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
Abundance on a Dry Land: Water Crisis or Run-off Crisis? Harvesting Solutions
In California and other regions affected by drought, agriculture is suffering from a lack of water and farms are being abandoned at an alarming rate. Fortunately, some people have developed solutions to capture the rains that DO fall. In many dry regions around the world, land restoration helps water penetrate healthy soils and in turn increase crop yields.
Even in dry areas, water which typically might run off, can be harvested and stored in tanks, ponds and swales. By using swale systems, gabions, biodiversity, mulching, pioneer trees, animals both wild and domestic, check dams, fruit forests, keyline plows, compost teas and many other methods, it is possible to turn the soil into a large sponge, and design new productive landscapes.
Abundance on a Dry Land explores the work of Erik Ohlsen, Geoff Lawton and other growers, permaculture designers and educators, showing how intentional design can benefit both humans and nature. 52 mins.
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 email nwperma@gmail.com or call 503-449-8077
As American food nears a state of crisis, INGREDIENTS explores a thriving local food movement where community, food-safety, and flavor are commonplace. Traveling across the United States, from the urban food deserts of Harlem to the abundant Willamette Valley, INGREDIENTS, is a journey that reveals the people who are bringing good food back to the table, and the myriad ways we all can eat better. It empowers and sparks the joy of discovery in creating a healthier, more sustainable model for living and eating well in a world in need of balance. 67 mins.
Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share: Free Film and Lecture Series
Held in Roseburg on most third Fridays of the month
@ First United Methodist Church, 1771 West Harvard, Roseburg, Oregon.
For more information call Diana Cason, 941-735-0452, or 541-459-3938
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.
Wednesday evenings, starting June 8th, 2015, 6:30pm-9:30pm, @ First United Methodist Church, 1771 West Harvard, Roseburg, Oregon. Instructor, Diana Cason, call 941-735-0452, or 541-459-3938 for questions or registration
Voices of Transition presents innovative, inspirational – and concrete – solutions to the food security challenges we humans increasingly face. It explores agroforestry models in France, permaculture and TRANSITION TOWN initiatives in England and the organic farming revolution in Cuba.
By focusing on immediate profit and ignoring millennia of experience in agronomy, agroindustry is responsible for the unprecedented erosion of soils now occurring around the world. Add climate change and dwindling natural resources to the picture, and it would appear that even societies in the Global North are no longer safe from famines. Voices of Transition is a film which is optimistic but clear-sighted. It makes clear that these current and impending crises are, in fact, positive challenges! 65 minutes.
After the film, Kris Hikari will share how Friends of Trees is working in Salem to build a sense of community through the simple act of planting trees together. She will touch on the many values of the “urban forest” and what we can all contribute to the growth and health of this commonly overlooked natural resource. Kris will also share upcoming opportunities to plant with Friends of Trees, and additional resources to get involved with the stewardship of Salem’s urban forest.
Friends of Trees is the northwest’s biggest and longest standing community forestry non-profit that plants trees with local volunteers throughout the Willamette Valley and into Vancouver, Washington. Our mission is to bring people together to plant and care for city trees and green spaces across the northwest. Over the course of the past 26 years, we have planted over a half a million trees and native shrubs with the help of tens of thousands of community members. FOT currently plants in over 20 municipalities, and is in it’s 4th planting season in Salem. Our efforts are largely driven by water quality goals, but also aim to increase shade and natural beauty in the city, reduce the urban “heat island effect”, and to improve urban livability overall.
Kris Hikari is a passionate steward of urban environments for the well-being of both people and wildlife. As Regional Programs Manager with Friends of Trees, she helps establish tree planting programs in new communities throughout the Willamette Valley. Kris is an ISA-certified arborist and has worked in the natural area restoration and urban forestry fields for over seven years. She holds a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Oregon, and previously studied geography of the Pacific Northwest at Portland State University. In her free time, Kris is an avid gardener, birder, naturalist, and bike builder.
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, LifeSource Natural Foods, and private donations from people in our community. Thank you for your support!
Design your own lower maintenance garden and reap the benefits for years to come
Permaculture Essentials for the Pacific NW
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.
Let’s build resilience, save money and energy, save water, and feed our communities now.
Come join one of our latest classes!
Monday evenings, starting September 28th, 2015, 6:30pm-9:30pm, @ Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Salem, 5090 Center St NE, Salem. Instructor, L. June, call 503-449-8077 for questions or registration
Presented by the NW Permaculture Institute. Our instructors and staff studied permaculture with world renowned permaculture designer & instructor, Geoff Lawton, of PRI, Australia, and his students. We offer classes at low rates, as well as free film and lecture series to further educate our students and the community. NWPI works with homeless and low income families to provide education to those who would otherwise be unable to take a permaculture course. Scholarships are available on a limited basis for those with financial need. Contact us for information on applying, or on donating to our scholarship fund, or to support our free film and lecture series, nwpermacultureinstitute.org
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!
Don’t delay! This will be the first time in three years that Dave Jacke’s Design Intensive will be taught in the U.S. Scholarships available, see below.
Edible Ecosystems Emerging:
Food Forestry for the 21st Century
Forest ecosystems exhibit many beneficial properties we humans would be wise to emulate in our culture, agriculture and horticulture:
They maintain, renew, fertilize, and propagate themselves without human inputs.
They build, store, and conserve clean air, clean water, nutrients, soil quality, and biodiversity.
