Documentation for the Forest Garden Immersion Course 2009

The Forest Garden Immersion Course 2009 was a huge success, with 30+ people working to plant another 10,000 square feet of multifunctional forest garden at Camp Epworth. You can see photos at the FGIC09 Flickr group here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/fgic09/



During the course, our documentation team (led by Alice Lo) did an incredible job of articulating exactly what and where everything was planted - from the fruit trees to the herbaceous understory to the patch of king Stropharia mushrooms. To download a PDF file of the raw documentation notebook, click here.

This sort of documentation is rarely done for forest garden & permaculture plantings -- and is totally necessary if we are going to do any legitimate research into the productivity and low-maintenance of Edible Forest Gardens. To learn more about ongoing documentation efforts of forest gardens across the temperate climate biomes of the world, visit the Apios Institute and the official Edible Forest Gardens home page.

Stay tuned for upcoming Forest Garden Immersion Courses in the Northeast and around the world!!!

Epworth Forest Garden Designs

I've uploaded all the designs we've got of the 3 forest gardens at Epworth -- Feel free to download, print, and enjoy!

LITTLE FOREST GARDEN:


BIG FOREST GARDEN:


2009 FOREST GARDEN:





Plant species lists coming soon!

Congratulations Epworth PDC Graduates!!!

You all rock! Congratulations to everyone who presented their final permaculture designs and received their certificate! Here are some photos from the weekend.

Could someone post a photo of the whole class? And maybe an image of your certificate?

Go Ninja Turtles! Check out this post on my blog with some more suggestions of what to do after a PDC: 14 Things to do after a PDC

Assignments!

Assignments:

Complete a FINAL DESIGN of your project.
Use AT LEAST 11x17 paper, preferably 24x36.
The design can be colored or not. Colored pencils are best for final designs.
Include one DESIGN DETAIL, which highlights a specific aspect of your design. This could be a:
- Zones of Use overlay
- Detailed plant list
- Water systems
- Earthworks
- Budget & Implementation Plan
- Section view of one part of the design
- etc.

As always, if it's stressing you out, STOP. This needs to be fun!!!

Meet with your Action Learning Guild ONCE. Review each other's final designs and give supprtive feedback.

GET READY FOR THE PARTY - remember, making fun of teachers highly encouraged.

Guests are welcome to the final design presentations and the party. Please email Joan if you plan to invite people ASAP!

-Anya

Resources & Assignment

Howdy All!

Here are some resources I promised during the class:

Links to view and download free USGS topographic (contour) maps of the whole country:
http://terraserver-usa.com/usgsentry.aspx?T=2&S=16&Z=18&X=52&Y=368&W=2

http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/usgs/maplocator/(xcm=r3standardpitrex_prd&layout=6_1_61_75&uiarea=2&ctype=areaDetails&carea=%24ROOT)/.do


Forest Garden Immersion Course: April 23-26 -- Tons of Forest Gardening Fun!!!
http://www.livingmandala.com/Living_Mandala/Forest_Garden_April_09.html

I told somebody I'd include a multi-functional permaculture "native" plant list:
http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/docs/Pc_native_plantlist.xls

And here's a great Earthworks article by Darren Doherty:
www.appleseedpermaculture.com/docs/DD_PCA_DamArticle.pdf

And here are this month's assignments.
PLEASE SEND ANYA AND I YOUR RESEARCH PAPER IF YOU HAVE NOT YET DONE SO!!!

Here is an article from the wall street journal on water :

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123483638138996305.html

quantification! ??

How can I find out how to quantify my (as yet untrialed) food production? Are there tables somewhere of "this plant on this much square feet will produce this many pounds?"

my research project outline

I'd love to get feedback on this! Resources, lack of clarity, questions, whatever you've got. Thanks!

HOW CAN I GROW MORE FOOD USING VERTICAL SPACE?

The problem: I rent half a two-family house. My gardening space is limited to: one bed (6' wide) aligned east-west on the south side of the house (25' long), and one bed (6' w) aligned north-south on the east side of the house (12' l). The south side also has a 25' open porch and ~6' x 3' of usable pavement.

Question: Are there ways to go beyond trellised vines and shrub or tree crops, and increase usable soil volume vertically?

