Thursday, February 2
This track will demonstrate how the principles of permaculture can be applied to any environment, and at any scale, from urban settlements to individual homes, from farms to entire regions. It will draw upon lessons learned from applying permaculture design in a variety of contexts, and send participants away with a deeper understanding of what permaculture looks like in action.
AGENDA
| 9:00-9:15am |
Introductions |
9:15-9:45am
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Permaculture: Building Resilient, Local Communities World-Wide
Melissa Miles, Permanent Future Institute & Eastern PA Permaculture Guild
Since the early 1970s, the design science of Permaculture has grown from the ground up, becoming a strong, and resilient network of practitioners and groups of devotees located across the globe. Get a brief overview of the history of the movement, with its start in Australia, and its subsequent spread to places all around the world, including the Mid-Atlantic region of the US. Participants will be provided with information which will empower them to access resources and locate other members of this non-centralized network--both in their own communities, and in other regions throughout the world. |
| 9:45am-12:45pm |
Ecological Farms and Homesteads: Case Studies
Darrell Frey, Three Sisters Permaculture
Joel Cahalan, Wild Meadows Farm
Dave Jacke, Dynamics Ecological Design
Darrell Frey will present specific examples of integrating systems for efficient and innovative use of resources, including a study of the layout of the bioshelter and gardens at Three Sisters Farm and the integration of poultry in the bioshelter. We will also examine the management of habitat in the bioshelter and gardens to promote biodiversity and ecological stability on the farm.
Wild Meadows Farm manager Joel Cahalan will share challenges and successes from this three-year-old veganic permaculture farm, whose mission includes growing farm products, providing ecological design services and organizing experiential learning events. The operation includes a solar greenhouse, a “complete diet“ garden, woodland medicinals, mushroom production, education, and more.
Dave Jacke's homestead in rural New Hampshire offers a number of examples of permaculture in action, as do other homesteads he has either designed or helped create. We'll look at integrated water and wastewater systems, architectural design, and garden design.
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| 12:45-1:45pm |
Lunch |
| 1:45-4:45pm |
Designing Urban Ecosystems
Phil Forsyth, Philadelphia Orchard Project
Juliette Jones, Pittsburgh Permaculture
Dave Jacke, Dynamics Ecological Design
We have designed our current culture as if humans are separate from nature, and cities are the most extreme example of this belief. Yet, urban communities offer vast opportunities for design that creatively integrates people and nature in a robust, socially and ecologically complex way. Phil Forsyth will introduce the advantages of urban permaculture and the social aspects of ecosystem design, with examples from around the world and from his work with the Philadelphia Orchard Project. Juliette Jones will discuss the on-the-ground realities of food forestry in vacant lots and urban homesteading in tiny backyards in Pittsburgh. Dave Jacke will survey broadscale urban ecosystem possibilities with the Wellesley College "Edible Ecosystem Teaching Garden," social ecosystem design in Holyoke, MA, and integrated watershed design in Los Angeles. We've only just begun!
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| 4:45-5:00pm |
Wrap-Up and Final Questions |
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Presenters:
Joel Cahalan, Wild Meadows Farm
Joel Cahalan is a certified permaculture teacher and biointensive gardener who has helped teach courses on permaculture design, forest gardens, wild edibles and biointensive gardening. He manages the production aspects of Wild Meadows Farm and previously co-founded and helped manage a successful worker cooperative (thehubbikecoop.org). He dreams of a future in which all species are respected and valued and humans live in harmony with their home planet.
Darrell Frey, Three Sisters Permaculture
Darrell Frey, author of Bioshelter Market Garden: A Permaculture Farm, has been a permaculture practicioner, consultant and teacher since 1986. Darrell is owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm in Sandy Lake, PA. The bioshelter at Three Sisters is a 3000 sq ft. solar and wood heated greenhouse. Since 1989 the bioshelter and gardens at Three Sisters have provided herbs, flowers, plants and produce to customers in western Pennsylvania.
Phil Forsyth, Philadelphia Orchard Project
Phil Forsyth is a permaculture designer who serves as Orchard Director of the Philadelphia Orchard Project, a non-profit that has planted 29 community orchards in the city since 2007. Phil also operates Forsyth Gardens, a landscape design-build company that specializes in edible, ecological landscapes. Phil writes about urban farming for various publications and at phigblog.com.
Dave Jacke, Dynamics Ecological Design
Dave Jacke coauthored the award-winning two-volume book Edible Forest Gardens. After graduating from the Conway School of Landscape Design in 1984, he homesteaded in NH for number of years. He has designed gardens, homes, communities and farms throughout the US, as well as overseas. His main crops now: forest gardeners and permaculture teachers and designers.
Juliette Jones, Pittsburgh Permaculture
Juliette Jones studied sustainable agriculture and permaculture design at Slippery Rock University. She has worked with Permaculture experts Dave Jacke and Darrell Frey teaching courses on Edible Forest Gardening and Permaculture Design. She is currently teaching Growing Sustainably Lab for Chatham University's Food Studies program. Notable design experience includes design and installation of Pittsburgh's first food forest in Hazelwood, demonstration gardens for Phipps Conservatory and an edible garden for the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh.
Melissa Miles, Permanent Future Institute & Eastern PA Permaculture Guild
Melissa is an Environmental Biologist/Conservation Planner; a Permaculture Designer/Teacher; a sustainability and regenerative design consultant, ecological restoration practitioner and urban farmer. Melissa serves as the Organizer of the Eastern Pennsylvania Permaculture Guild, is the Director of The Permanent Futures Institute at Two Miles Micro-Farm--a peri-urban, micro-farm, and sustainability training center, located in Montgomery County, PA. Additionally, Melissa teaches classes at educational institutions in and around the Philadelphia Metro area on the subjects of sustainability, regenerative design, small scale agriculture and other related topics. |