They exhibit stability, resilience, and adaptability.
These qualities emerge from the dynamics of the forest as a whole system, not from any one or more of the elements that comprise the forest alone. To design productive edible ecosystems that express these same qualities, we must understand forest structures, functions, patterns, and processes, and use this knowledge wisely.
In this nine-day intensive course, you will dive deeply into the vision, theory, and practice of designing wholesome, dynamic, and resilient edible ecosystems using temperate deciduous forests as models. Dave Jacke and his teaching team will offer lectures, site walks, and experiential exercises to help you understand how the architecture, social structure, underground economics, and successional processes of natural forests apply to the design of edible ecosystems of all kinds. You’ll learn a variety of ecological design processes while designing a range of food-producing ecologies at the Feathered Pipe Ranch, while also providing detailed polyculture designs for an actual Public Edible Forest Garden Park, currently in the installation phase in Helena, MT. We’ll also engage with issues of garden management, economics, and the deep paradigmatic shifts required to succeed at co-creating “humanatural” landscapes and cultures. You will leave inspired and empowered to design food forests at home for yourself, and your friends, neighbors and clients.
INSTRUCTORS :
Dave Jacke is the lead author of the award winning two-volume book Edible Forest Gardens. Dave has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run his own ecological design firm –Dynamics Ecological Design in Greenfield, MA – since 1984. Dave is an engaging and passionate teacher of ecological design and permaculture, and a meticulous designer. In addition to extensive teaching, he has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in the many parts of the United States, as well as overseas. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Simon’s Rock College (1980) and a M.A. in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design (1984). Read more at http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/.
Juliette Olshock, M.S., M.Ed., studied sustainable agriculture and permaculture design at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and completed a permaculture apprenticeship at the Finger Lakes Permaculture Institute. She is an adjunct professor with Chatham University’s Food Studies program, teaching about sustainable agriculture, permaculture and forest garden design. She was instrumental in designing and implementing the Hazelwood Food Forest. She co-founded Pittsburgh Permaculture, LLC, an ecological design and education firm. Read more at http://pittsburghpermaculture.org/.
Jessica Peterson and Caroline Wallace founded Inside Edge Design, LLC, based in Helena, Montana. Together with Dave Jacke, Inside Edge Design co-created the design for the 6th Ward Garden Park, the first public forest garden to utilize Dave’s design framework. They continue to work on the Park’s planning and implementation while offering a range of professional ecological and social design services. Read more about Inside Edge Design at www.insideedgedesign.com.
Accommodations include three organic, locally-sourced meals a day and use of all amenities – bathhouse, sauna, hot tub, as well as the Feathered Pipe Ranch facilities and grounds
OUR EDUCATION SITE: FEATHERED PIPE RANCH – Our education site is one of the oldest centers for conscious living and yoga retreats in the country. Surrounded by millions of acres of forest and mountains, your intensive experience delving into edible forest design systems will be complemented by the ability to “lounge, stretch, laugh, stroll, and savor the gift of releasing everything you don’t need…” as the Feathered Pipe Ranch’s website so aptly describes.
There are numerous private or shared lodging options, from luxurious, chalet-style rooms to tents, tipis and yurts nestled in the surrounding forest. After course registration, we will contact you to confirm your lodging preference.
Fall is one of the most spectacular times to visit Montana. Days that are still warm and very cool nights are the norm. The fall colors, and the crisp clean air will be something you remember!
PAYING FOR THE COURSE – We have been able to reduce the cost of this course to $1,580-$1,880 on an income-based sliding scale and will still be able to offer scholarships.
SCHOLARSHIPS – Payments over $1,580 will be added to the existing scholarship fund! If you are in need of a scholarship, please submit a letter (as a .pdf, please) in which you answer the following questions to InsideEdgeDesignLLC@gmail.com:
Why do you want to take this course? What do you hope to get from it?
What do you plan to do with what you learn in this course? What are your hopes and dreams as a teacher of permaculture?
Are there specific areas on which you would like to focus your teaching, in terms of topic areas, audiences, regions of the country/world?
DEPOSIT AND PAYMENT IN FULL – A $500 deposit is required upon registration, with payment in full due by September 2, 2015. $250 of the deposit is non-refundable.
Scholarships available, see the website below for details.
Note, This is not a NWPI event, but rather an exciting opportunity we believe might interest our audience. All questions about the event should be directed to Inside Edge Design.
What does an environmentally friendly biodynamic food system capable of feeding everyone actually look like? A biodynamic revolution is sweeping India. HOW TO SAVE THE WORLD tells the story of marginal farmers across India who are reviving an arcane form of agriculture through the teachings of an elderly New Zealander many are calling the new Gandhi. The outcome of the battle for agricultural control may dictate the future of the earth. Narrated by Peter Coyote, Film 103 mins.
After the film we will be joined by Adam McKinley, who will discuss his experience using biodynamics in the Willamette Valley and answer general questions on biodynamics.
Adam McKinley has worked as a land steward and farmer at historic GeerCrest Farm, a local Non-Profit educational homestead, for the past three years. More recently, he has become involved with the Oregon Biodynamics Group. Adam also has experience annual and perennial production, as well livestock management, in Colorado and Hawaii.
Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share: Free Film and Lecture Series
Held in Salem every 4th Thursday @ 6:30pm (except Nov & Dec)
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.
NW Permaculture Institute 