Continue to research available material for relevant concepts

• Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke
• Planting Green Roofs and Living Walls by Nigel Dunnett and Noel Kingsbury
• Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal
• Gardening on Pavement, Tables, and Hard Surfaces by George Schenk
• All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew
• Espaliers and Vines for the Home Gardener by Harold Perkins
• Edible Buildings - benefits, challenges, limitations by James Petts, PDF
• "Little Homestead in the City" website
• further book, web research

Idea 1: Design "ladder" planter

• does it already exist? or something similar?

• how can I tie it in to other garden functions?

• vermiculture in bottom? (closer to kitchen than current compost bins)

• what materials? considerations: lightweight, durable, recycled, free/cheap

• is pallet wood feasible?

• could we create something similar with a box spring mattress and wire screen?

• how will screen stand up to time and moisture? Is there something else, lightweight?

• what planting material? - sphagnum moss? - and? -ratio sphagnum moss to compost to soil?

• how best to layer planting material?

• control of moisture - placement under roof drip? too much too fast in storms?

• can we make it in sections so easily (seasonally) movable?

• will it go in the "hoop house" on end of porch? will things continue to grow?

• what needs to be tweaked? angle of ladder? width? depth of "step"

Analyze expected niche and choose desired plants

• east side, south side

• depth of soil, root patterns

• edible forest gardens

• one green world

• fedco seeds, trees
  

Build several ladder planters, place in different locations and record growth, yields

Idea 2: Build a 7'x7' "hoop house" on south-east end of porch.

Learn more about hoop houses - check with Daniel Botkin - what can I expect?

• will ladder planters go in hoop house? necessary?

• water containers (water for temperature maintenance) - durable, recycled, free/cheap
• summertime hoophouse could heat compost
  

Idea 3: Some trellises, vines on strings, or espaliered small trees along porch.

• decide which and what

Integrate all 3 ideas.

resource for further exploration - Yestermorrow

A resource for further skills, building, design, practical/technical, at any level - people I know who've gone rate it 2 thumbs up!!
http://www.yestermorrow.org/

This design is particularly interesting because it blends community space with urban farming.

http://landscapeandurbanism.blogspot.com/2008/02/ps-1-work-architecture-company.html

Here is a blog I found a while ago with some interesting posts involving urban landscape.

http://landscapeandurbanism.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html

Homework fun

Here are the homework assignments for February. Please focus in on the research project, but don't neglect the design project.

- Complete Research project!
1-2 page summary of research, including their name, class name, title, text, max 2 images/diagrams, and resources/references for more info. Papers must be emailed to both Anya and Ethan by the next class.

- Prepare Research Presentations!
Minimum 2x3 ft poster graphically communicating their work. Other, more creative presentations encouraged -- but folks will be moving around and half the room will be presenting at a time, so don't do something that needs the whole space or would require everyone else to be quiet.

This is one clear place where we learn from each other!

- Do site Analysis & Assessment for 2-3 more elements of scale of permanence - your choosing. remember to refer to useful topic checklist in binders!

- Meet with ALG once.

Any questions, comments, concerns please email me or Ethan.

Can't wait to see you soon!

-Anya

FYI

Check this out:

http://www.foodnotlawns.net/

International seed-swap day is January 31st!

If you have seeds to swap, feel free to bring them in this month or next month and trade them during breaks for other seeds, back rubs, design help, future favors, whatever.

If you're interested but haven't tried saving seed yet, Ken Greene of the Hudson Valley Seed Library will be joining us in March, and he's a wealth of knowledge on the topic, and seed activism in the area! I'm sure he would love to hear that we've already done some of our own seed saving and exchanging!

Hope you're well,
Anya

Fellow-learners :

A few things as we go into our third weekend together in the new year:

please sign your names to your posts. I'm enjoying getting to know you, and love getting to know your internet personas as well!

Also, when you post, type in a few (or many) labels for your post in the box right under the posting box where I am typing right now. use one-word or appropriate two-word labels for anything and everything in your label. Look through some of the entries below and you'll see examples of how to do it. That way, we can search entries by label and find what we're looking for. If you're cool with it, one of the labels should be your name.

If you haven't gotten me your goals yet, bring a print-out to class tomorrow, and I'll try to get to them before we part ways on Sunday.

Also, please bring in your overlays and maps! I look forward to seeing those, though we will not be collecting them. If you want me or Rafter to look over your overlays and give you feedback, please talk to us during class.


I'm looking forward to seeing you all soon and hope this new year is happier and brighter than the last, and filled with learning and inspiration.

