cannot be faked.

Easy Verification: Due to the underlying blockchain technology, your clients, employers, or any institution/organization can verify with 100% certainty the authenticity of your certificate using a unique credential URL that you will be able to provide them.

High-Quality Printing: If at any point you’d like to enjoy the look and feel of a paper certificate or you need to submit paper credentials, you can print an ultra-high-quality, full-color PDF version of your own PDC certificate. No need to submit a request for an official copy and wait for it to be produced.

LinkedIn Integration (and many more platforms): Your PDC certificate embodies your hard work and achievement, so we wanted to make sure that you could easily share it. Adding it to your LinkedIn profile is a breeze, as is adding it to your email signature, embedding it on a personal website, or sharing it across more than 100 different social media platforms.

Professional References: Many of you already know that you can request a reference from anyone in your LinkedIn network. One feature of this integration is that requesting a reference connected to your PDC coursework will appear underneath your PDC credential on your unique credential URL, lending additional weight and credibility to your credential as you build your body of work.

For now, there is nothing further you need to do for any of the above. You will be sent an additional email with full instructions about how to log in to your secure PDC certificate dashboard from our certificate partners within 1-2 weeks of receiving this email. There will be a time delay between receiving this email and receiving your certificate.

If you do not receive your certificate within 2 weeks or can’t find it, please check your spam folder before emailing Student Care at studentcare@geofflawtononline.com to request assistance. Please do not reply to this email asking for details about your certificate as the review team has no access to the certificate credentials. Any further questions about this course, your certificate, continued course access options, etc. should be directed to Student Care.

One more time, congratulations!

Best wishes,

FDE Review Team

Shortly after receiving my PDC credentials I resumed work On my Property, now dubbed Sleepy Mesquite. Now armed with the full body of knowledge that My training affords me and a detailed plan for Sleepy Mesquite its full steam ahead.

Stay tuned to see what is happening at Sleepy Mesquites demonstration site as there's more to come as we continue on our permaculture journey.