Permaculture Essentials for the Pacific NW, 36 hour class
Build resilience, save money and energy, save water, and feed your family or community.
Come join our latest classes!
12 classes – $15 each (If all classes are paid in advance, course discounted to $160)
Permaculture is “Earth Care, People Care, and Return of Surplus,” combining traditional and innovative methods that are sustainable and energy saving, enriching to the soil and all life. Design a system to feed your family, or complete additional short classes to earn your certificate and work as a consultant.
Permaculture Essentials for the Pacific NW covers permaculture history and ethics and goes into depth on the core concepts for creating sustainable systems by observing connections and capturing energy. Explore the energy transactions of trees, the roles of fungi, and the many functions of living soil. Learn pH, mineral availability, and enriching your soil with worm beds, weeds as repair tools, and compost fixing strategies. Study landscape effects on climate and temperate climate design for your home and landscape from kitchen gardens to main crops and food forests. This course prepares you to design a sustainable system for your yard or small farm in the Pacific NW.
Saturdays, starting September 10th, 2016, 10am-1pm, @ Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, 5090 Center St. NE, Salem, Oregon. Instructor, L. June, email nwperma at gmail dot com, or call 503-449-8077 for questions or registration
Gardens of Destiny
A documentary about food security, the importance of living seed banks, genetic diversity, and local solutions to surviving climate change
Has North America taken too many risks with its agriculture? In Gardens of Destiny we meet Dan Jason, an organic gardener on Salt Spring Island, on the Canadian west coast. Jason is the head of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada, a network of gardeners from around the world working to preserve as much plant diversity as possible. This film explores Dan’s garden and seed world and investigates with several sustainable development specialists such issues as genetic engineering, terminator seeds and the pitfalls of industrial agriculture in North America. Film 63 minutes.
Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share: Free Film and Lecture Series
Held in Salem every 4th Thursday @ 6:30pm (except November and December)
Salem 4th Thursday events include potluck & discussion
@ Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, 5090 Center Street. NE, Salem
For more information: 503-449-8077
This event is made possible by support from the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, Life Source Natural Foods, and private donations from people in our community. Thank you for your support!
Join us on June 26th for a finger food potluck and an extraordinary film. How can Sepp Holzer farm fish, livestock, vegetables and herbs, a wide variety of fruits including lemons high in the Alps? No weeding, no watering, no annual plowing. The Agro Rebel explores the unusual, sustainable, energy and time saving, farming methods developed by Austrian farmer, Sepp Holzer. Come join us for food, film and discussion. Questions? Call 503-449-8077
Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share: Free Film and Lecture Series, presents, The Agro Rebel: Permaculture in the Salzburg Alps, film 45 mins. Finger food potluck and discussion. Thursday, June 26th @ 6:30pm. Showing at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, 5090 Center Street NE, Salem, 97317
Special Thanks to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem for the use of the beautiful space, and to Life Source Natural Foods for the potluck beverages. Additional thanks to Marion Polk Food Share and the Straub Environmental Learning Center for helping to promote our events.
A new PDC starts this Saturday. Below is a list of class subjects by date. You can pick to attend individual classes that match your interests, or take the full course and become a Permaculture Designer. Call if you have questions: 503-449-8077
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Permaculture Design Certificate Course Syllabus, Summer 2014
Saturdays 10am – 2pm, bring brown bag lunch. In the event of class cancellation, all class dates will move forward one date.
June 14th – Class 1
Introduction to permaculture. Human past-present-future. Permaculture design philosophy. Holistic thinking. Key problems: soil erosion-deforestation-pollution. Ethics of permaculture: Earth care, People care, Return of surplus. Definitions of permaculture. Sustainability outcomes. History of permaculture. Permanent culture. Urban permaculture. Permaculture repair. Permaculture aid work. Permaculture in society. Permaculture as an holistic design. Introduction to Concepts and Themes. Sustainable systems. Hierarchy of soil creation in natural systems.