-Anya

PS - sorry this is so late.

Topographic model of my site

Hi all! I wanted to post up pictures of a topographic model of my site that I made during the ice storm that kept us bored for a few days... We printed a big topographic map of the property and cut out and labeled each elevation line. I then traced and cut out each level of elevation in foam board and glued it all together. The next thing was to paint in the natural water flow of the site, you can see the large pond that is painted in and the stream that flows into it from the rest of the property. The edges of the model are the two roads that border the property. There isnt a key for the model yet, but this is a model of 50 acres of pine forest and pasture at the lower levels.

Great Video

http://static.videoegg.com/ted/flash/fullscreen.html?v=/ted/movies/PaulStamets-2008&cid=/ted/movies

(Sometimes) Stunning Images of Your Property

Head on over here:

http://maps.live.com/

And search for your address, then click on "Birds Eye View" if it's available. If it's not at your place, head to a nearby town you know and try out the Bird's Eye View -- pretty incredible!

Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be cheerful
Buddhism teaches that good cheer, rather than 'happiness', might be the key to beating winter blues

·
Ed Halliwell
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 20 December 2008 10.00 GMT
Article history
The next week or so will bring most of us a higher-than-usual number of wishes for our "happiness". Whether it's "Happy Christmas" (which seems to have eclipsed the more traditional exhortation to be "merry"), "Happy New Year", or the religion-neutral American import "Happy holidays", so many hopes for contentment can have the unintended effect of seeming like a reproach, especially if we are not feeling as chipper as the season appears to demand.
It is often claimed that the "festive" period is one of enhanced misery for many, with rates of depression soaring as people grapple with family strife or loneliness that is in stark contrast to social expectations. There is conflicting evidence on this – calls to helplines like the Samaritans do increase over the holidays, but the suicide rate tends to dip, at least until the New Year kicks in. Nevertheless, the common perception of widespread seasonal woe, even if anecdotal, suggests that the forced imposition of "happiness" on a particular time of year can have unintended consequences.
However, there is another, much more useful phrase for describing the potential of the holiday period – "the season of good cheer". Whereas the word happiness implies an end state, the result of causes and conditions over which we may have little control, cheerfulness is volitional, a deliberate decision to be good-spirited. Indeed, it may be especially appropriate to rouse "good cheer" at times – such as midwinter – when outer circumstances seem wretched and we are more likely to feel downcast.
The value in distinguishing between "happy" and "cheerful" was underlined by the Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. Trungpa was hugely influential in bringing Buddhism to the west in the 20th century, not least because of his precise and profound understanding of the English language and his ability to apply it in expounding Buddhist principles. He used to make a point of wishing people a "cheerful birthday" or a "cheerful new year", emphasising that we can make a decision to connect and identify with our basic wellbeing (also known as Buddha-nature), even when we are in the midst of suffering.
By making a conscious decision to be cheerful, including when we are in pain, we diminish our identification with unhappy circumstances and strengthen our confidence that we are not entirely at their mercy. This brings us choice – perhaps not over the circumstances themselves, but over how we relate to them. If we choose to respond with cheerfulness, we not only stand a better chance of weathering the storm, but we are subtly strengthening our ability to deal constructively and positively with life's inevitable insults.
I've learned a little of this through my own experience. During an almost-three year bout of depression and anxiety, I became stuck in negativity, digging myself further and further into a pit of despair. In an attempt to understand my gloom, I dove right into it – unfortunately this just strengthened my habitual tendency towards seeing the dark side of things, entrenching my sense of self as a "depressed" person, which as a result I continued to be. It's only when I learned first how to accept rather than fight than my mood, then to detach from it, and then finally to actively cultivate its reverse, that I was able to recover. I still have a predisposition towards melancholy, but by applying cheerfulness even, or rather especially, when I least feel like it, these days depression seems to overtake me far less often and for shorter periods.
The acceptance part of the process is important – cheerfulness should not be confused with the sometimes-nauseating "everything's-going-to-be-alright" approach that positive thinking gurus often appear to advocate. The purpose of cheerfulness isn't to deny that life is sometimes shit, it's that we aren't dependent on the happiness that comes from circumstances in order to find ways to wonder at it – as one Buddhist elder once asked me: "Rather than just liking the smell of roses, or hating the smell of manure, perhaps you could start appreciating that you have a nose?"
Wishing cheerfulness on others is a simple way of spreading what in Buddhism are known as "the four immeasurables" – love, compassion, equanimity and joy. Such a wish is not only expressing a desire for people to be happy, but that they might have the tools to cultivate a sense of wellbeing independent of whatever pains and pleasures they experience during the winter holiday season, or at any other time. And that, to me, seems like a wish worth making.

