On Monday, the kids and I drove out to SLO for a permaculture workshop. Prior to this, I had never heard the word permaculture. So, if you're thinking, "What the heck is permaculture??" you are not alone.
You can google permaculture and there are many definitions and philosophies that follow. Here is nice, simple one I found online from http://www.urbanharvest.org/:
Permaculture is a design system for sustainable living and land use. It came out of awareness about the limits of resources, especially the energy crises of the 1970’s. It started from the premise of looking at the redesign of agriculture using ecological principles, therefore it combined two words permanent and agriculture in one word permaculture. Its principles extended out from that to encompass the redesign of the whole society, thus combining the words permanent and culture.
Permaculture is an ecological, holistic and sustainable design system and philosophy for human living spaces. It is a viable method for finding sustainable solutions to modern problems. It has been successfully used around the world to maximize food production, regenerate springs, cool homes without air conditioning, transform lives and reduce pollution, to name a few. The essence of Permaculture is summed up by 3 ethics:
· Care of the Earth
· Care of the People
· Share the Surplus
Permaculture is a design system for sustainable living and land use. It came out of awareness about the limits of resources, especially the energy crises of the 1970’s. It started from the premise of looking at the redesign of agriculture using ecological principles, therefore it combined two words permanent and agriculture in one word permaculture. Its principles extended out from that to encompass the redesign of the whole society, thus combining the words permanent and culture.
Permaculture is an ecological, holistic and sustainable design system and philosophy for human living spaces. It is a viable method for finding sustainable solutions to modern problems. It has been successfully used around the world to maximize food production, regenerate springs, cool homes without air conditioning, transform lives and reduce pollution, to name a few. The essence of Permaculture is summed up by 3 ethics:
· Care of the Earth
· Care of the People
· Share the Surplus
A blurb from our workshop coordinators running the
"Skills For the New Millennium Tour":
"The improved Earth Activist Training (EAT) Permaculture Demonstration Bus (Permibus II) is on the road, visiting communities nationwide, in order to offer you and your community practical skills to help you wrest control of your life from corporate hands. The PermiBus is a 36-foot mobile permaculture demonstration project in progress; complete with solar power, greywater system, herb garden, composting toilet, three dogs, a clutch of chickens, and a box of worms.??? Our goal? To teach practical skills that make you and your community more environmentally and economically sustainable."
For more info on learning about how to live more "green," you can visit them at http://www.permibus.org.
**I always feel like I'm advertising when I publish some of these posts, but when I think something is cool or important, I want others to benefit too. :)
We started our workshop making seed balls. The idea is to mix clay, compost, and a variety of local seeds into balls. You can keep these seeds in your car, and when you see an empty lot around your town or city, toss a couple balls into it. The clay protects the seeds, and the compost works as its nutrients. When the rain comes it will wash away the clay, leaving the compost and seeds to grow. Just a cool way to give back. Some people throw seed balls in the spring and actually go back in the fall and harvest what they tossed. :) We took home 9 seed balls and the boys enjoyed tossing them around around apartment complex (not sure that was the real intent, but they wanted to have them close to see if anything happened)!
"The improved Earth Activist Training (EAT) Permaculture Demonstration Bus (Permibus II) is on the road, visiting communities nationwide, in order to offer you and your community practical skills to help you wrest control of your life from corporate hands. The PermiBus is a 36-foot mobile permaculture demonstration project in progress; complete with solar power, greywater system, herb garden, composting toilet, three dogs, a clutch of chickens, and a box of worms.??? Our goal? To teach practical skills that make you and your community more environmentally and economically sustainable."
For more info on learning about how to live more "green," you can visit them at http://www.permibus.org.
**I always feel like I'm advertising when I publish some of these posts, but when I think something is cool or important, I want others to benefit too. :)
We started our workshop making seed balls. The idea is to mix clay, compost, and a variety of local seeds into balls. You can keep these seeds in your car, and when you see an empty lot around your town or city, toss a couple balls into it. The clay protects the seeds, and the compost works as its nutrients. When the rain comes it will wash away the clay, leaving the compost and seeds to grow. Just a cool way to give back. Some people throw seed balls in the spring and actually go back in the fall and harvest what they tossed. :) We took home 9 seed balls and the boys enjoyed tossing them around around apartment complex (not sure that was the real intent, but they wanted to have them close to see if anything happened)!
Mixing the clay and compost
Our seeds
Brad's first seed ball
Then the kids learned all about chickens. This chicken was really funny. He would lay down and let the kids rub his belly. Ben asked if he could pull out one of his feathers and take it home. They said, "No."
The workshop ended with a funny Permaculture-Puppet Show featuring the evil Omni Corp taking over the land and using up all the natural resources. The villagers had to band together with their solar power, wind mills, and gardening techniques to learn to be self-sustainable. Very cute.
We also got a tour of the bus where this family of three lives and travels around to communities. We learned a little about solar power, composting, and other energy saving tips. The boys especially liked the bunk beds in the back, and the 3 German Shepherds! Afterwards, we played at the park.
This organization provides this service completely free of charge because they want everyone to be able to receive this information. Very cool that people are out there like this. We don't need to do anything drastic. In fact, the permaculture community encourages small, gradual changes. If we all just did a little here and there to save energy, water, and other resources, it would lead to HUGE changes. We are putting our thinking caps on here to see what we can do to make our own contribution. Our community garden is a start. We also have decided to recycle more (even though there is no green bin here at our apartments, and it is more of an effort), and take shorter showers. Any other thoughts? I'd love to here what everyone else is doing to go a little more "green"!
1 comment:
Wow, this looked fun and very educational! I would love to check it out!! Our efforts of going green is we don't use plastic bags when we grocery shop. We have our reusable bags in the car ready for when we go shopping. We also do not buy plastic water bottles(unless we are camping or family is visiting). We each have our sippy cups as I call them.:)
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