permaculture design certificate - day six...

Permaculture design certificate day six - microclimates, eco-building design, and keyline....


Keyline is one of those semi- mysterious yet commonsense, practical things that has become more associated with and integrated in permaculture courses. Keyline originated in the 1950s with P.A. Yeomans who developed a system of design principles and techniques to sustainably harvest, move and use and keep water in a landscape. It's a complex, wholistic and essential system of land management involving dam/water storage, swales, contour ploughing and more....

In most permaculture courses keyline is taught hands on - in the sandpit....

there's nothing like getting your fingers in a pile of sand to start to understand keyline.....

I found keyline a fascinating and exciting subject - and something I know that I will be looking into in greater detail in the future.... but I expect it may seem off-topic for the research I'm currently undertaking - I suspect I will be arguing otherwise - just as through my work I am essentially questioning the site and shape of knowledge, using the book as symbol and subject..... I am equally interested in knowledge of land(site) and usage so keyline both challenges and builds upon my experience on and with land.... what we 'know' about land and how we 'know' it mirrors that of any subject...

who knows - maybe this is the germination of a divergent branch in my practice..... 'keyline as art'......

hmmmmm

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permaculture design certificate - day five...

Day five of the PDC and we were back at the crossing learning all about water and patterns in nature and learning read the landscape...

As well as leading discussions on water, Phil Gall shared his ideas about really looking deeply (with all the senses) at the land.

 (above Phil is talking about the nature of indigenous grasses - and how they differ from introduced grasses...)

hard to miss the monitor lizard in the landscape! 

  

or the termite mound

 

 but its important to look very closely at all aspects of a scene - from macro to micro... (here beside the termite mound we found white ants in decomposing wood.... are these the same as the species in the mound?....well it remained undecided - correct identification of various ant species is quite difficult without a microscope -or so I was told - the thing I took away from the exercise is: never assume.... look, look again, and more and deeper.....)



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permaculture design certificate - day four...

Day four permaculture design certificate and we were out and about taking in the local (permy) sites. that meant a visit to four places, in various stages of permaculture implementation - from old timers like Chris and Bev... to stalwarts Bill and Carol.... the legendary Harry Black and then off to a new venture in Tilba Tilba....

Chris and Bev Frank's place (just up the road from 'the crossing')...

Chris and Bev have been pioneers in the district in numerous fields - mohair, meat rabbits, free range meat chickens... but perhaps this doggie is their greatest legacy - Chris and Bev are noted maremma sheepdog breeders (there's one helping out the group now...)

It was so lovely to visit the farm - I have been here years ago (waaaaaay back in the 1990s) and have known the Franks family since the 1970s. Chris speaks with great passion for the land and life on the farm... he's the real deal and a real character!


After a nice cuppa it was time to get the group on the road again....

Into Bermagui township and Bill and Carol Broadhead's 'urban' permaculture vegie garden....

Bill is another tremendous character... and another face from the past - waaaaaay back in the early 1980s, when Bill moved to the area with his family, he was my judo instructor (during my brief flirtation with the sport). Gosh this was turning out to be a trip down memory lane!

Bill is passionate about growing your own food free of icky stuff (pesticides, herbicides), and creatively responding to climate change and all the challenges ahead. His garden was an absolute inspiration (and I scored an invitation to return anytime to gather some seeds/cuttings/grand tales)

(ps that's our intrepid permy course leader above - John Champagne.... )

At Fairhaven (just a few kms out of Bermagui) Harry Black, a retired scientist and explorer (for lack of a better way of describing this extraordinary man), established a sub-tropical orchard in the 1980s.... Harry's garden is a thing of wonder - with custard apples, bananas, sapotes, and many other subtropical species that it's thought impossible to grow on the far south coast of NSW....

I meet Harry in the early 1990s - he was a constant at little markets around the area - I always seemed to be heading home with fruits of all types (he also grew amazing heritage-variety tomatoes). And the tales he told of some of his adventures (Harry ventured to the Antartic twice and led expeditions to the Himalayas) made every trip to the tiny markets he frequented an adventure....

Harry passed away in July.... so I found the sight of his hats on their pegs really quite poignant....

Harry's house and garden will be sold sometime in the next year and his amazing orchard may be lost forever (already many of the stone fruit in the orchard have died in the extended dry period.... and without supervision and loving attention its survival is on the line) Harry's family has given permission for folk (like the local permaculture peeps) to collect matter from the orchard to graft/strike new stock to at least keep some of his genetics in the area should the orchard be 'dozed under...

ahhhh me


Last stop for the day was a new and developing garden beside the highway at Tilba Tilba....

don't you just love the view to Najanuga - the rock formation in the background there.....


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permaculture design certificate - day three...