JanG's Goals Articulation

Intro/Context:
This garden is designed for Jim and Anne Marie Treger and their three sons, Brian, Andrew and Charlie. Jim is an investment banker with J. P. Morgan and Anne Marie is charismatic, high-energy community organizer and environmental activist.
The garden design fully permeates the entire property and its paths, play areas and contemplative spaces are oriented to accommodate the flow of activities between indoors and outdoors. The garden is 60% shaded from mature forest borders; the lawn in the front of the house and wooden deck in the back of the house receive the most sun.
Furthermore, this edible forest garden is situated in the middle of a slope; the water run off from the top of the hill streams through the back yard and pools up in the back yard of the neighbor below. This garden is designed to catch all that wonderful water-energy, to heal erosion and to restore the soil.

Goals Articulation

This garden is a welcoming and comfortable place for hosting parties, events, workshops and tours:
---Spontaneous teaching and learning happens
---Visitors are inspired to plan and implement their own gardensVisitors are inspired to retain
pc designers to implement and teach
This garden is kid planned and kid played:
---A spacious and rugged play area; nothing off limits,
---Flexible and resilient plantings.
---Favorite edibles are incorporated in the design;
---Blueberries and raspberries are lavishly cultivated.
---Awesome variety of fruits, nuts and vegetables are introduced.
---boys’ play set is nested and accented with edible vegetation. Comfortable seating
constellations provide grandparents a place to relax and watch children play.
This garden design is a comprehensive water catchment system that absorbs and stores
and distributes all available water and eliminates erosion and achieves 100% on-site rain
water retention:
---A series of catchments and terraces along the high side of the property slow and spread
all the runoff from the lots above.
---Water that now crosses driveway surface (freezes in winter) is caught in rain-barrel
above driveway. The aged asphalt of the driveway is perferated in some artistic way,
custom designed “grass paveer”.
---Roof top vegetation absorbs rain water and any overflow is directed to ponds and swales.
---Soil is rehydrated, restored and held in place by plants and understory trees.
---Wild mushrooms and mosses love to volunteer in this garden especially on
SE side of house where shade and moisture are predominant.

This garden meets all its needs and provides excess for family and community:
---Fresh vegetables, nuts, fruits, herbs and mushrooms are harvested and distributed
to family, friends and community.
---Creates soil by composting on siteRestores soil nutrients by planting comfreys,
vetches and legumes
---Fruit and nut trees in sunny locations, as well as vegetables,
---Mushrooms and mosses are invited to grow in the shade and moisture of the
northeast side of the house.
This garden is a predominantly self-restoring and self-maintaining ecosystem.
---It is easy and inexpensive to maintain and becomes more stable and diverse over time.
---This garden asks question, “What if I do nothing here?
---This garden demonstrates the principle, “Make least change for greatest possible effect.”
---Persistent, hardy adaptable attractive in all seasons
---Thoroughly utilize deck and roof top as zone 1 and primary sunny area.
---Deck and trellis provide vertical growing space for climbing perennials
(kiwi) and annuals (beans and peas)
---Leggy, old shrubs, suffering from malnutrition, are replaced by beautiful,
edible shrubs. Old shrubs that can be pruned and revitalized are incorporated
back into the design where possible. Problems are solutions.
---Functional interconnections and redundancies are demonstrated.
---This garden produces no waste; waste is transformed into value.

This garden inspires a persistent and expanding pcd awareness/activist movement;
a fundamental mindshift that transforms private and public landscapes:
---Forests are liberated from lawnmowers and leaf-blowers.
---Ecotones and transitional areas, spaces-between and gap-moments are noticed
and valued as cradles of life, fresh beginnings and enlightening opportunities,
as well as great places to grow delicious food.
---Plants working together in guilds form an elegant a continuous spiraling system
of pathways, open spaces and perennial, edibleforest habitats

