Suburban Permaculture with Janet Barocco and Richard Heinberg
Compost, Consumerism, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Irrigation, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Trees, Urban Projects, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson March 14, 2012
Richard Heinberg not only talks the talk, but also walks the walk, as we get to see in the video at bottom. Peak Moment host, Janaia Donaldson, visits Heinberg and his partner Janet Barocco in their own venture in sustainable living in suburban Santa Rosa, California.
When they bought the place in 2001 it was a complete disaster, Richard tells Janaia, but it had advantages that drew them to it, such as being within walking distance of where they worked and shopping areas, having a large ¼ acre block and the house itself being small enough that they felt capable of remodelling and caring for it.
The ‘before’ shot
Kangaroos and Wallabies – a Few Ideas on the Aussie Problem
Fencing, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Nurseries & Propogation, Trees — by Carolyn Payne February 6, 2012
A few hints and tips for dealing with these unique Australian characters
Kangaroo come on to the property every evening to drink
The 34 acre site that is now the home of Mudlark Permaculture is an open grassland strip 250 metres wide and 500 metres long, set between native Australian bush land and a 280 metre diameter artificially created wetland.
The land was considered so poor by its previous owner that it had not been fenced or stocked for 30 years. The only things to graze this land for years have been a few rabbits, hares, the odd wallaby and around 100 kangaroo.
Comments (2)Swale Fail?
Conservation, Food Forests, Irrigation, Land, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Composition, Structure, Swales, Trees, Water Harvesting — by Greg Bell January 20, 2012
Editor’s Note: It’d be great if more people would share their successes and failures in similar fashion as Greg has below. The reason I say this is three-fold — 1) you get valuable feedback from readers on how to overcome your challenges, 2) readers can learn from your mistakes and thus hopefully avoid them, and 3) people new to permaculture will have a decent dose of reality as they start their on-the-ground work, and so won’t give up in despair the moment things don’t immediately pan out as anticipated! Send your articles to editor (at) permaculture.org.au !
Incredible results from the master after just three months
in the same temperate climate as us.
Did you and our family have the same experience? Did you watch
Geoff’s Food Forest DVD with mouth agape, saying “wow” to yourself at
least a dozen times?
You saw it — plan, excavate, mulch, plant. Stand back and be amazed as your planned accelerated succession of productive plants unfolds.
We were lucky enough to have the property and funds to give it a try. I think we’ve failed. Here I’ll explain what we did, mistakes we know about, and the results. Maybe you can spot more mistakes and give us some ideas of where we can go from here.
Comments (37)How To Graft A Fruit Tree
Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Trees — by Sunny Soleil January 19, 2012
How to Graft a Fruit Tree
YouTube is full of ‘how-to’ videos but only a few give clear instructions with professional presentation, good sound and really clear visuals. This is why I give top marks to the series of three fruit tree grafting videos from Dave Wilson Nurseries which have comprehensive instructions, good camera close-ups and a very knowledgeable presenter.
In this 9-minute video (above), the presenter explains how to graft 3 different varieties of nectarine onto one nectarine tree. The two videos below are follow-ups showing the grafting after two and six months. You can find lots more at this channel including info on grape growing and a tour round their gorgeous elevated display garden with a definite permaculture flavor.
Comments (3)Winter Sowing – Germinating the Natural Way
Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Seeds — by Sunny Soleil January 10, 2012
When you consider how seeds germinate in nature, it makes sense to sow our own seeds the same way.
In late summer, left to their own devices, seeds fall into the ground. They slowly get covered with leaves and other natural material ready to begin their long winter hibernation in the soil.
As the cold weather sets in and snow covers the ground, the seed toughens up and as spring sets in that little seed will emerge in its own good time, when conditions are perfect for it to start peeking above ground.
July through August (or, in the northern hemisphere, from December through January) is generally a ‘rest time’ for the annual gardener, so if you’re anxious to be ‘out there’ doing something, winter sowing is a perfect way to keep your green fingers active!
Comments (9)Rental Permaculture: How to Fill the Void
Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Seeds, Society, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Bob Nekrasov January 6, 2012
by Bob Nekrasov
I hear you comrade. ‘I want those acres and to start my food forest and have a permaculture demonstration Eden – but alas, I am a humble renter with big bloody dreams and typically uncreative landlords’.
As us ‘renters’ forlornly scan open fields and acres — seeing real estate listings of eroded soils sitting below beautiful key points — we are designing lush, abundant landscape in our minds and whinging about the price and how we could easily ‘turn this place into a self-sustaining paradise’. Well, at least I am! But, we can get caught in the dream trap — thinking we will start the big permaculture project when we get that dream plot of land. But it is really a void that needs to be filled. When you know how much good you can do you do feel a little crippled by renting a place where you feel you cannot do much. Having this deluded mindset a few years back I set out to figure out what I can do. Hooray!
Comments (20)Guerilla Gardening with Rob Avis
Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Trees, Urban Projects — by Luke Kimmel November 19, 2011
In this video Rob Avis from Verge Permaculture discusses his philosophy and main reasons for guerilla gardening, then dives into techniques, and strategies, and finally lets us watch him guerilla-plant an apple tree in the park near his home, despite a quick pass-over by a police helicopter.