Day three began with a detour for me - off to moruya (60kms up the road from sams creek) to drop off 'scientia inflammatus' which has been shortlisted for the basil sellers art prize, then I quickly headed off to 'the crossing' to catch up with the gang.

Today it was all about practicalities - trees, shelterbelts, soil, and COMPOST! we all got down and dirty making a nice stack of collected material into a big compost mound - using layers of dried grass, woodchips, straw (dry carbon material); weeds, vege scraps (wet stuff!); acacia clippings (from black wattle which are a rich nitrogen source); rotted cow manure and some sprinkles of wood ash from the fires (for a little bit of potash). after stacking up the layers the pile was thoroughly watered then covered with a plastic tarp. In a couple of days the whole pile will be turned....

(this is hugh - our compost and tree man for the day - throwing more green stuff on the pile -
with a few friendly faces of other permy participants in the background)

permaculture design certificate - day two...

Day two - a bright and sunny spring morning and less stressful day (I've almost got a couple of names to faces....)

Today we rapidly moved through basics of ecology (and it WAS really basic); map reading (again - very very basic stuff - fortunately I know my time in the scouting movement has given me a bit better overview); methods of design (as applied to permaculture); and climate (in quite a bit of detail for local - meaning bega valley conditions)

view from just outside our room down toward some raised beds in construction, then onto the vege garden.....
further down the hill is stone fruit and onto the river flats and tidal river (myrtle creek) at the bottom of the hill

One of the most valuable, specifically permaculture aspects taken on board today had to do with creative thinking and zone and sector analysis.

 The idea of analysing and designing for zones is paramount in permaculture and is worth explaining  - albeit basically here - zones start with the house and move from the most intensive usage area to least intensive.... like this...

Zone 0 = the house and people living in it

Zone 1 = the vegetable garden, compost area, small livestock (eg chooks, ducks)... this is the area that will be visited everyday (or many times each day)

Zone 2 = the food forest orchard, poultry area... (the chicken shed is often sited between zone 1 & 2), ducks, geese grazing area

Zone 3 = cropping or commercial area (maybe fruit trees, corn, potatoes, etc... whatever grows well in the region), larger animals (goats, sheep, cattle, alpaca)

Zone 4 = forest cropping (woodlot, furniture trees), shelterbelt, windbreaks, fire retardant hedges, fooder crops (for animals), other useful plants (eg dye plants, fungi)

Zone 5 = natural systems = areas left untouched to protect wildlife, waterways and land

Already I'm rethinking personal garden/farm set ups (and I have been aware of permaculture zones previously).... and I'm thinking about how this same idea of zoning may apply to other systems or modes of thinking/creating.....


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permaculture design certificate - day one

 Day One of the Permaculture Design Certificate course kicked off in misty weather at The Crossing out the back of Bermagui...

 this is our 'classroom' for the next couple of weeks of intensive study

 here it is from down the bank - the whole crossing site is constantly in flux and right now the whole place is really moving through a big change - here is evidence both of a new pergola extension for this learning centre..... the folks are about to install a commercial kitchen so there's lots of bits and bobs about the place for that project as well.... oh and then there's the paving happening on the other side... and the garden work... bush regeneration... and so much more everywhere you turn!


On day one, aside from the obligatory meet and greet we covered a definition of the term 'permaculture' (although the word stems originally from a contraction of the words 'permanent' and 'agriculture'  there are multiple ways of describing, defining and undertaking permaculture); we also moved through the 3 ethics of permaculture: care for the earth, care for people, fair share; and then spent the time working through the 12 basic principles:

1. observe and interact
2. catch and store energy
3. obtain a yeild
4. apply self-regulation and accept feedback
5. use and value natural resources and services
6. produce no waste
7. design from patterns to detail
8. integrate rather than segregate
9. use small and slow solutions
10. use and value diversity
11. use edge and value the marginal
12. use and respond to change creatively

 all today we listened to the resident gander honking warnings to all interlopers -
his girls are sitting on eggs and company is NOT welcome!

I  have read quite a bit about permaculture prior to setting off to this course - and have dwelt on these 12 principles as part of my initial MFA lit review - but its quite a different thing to be approaching this in a group and as part of a certificate course. I'm looking forward to really getting into the nitty gritty over the coming days.....

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permaculture design certificate

In 2 days time I'm commencing a 72hr Permaculture Design Certificate course. This has been something I've longed to do for many years now - longer indeed than I've held many academically inclined arty aspirations....  I have previously identified permaculture as an active component in my present MFA project but I know that it is much more than something to be attached to a single project or indeed solely to arts practice. So I'm quite confident that the course will influence much more than this present project - just as I'm equally unsure in what ways my arts practice/ MFA project may be influenced by what I glean from the certificate course.

Hopefully (time allowing) I'll post a few thoughts and pics as the course unfolds....



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