This garden is a radiant mandhala that magnetizes neighbors and community leaders:
---Inspires teachers and preachers, politians and municipal employees to design and implement
perennial edible forest suburban habitats for the benefit of all life on earth, visible and
invisible, present and future.
---Heals our fears of the unknown and our fears of impermanence, calms and clarifies our
journey through life and death.
---Herbal medicines are cultivated and studied.
---This garden draws attention and yet plays well with neighboring landscapes.
---Radiant spiraling and interacting patterns breath in and out of the very center of the house
(which happens to be a kitchen with a skylight) through windows and doors, along garden
paths and play areas and beyond.
This garden inspires and invites families and friends into cooperative ventures designing
and implementing gardens in and around homes, schools, places of works, and public areas:
---Invite pcd teachers to come and speak and facilitate a multitude of pcd classes and
full curriculums in our area and beyond
---Many watershed associations visit this garden and form unified and coordinated bio-regional
watershed communities that help trigger off a national Greenbelt Movement (Wangari Maathai)
bringing us closer to the Great Turning.
---Governors visit this garden.
---President Obama visits this garden.

This garden demonstrates the authentic nutritional, political, community and universal
values of pcd and inspires transformative economies and enlightening societies.
---Individuals and organizations invest money in implementing designs and programs
that are centered on the ethics and principles of pc.
---Expands and multiplies opportunities for engaging in right livelihood abound.
---Plays well with others; respects the jobs and needs of conventional landscape maintenance crew,
companies and public-works crews; without pontificating, by example and positive, cooperative,
realistic, mutually beneficial exchanges of skills, materials, equipment, kindness and humor.
---This garden support independent heirloom seed-growing movement
(purchase seeds from Hudson Valley Seed Library)

This garden helps to heal our illusion of separation from the natural world.
---This garden provides a circular space that can accommodate 20 or so people in a
Council of All Beings (Joanna Macy)
---An ongoing process of meditation, contemplation and practice shapes and organizes
this garden.
---Feminine space all accommodating without bias, quiet and still, laughing and singing
---Distinctive individuals in a perennial multicultural edible forest dance.
---This garden relaxes and blends time and space.
---This garden settles and cradles the house and family activities
---Subtle, understated, lavish and surprising
---Whimsical, confident
---Spicy and sweet and good to eat
---Edgy, edgy and edgy
---This garden rocks!

FREEDOM FROM HABITUAL TENDENCIESThere are all kinds of habitual tendencies that are connected with holding on to what we are. People get divorced because they think they might find a better mate. People change restaurants because they think they might get cheaper and better food. The habitual patterns of ego work that way. The notion of enlightenment is a sense of freedom from those patterns. And the way to attain that freedom is by means of the sitting practice of meditation. In sitting practice, we look at our minds, and we maintain good posture. When we combine body and mind that way, we find ourselves emulating the Buddha -- the way to be properly. Then we begin to develop sympathy toward ourselves, rather than just holding on.

"Personally speaking I have never been put off. I never give up at all. I am not going to give up the cause of peace that might occur in this world. And I am looking forward to it in some sense. The more chaos happens, I feel more possibility of creating greater peace, and when I see more aggression, more chaos, I feel more encouraged. That is, my smile is never diminished. I always smile."
The Druk Sakyong, speaking to a Nova Scotia audience in 1982
It says I’m easy. I’ve arrived.
humorous and whimsical
sacred space

Ocean of Dharma Quotes of the WeekDecember 21, 2008 THE SUN IS ABOUT TO RISEThe Great Eastern Sun is the sun that is fully risen in your life. It is the sun of wakefulness, the sun of human dignity. It is Great because it represents upliftedness and the qualities of openness and gentleness. You have an uplifted sense of posture or place in your world, which we call having good head and shoulders. It is East because you have a smile on your face. East is the concept of dawn. When you look to the East, first thing in the morning, you see light coming from the East, even before the sun rises. So East is the smile you have when you wake up. The sun is about to rise. Fresh air is coming with the dawn. So the sun is East and it is Great.From "Facing Yourself," in CONQUERING FEAR, forthcoming from Shambhala Publications, Fall 2009.

I been aimlessly wandering (a very profound and respectible activity) the web with Paul Krafel.

Can Goals Articulation be written entirely in upward spirals language? Yes, of course.

http://www.chrysalischarterschool.com/Paul/Paul/HOPE.html



So much love and appreciation for you all, for the opportunity to be in community practicing upward spirals and "relational trust" (Parker Palmer: Center for Courage & Renewal) interviewed: http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/2008/repossessing_virtue-palmer/

In any words, language, way beyond words.

Cheerful holy days for all,

Jan G