Some Notes from the August Meeting of the East Bay Permaculture Guild

Some Notes from the August Meeting of the East Bay Permaculture Guild

August 12th 7pm @ PLACE for Sustainable Living in Oakland, CA

BOOKS

-Vegetable Gardener's Guide to Permaculture 

--Christopher Shein 

PROJECTS

-PLACE for Sustainable Living in North Oakland is facilitating a place making project on the intersection where PLACE is located.  Look for their block party coming up on September 28th.  There will be a street mural painting and place building projects!

-In the Basque Country near Spain, visitor Ortzi Akizu Gardoki is co-creating a EcoPark called Ekogunea Ecopark.  Find more at ekogunea.net

-East Bay Co-Housing facilitator Raines Cohen just got back from 5 weeks touring European eco-villages; report backs and pictures to come

-Brennan will be facilitating earth bench and other natural building projects in San Francisco and needs volunteers; get in touch with him through www.earthbench.org to learn and volunteer on upcoming cobb, clay, straw, and plaster work projects 

EVENTS

-September? 6th, 7th, and 8th - ranch and farm-scale water development including springs, floating island, wetlands, etc. through David Cody

-Roberto Perez permaculture talks 

-Eric Toensmeir workshop coming up by Living Mandala

-Toby Hemenway teaching a course with Daly Acts in Petaluma 

--scholarships and work trades available 

---DalyActs.org 

---Toby Hemenway author of Gaia's Garden

NOTES ON PRESENTATION - REPORT BACK FROM ERIC TOENSMEIR WORKSHOP

-presenter has been working with Daly Acts 

--Daly Acts installed food forests at Petaluma City Hall; installed perennial polyculture; will be harvesting first Kiwi vines this year

-transforming problems into solutions

--lawns into gardens

---lawns waste water, resources (soil, space) 

---gardens create food, connections, diversity 

-mentioned Trathen's greywater system 

-MORE FOOD FORESTS INTO OUR URBAN SYSTEMS

--Occidental Arts and Ecology Center is far away 

---27 people took food forest workshop there 

---feeling of being grounded and safer there 

-a food forest is a garden modeled after a forest ecology 

-AGROFORESTRY 

--Eric Toensmeir is working with a corporation who is sequestering carbon, growing chestnuts, and coppicing them 

--Land Institute pioneering perennial food crops in Kansas 

-(lawns are the largest irrigated crop in the US!, second is corn)

--Sunflowers

--Wheat Germ

--Wheat Grass 

--Sorghum 

---perennializing these four crops

--we need nuts, fats, oils for a balanced diet 

-Eric Olson's permaculture skills center 

--sunflowers from Chevron action came from here

---organized by Urban Tilth 

COPPICING

-Black Locust is coppiced on a 6 year cycle

-looking for the diameter of pole you need for your use

--such as for tool handles, structure poles, etc. 

-indigenous practice (Tending the Wild?) 

WEBSITES

-Perennial Solutions: perennialsolutions.org 

--Eric Toensmeir has a website of plant guilds 

--"All Nitrogen Fixers are not Created Equal": article by Eric Toensmeir 

-Apios Institute: ApiosInstitute.org

-Plants For A Future: pfaf.org 

PLACE MAKING 

-BAY AREA PLACE MAKING WEBSITE is in the works!

-Placemaking Facilitation

--Ask the people in the neighborhood:

---What's the issue?

---What's the root problem of that issue?

---What's the basic solutions?

---How is that solution developed/embodied?

---What are the effects of solving that issue?