Comments (8)The Ghana Permaculture Nwodua Tree Nursery Project – Saving Lives, Granting Livelihoods, and Restoring Eco-systems
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Deforestation, Education Centres, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Nurseries & Propogation, Society, Trees, Village Development — by Paul Yeboah November 1, 2011
The Ghana Permaculture Nwodua Tree Nursery was created in 2007, as a means of community income and to fight desertification, erosion, and diversion of water flow by roads, through reforestation. A collaborative effort of youth, women, and men founded the community nursery, and all members of the community reap the success of the profit as well as the natural environment benefits of tree planting. The nursery started as a small production and soon blossomed into something larger, achieving the current production of over 96,000 seedlings per year.
Comments (0)Tony Rinaudo: “Against the odds: Reversing desertification in arid and semi arid lands” (IPC Presentation – Video)
Aid Projects, Animal Forage, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conferences, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Presentations/Demonstrations, Regional Water Cycle, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Trees — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 3, 2011
Tony Rinaudo’s IPC10 conference presentation was one of the highlights of the event for three good reasons — 1) because of the scale of impact his Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) work has achieved (more than 30,000 km² of re-greened, regenerated land to date); 2) the utter simplicity — and thus doability — of this work (it requires no financial investment or out-of-reach technologies, only a little educational guidance and community collaboration), and 3) the speed at which this regeneration can occur and lives can improve.
We’ve brought people’s attention to FMNR before…
… and now I have the great pleasure of being able to share Tony’s IPC10 conference talk in high definition video (at top). Note: If you want to see the slides in higher quality, you can download Tony’s presentation (9mb Powerpoint) and click through it in a different window as Tony talks if you like.
Readers can also download:
Comments (2)The Underground Forest: Using Biodiversity to Help People
Aid Projects, Animal Forage, Community Projects, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Trees — by Harry Byrne Wykman
One of the highlights of the tenth International Permaculture Convergence was meeting Tony Rinaudo of World Vision Australia. Tony is a living example of the posture required for the development of truly regenerative systems. Tony has come to see patterns of people, plants and landscape which allow deserts to grow trees again. He does this by opening himself to the voice of the land.
While working in Niger, Tony noticed that what appeared to be small shrubs were in fact trees which had been coppiced by continuous grazing pressure, firewood harvesting and the impulse of farmers to keep crop land free of trees. Tony calls these trees ‘the underground forest.’
Comments (0)Planning Our Organic Market Garden
Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation — by Milkwood Permaculture June 9, 2011
I never thought we would get excited about, let along plan to do, the whole market garden thing. But while I’m all for no-dig polycultures like our domestic-scale kitchen garden, I’m also a pragmatist.
These days, we need more vegetables than we currently produce, especially from Spring through till Autumn. Way, way more. So I figure we’d better get ourselves into gear and learn how to grow ‘em.
Comments (9)Spring Permaculture Tips and Tricks
Bird Life, Building, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Livestock, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees — by Chuck Burr April 11, 2011
by Chuck Burr
Here is the Spring collection of permaculture tips and tricks from the Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute. Enjoy. The top photo is the winter Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course students getting a little help from the chickens to establish a block-rotation intense veggie garden in Zone 1 at Restoration Farm.
Comments (1)How We Designed Our Solar Greenhouse
Building, Energy Systems, Food Plants - Annual, Nurseries & Propogation, Urban Projects — by Rob Avis February 11, 2011
by Rob Avis
We live and garden on an urban lot in Calgary, Canada, located on the 51st parallel north and approximately 80 km east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. This northern climate presents many design challenges, including less than one hundred frost-free days, an annual mean temperature of 4.1 degrees Celsius and summer cyclonic weather patterns (i.e. high risk of hail). We are also considered to be a moderate temperate desert as our precipitation is around 500mm including snow. However, one of the advantages of growing food up north is the long summer days. There is no better place to observe this than in Alaska which also has an average of 100 frost free days but is renown for growing the largest vegetables in the world. Also, despite being cold in the winter, it is rarely overcast and we enjoy mostly sunny days. These two factors combined result in Calgary having nearly the same solar potential as Florida.
City Kids Move to the Country – Part I
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Trees, Urban Projects — by Nicola Chatham November 25, 2010
Pit-falls, projects and laughs from our Permaculture journey
"How does a tree make a mango? I’ve never thought about it like that before, but isn’t that crazy? A tree can make a mango!"
"Yes, dear,” says Chris.
We’re driving around the back streets of Cooroy, getting to know our new extended neighbourhood, and we just passed a grove of mango trees.
"No one’s mangos have fruited this season. I’ve heard it’s due to too much rain," I say.
“So we could get some on our tree next year?"
“Isn’t that amazing? A tree can make a mango…" I’m aware my realisation sounds like someone who’s just tried smoking pot for the first time.
"I’m taking you home. You’re freaking me out today. You’re a bit hyper," jokes Chris, glancing at me side-ways.
Comments (14)The Methodology of Tree Planting
Community Projects, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Trees, Water Harvesting — by Nick Huggins November 20, 2010
A footnote on the progress of the Southern Beaches Community Garden at Tugun in south east Queensland, Australia.
Just after planting
Our last planting of the food forest was held on the 4th August 2010. Since then we have had a very wet winter and spring this year in the lead up to the wet season in Queensland. So our food forest in now on its own and thriving.
Comments (11)
