Permaculture course progress

So I've been going along to the Sunday sessions for the Permaculture Design course, where we have been focusing a lot of time on the principles and ethics of permaculture. I agree that these need a lot of time and they are quite inspiring ideas that could be applied to just about everything we do (even organisationally), but I get a sense that the face to face participants might be feeling that the course is moving too slowly and that they would like to start getting into more tangible activities.

I'm really glad though that the online group is there with us. Their emails and blogs have given me a lot of motivation to research and maintain the course wiki and related resources, which in turn has kept me feeling as though the course is very active. However, because the face to face participants seem to be not participating online, they may be feeling that the Sunday sessions aren't moving along quickly enough. Today Kim and I spent a few minutes showing the face to face groups around the online work being done, so I hope some of them will come on and start putting more into the course so that they may get more out of it, but I suspect that that is not what they expected when they enrolled in the course.

So far we have the course wiki that includes the course schedule and links to any media recordings we capture throughout the course, as well as a discussion page that captures the latest from the online participant blogs (we're still waiting on 3 more). We have also started a Permaculture Design textbook over at Wikibooks that would at first appear to be all by me, but I've simply been copy and pasting the handouts, and some of the notes from the participant blogs as a process of my own study in the course. The text will hopefully evolve into a self sustaining resource for many others to use once it reaches that critical wiki point. And there's an email forum running for people to keep in close contact if they struggle with anything other than email.

What has surprised me is the level of interest that was quickly expressed by people from Portugal to Vermont, and how web savvy they all are :) It turns out that international interest in permaculture is quite high, which is easily verified by the extensive network of websites and media over the Net for it. With the the online participants helping us to use this pilot course to develop online communication channels and information, we will hopefully have a certificate level course soon, with an online study option, that will help enhance and sustain the face to face course.

Enrolled in a Permaculture Design course

Just a quick note to say that I've enrolled in a Permaculture Design course. I intend to use it to design a plan for our house, as well as my place of work. The course is doable online too. I am helping with the development of that, drawing content from the face to face course as it goes along. We already have a great group of online participants from all around.. it has a good feeling about it :)

Harmony Farm visit

Here are some video's I captured from the Permaculture Design course field trip to Harmony Farm.

peta hudson - harmony farm and where to find information



Harmony Farm



Field trip to Harmony Farm - microclimates



Peta Hudson - Permaculture teacher



Participant intros - Permaculture Design Course

Concrete steps

Our front steps have now been tidied up so that we have better access to the front yard. We still have to render the concrete now, but here's a little update and how we did it:

We bought about 20 metres of 150x20 mil rough sawn pine for the step form. (150 is a perfect step height).

Because steps want to be at least 300 mil deep, and we needed a side wall, we also bought about 6metres of 250x20 board to make up the diagonal side walls.

If you look closely, you might be able to see that I notched out the diagonal to hold the step form. I prolly would do this again, as it made screeding difficult, and removing the form difficult. The little square boards you can see on the side wall and the batten brace were easily anough to hold the step form.

It was a last minute decision to pour yesterday. We hired a 6x4 trailer ($30), and lined it with plastic ($14) to pick up 0.6 cubic meters of ready mix ($130). It was a hot and windy day, so we have to be quick with it. Mike from next door brought over some buckets and we chain carried it into the form.

We moved quickly with this, placing rocks to fill out some space and ensuring that the rocks were placed well away from the sides. We had the pour done in just over 30 minutes.

Estimating an hour for the mix to start hardedning in these conditions, we wasted no time leveling off the pour using straight timber to start and a trowl to smooth. About then Sarna and Chico arrived, surprised to see that we had already done the pour, but in time for the leveling.

It was a little fiddley doing this actually, and it turned out that we didn't quite have enough (short by 1 bucket load). So we skimped on the side wall to make sure the steps were full.

About 30 minutes later we had the basic leveling done. Sunshine went and made sausages and drinks while everyone else finished the smoothing of. We didn't mess around with it too much towards to end, basically just getting it to the right level.

Then we let it go a bit hard (finger hard, another 1 hour) so I could use a scrubbing brush to take out any ridges and bumps. I finally finished the surface off with a paint brush, and rounded the edges a little with the trowel.

Next morning I pulled off the form to reveal a mostly good result. The air pockets are not too serious and the rendering will finish it off nicely. The steps are all a good height and level and are strong. I need to research rendering a bit and will do that in the next week...

Pretty happy with our first attempt at concreting, and feel confident about the rest of the job around the back. Well have to get around 4 cubic meters pumped around the back ($800 + $280 for the pump :( Its very expensive, almost as much to cover the area in timber. 2nd hand pavers would be cheaper and use less in terms of non renwable material, but a lot more work... still thinking about it.

new shoots, but new pests

Took out the two broccoli today. They looked ready, but taste a little sour :( I wonder if their taste has anything to do with the soil they were in. They where in very clay soil, their leaves had been chopped by slugs, but a used no sprays... they certainly look healthy, but taste sour. Perhaps I picked them too soon or too late?

The cauliflower and brussel sprouts have a little bug all over them. The damage appears to be minimal, but I don't know what they are and so have no idea how to get rid of them.. I've done a brief search for cauli pests, but can't find anything that looks like what I have here... They could be mealybug but I'm not so sure. The mealybugs I know are more white than this grey colour, and are flatter and harder to see as bugs. These are easy to see as bugs.. note: the Internet needs a user generated image index where I can just scan images of pests categorized by their colour and size perhaps... or upload my own image for others to help identify...

Finally, we have some fruit buds on the tomatoes, and new shoots on the potato tires :)