June 21st – Class 2
Concepts and Themes cont. Elements. Needs and products. The sun – the source of energy. Characteristics of natural ecosystems. Weeds-pioneers-niches. Weeds-fast tracking recovery by design techniques. Diversity leads to stability. Connections between elements. Positioning of elements. Use of natural resources. Energy, Edge opportunities. Capturing energy and extending entropy. Categories of resources. Dispersal of yield over time. Diversity of plants. Perennial food advantages. Diversity and security. Yield and energy inputs. Niches. Mollisonian permaculture principals.
June 28th – Class 3
Introduction to Methods. Analysis: design by listing characteristics of components. Slope. Orientation. Zone analysis. Sector analysis. Designing with zones. Zonal placement. Sectors. Outside energies effect on site. Listing possibilities. Selection of random assemblies.
July 5th – Class 4
Methods cont. Connecting elements. Simple efficiencies. Observation. Introduction to Pattern. Patterns in nature. Pattern forms. Fibonacci sequence. Formation of pattern. Working with nature and patterns. Scale and order of size. Order and form. Edge areas. Edge effect. Working with pattern design events.
July 12th – Class 5
Pattern cont. Looking for existing patterns. Translating pattern form. Re-patterning a river. Wind patterns. Pattern used for passing on knowledge. Pattern for productive form – the herbal spiral. Traditional use of pattern. Re-patterning society. The pit garden – banana circle. Edge to space relationships. Introduction to Climatic Factors. Using local knowledge. Broad climate zones: temperate, tropical, drylands. Orographic effect. Maritime effect. Continental effect. Rain shadow. Micro climate.
July 19th – Class 6
Climatic Factors cont. Landscape effects on climate. Climate analogues. Characteristics of major climate zones. Orographic features. Major landscape profiles: humid and arid. Minor landscape profiles: volcanic, high island, low island, flatlands, wetlands, coasts and estuaries. Fungal relationships.
July 26th – Class 7
Introduction to Trees. Temperature effects. How a tree interacts with rain. Fungi. Forests. Legumes as support species. Introduction to Water. Water storage on earth. Recharging landscape with water. Building a dam/pond. Valley dams. Building a keyway. Putting a pipe in a dam wall. Spillways. Calculating catchment. Types of dams/ponds. Position of dams in landscape. Duties of water. Sealing a dam. Approach to water.
August 2nd – Class 8
Introduction to soils. Collapsing soil fertility. Compost. Chemical agriculture. pH testing – acid vs. alkaline soils. pH of soil and availability of minerals to plants. Role of weeds. Ants. Soil fertilizer. Berkley method of 18 day compost. Fixing problems with compost.
August 9th – Class 9
Soils cont. Compost tea. Bio fertilizer. Mineralizing soils by feeding livestock. Worm farms. Introduction to earthworks. Water: stop-spread-and soak. Planning. Measuring. Timing. Terraces. Conture banks. Measuring with an A Frame. Surveying. Water pressure on soil particles. Cover crops. Transit level. Machines used in earthworks.
August 16th – Class 10
Earthworks examples. Introduction to climate design. Climate comparisons. House design: humid tropics. cool to cold humid climates, drylands. Energy use in the different climates. Garden design in the different climates.
August 23rd – Class 11
Climate design cont. Zone 2 food forest comparisons across climates. Comparing zone 2 main crop gardens. Comparisons of zone 3 across climates, Zone 4 comparisons in design over climates in farm forestry. Aquaculture example.
August 30th – Class 12
Introduction to Aquaculture. Productive elements. Chain of life in water design. Pond design. Shallow aquaculture. Food for fish. Aquaponics.
September 6th – Class 13
Introduction to Strategies of an Alternate Global Nation. Invisible structures. Ethical basis. Establishing community structures. Establishing a permaculture community group. Bioregional resilience. Definition of culture from the environment we live in. Community land development. Money economy. Money and finance. Setting up not for profit permaculture institutes.
NW Permaculture Institute 