Forest Garden Design Course
REGISTRATION OPEN!!!
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw9DMrWMFCw
DATES: April 24-27, 2008
LOCATION: Camp Epworth Permaculture Demonstration & Education Center, High Falls, NY
DESCRIPTION:
Imagine a forest where every single tree is dripping with fresh fruits and ripening nuts. Every shrub ispacked with delicious berries, and every other plantis a medicinal herb, culinary spice, or beautiful edibleflower. Tubers and root crops are abundant underfoot, gourmet mushroom logs sprout in the shade, and hardy kiwi vines climb back up throughthe layers of this multi-functional forest of food. During the 4-day (Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun) course, participants collaborate to learn how to design, establish, and maintain such gardens of Edible Forest Gardens of Eden.
The first two days focus on design theory & exercises, exploring ecosystem mimicry, polyculture guild design, bioregional research and a pattern language for forest gardens. During the second two days we'll put our new understanding into action by planting out a mega-diverse 1+ acre multilayered forest garden at the Epworth site. We'll develop our practical gardening vocabulary with skill-building sessions on planting patterns & techniques, low-tech plant propagation, simple water catchment, and mushroom log inoculation — all while creating a new model for community-supported food-forestry.
We are asking a sliding scale fee of $350-650 for the entire course, with $25 discounts for early registration (before March 1st) and group registration ($25 off for each person in the group). Please pay what you can — we use a sliding scale to accomodate as many people as possible. Some folks are able to invest more in the learning experience, and this is essential to balance out those who cannot. Currently we cannot offer work-trade, though limited "plant-trade" will be available — look for an email in the coming weeks.
The course is limited to 28 participants, and many many people have already expressed interest. We will accept participants on a first-come, first-serve basis — A 50% refundable fee of $50 per person is required to reserve your space.
TO REGISTER:
Call or email Ethan (518-610-1375, eroland[at]gmail.com) with your
- Name
- Email Address
- Phone
- Sliding scale amount you intend to pay.
Registration checks should be made payable to AppleSeed Permaculture, and sent to 136 Lovers Lane, Greenfield, MA, 01301.
More details about the course:
• Accommodations: Indoor,dormitory-style housing and camping are both available on site for $5 per night. Some private rooms may be available for an additional price.There are several B&B-type accommodations in the immediate area.
• Families & Children: We would like to accommodate families with children at this course. If you are interested in this, please contact me directly and we'll work together based on your needs.
• Food: In order to keep our prices low, food will be partially potluck, and partially prepared on-site by a local cook. As much as possible will be organic and locally grown. Vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, and carnivorous diets will all be deliciously accommodated. We look forward to seeing you at the course!
TEACHING TEAM:
• Ethan Roland (primary co-teacher). Founder and principal, AppleSeed Permaculture. Lead teacher of more than 30 educational events around the world, including 3 full Permaculture Design Courses.
• Mai Frank (primary co-teacher).
• Dyami Nason-Reagan (apprentice).
• Alison Strzelec (planting project manager).
• Dave Jacke (guest speaker).
LIMITED PLANT TRADE: Calling all comfrey!!!
We are asking for your support to collect the large number of multi-functional perennial herbs, vegetables, and groundcovers that we will use to plant out the understory of our 1-acre forest garden. Late April is a great time to do get in the garden and do some propagating and dividing… and we would like to offer a course discount of $1 per plant for anything we need (see a list below) that you are able to bring along. Just think about it for now, and I am working on a way that we can all post what we plan to bring directly on the webpage so everyone can keep up to date.
PLANTS NEEDED:
<<<Top Five>>>
• COMFREY (Symphytum spp.)
• SORREL (Rumex acetosa or other spp.)
• YARROW (Achillea millefolium)
• CLOVER (Trifolium spp.)
• ANISSE HYSSOP (Agastache foeniculum)
<<<All Plants>>>
- ▼ Fruit
- ‧ Ground Cherry
- ‧ Garden Strawberry
- ‧ Woodland Strawberry
- ▼ Dynamic Accumulators
- ‧ Comfrey
- ‧ Nettle
- ‧ Yarrow
- ‧ Sorrel
- ‧ Chicory
- ‧ Chives
- ‧ Garlic Chives
- ▼ Nitrogen Fixers
- ‧ Lupin
- ‧ Clover - Red, White, Crimson
- ‧ Vetch
- ‧ Birdsfoot Trefoil
- ‧ Baptisia
- ▼ Perennial Vegetables
- ‧ Good King Henry
- ‧ Sea Kale
- ‧ Welsh Onion
- ‧ Walking Onions
- ‧ Asparagus
- ‧ Rhubarb
- ‧ Lovage
- ‧ Daylilly
- ‧ Sunchokes
- ‧ Groundnut
- ‧ Mintroot
- ‧ Hops
- ▼ Insectaries
- ‧ Hyssops - Yellow, Giant, Anisse
- ‧ Echinacea
- ‧ Bee Balm
- ‧ Wild Bergamot
- ‧ Roman Chamomile
- ‧ Mint (any spp.)
- ‧ Green & Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum)