New Permaculture Forum

Via Pikes Peak Permaculture, I discovered the Permaculture Forum. Not much action on there right now, but hopefully it will serve as another online resource.

Permaculture Greenhouse at Naropa

Via VOA News, I learned of the Naropa greenhouse that will be dedicated Earth Day, 2009.

From the news story:

The word "permaculture" unites the concepts of permanence and agriculture. It begins with personal commitment toward protecting the Earth, then continues with action to make it happen. And, it's the theme of an Earth Day celebration that will feature a new permaculture greenhouse on the campus of Naropa University, in Boulder, Colorado.

Permaculture Garden in Broomfield

Boulder has a permaculture garden that I have yet to visit. And it looks like Broomfield is getting into the act.

This past Monday, April 13th, a group of 10 folks from Transition broke ground on a 1 acre permaculture community garden in Broomfield. The garden is located at the Broomfield Presbyterian Church in Broomfield at 350 Main Street.

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If you live in the Broomfield area and would like to come and help create this permaculture garden, or would like to contribute your expertise in permaculture, or learn how to do it hands-on, we invite you to stop by any time between 9 am and 2 pm on Sunday, April 19 at the south parking lot of the Broomfield Presbyterian Church located at 350 Main Street in Broomfield. Please contact me if you have any questions about this venture or would like to contribute time, money or materials.

I talked with the pastor of the church, and he pointed me to the NICE site for more information. Apparently NICE is the non profit behind these gardens. If you don't want to join Transition Colorado, that site has contact info.

Permaculture Design Course at Naropa

If you're a college student interested in permaculture, you may be interested in Naropa. This is, as far as I have heard, the only course in permaculture design at an accredited university. It's being taught by Marco Lam. From the course description:

This hands-on, applied course builds on the work of Introduction to Permaculture and examines mycology, orchard design, soil development, water management, natural pest management, crop rotation and other areas in the context of a variety of gardening models including permaculture and biodynamic farming. Students develop skills for sustainable food growing. The course also includes field trips and demonstrations.

There are a couple of other courses related to permaculture in Naropa's BA in Environmental Studies.

Permaculture Podcast on Crop To Cuisine

Several local permaculture teachers, including Sandy Cruz and Jerome Ostenkowski, were featured on a syndicated radio show and podcast, Crop To Cuisine, on April 6.

This episode looks at the opportunities to get educated in permaculture design across Colorado. Permaculture is a system of Permanent - Agriculture See how you can get involved with a number of educational centers from the front range to over 9000 ft above sea level.

As of today, the podcast link doesn't work for this issue (I sent a message to the Crop To Cuisine folks). Update 4/16/2009: the link has been fixed, so you can go there and listen to the podcast. However, there is another permaculture podcast on that same page, broadcast June 9, 2008.

Using Google Sketchup for permaculture design

I recently used Google Sketchup for a permaculture design I did. If you're not familiar with Sketchup, it's a free diagramming and three dimensional design tool that runs on Windows and the Mac.

I am computer literate, but had not used a design tool like this before--probably the closest program I'd used was Visio, and that was for a totally two dimensional problem. I found Sketchup a bit difficult to use, though there is plenty of help available. Sketchup has a large set of help documentation that ships with Sketchup, there's online help, and there are extensive video tutorials. I think that largest issue I had with Sketchup is just the vast set of tools that it presents--I needed a lot less than it gave me.

The benefits that Sketchup provides include accuracy, easy layering and shadowing. The accuracy was most impressive. My design was for an urban site, so I was able to measure most of the relevant distances and structures. Then I was able to put the measurements in Sketchup and get a more accurate representation far quicker than I would have been able to with traditional permaculture methods (paper). Now, I have never done drafting, so I'm sure that's part of the equation.

Sketchup also allows you to add items to layers, and switch those layers on and off. The implementation in Sketchup is a bit different than in other 3d modeling software, so it's worth viewing this layers tutorial--I probably viewed this about 5 times, trying to get the hang of it. But it was great to be able to switch layers (from basemap to basemap with zones to basemap with sectors, etc) with the click of the mouse, rather than moving tracing paper.

Sketchup allows you to automatically create shadows. You can do this manually with this process, but I'm guessing the Sketchup makes it easier. The trade off is having to measure the height of various obstructions precisely. I didn't end up using the shadowing, but it seems like a useful feature.

Overall I was happy with Sketchup. But, no tool is perfect. I had issues with a number of items. First, the layers menu disappeared on me. Luckily, fixing this is a FAQ. I also had issues with connecting lines--if you want to create non square shapes, you need to connect lines carefully. Sketchup gives you lots of help, but if you're used to a two dimensional tool, you may be surprised.

I also had some issues printing the design. I didn't spend a lot of time on this, but I didn't see a 'shrink entire design to page' option, which would have been nice. I ended up previewing the print job repeatedly to see how it would look. Another quirk was the two types of text. One is 3-d text, which you can place and group, and the other was just 2-d text--which you can use an arrow with. I used the 3-d text for a while, but would recommend the 2-d text

Here's the final design that I put together, just to give you an idea of what it looked like:

Collecting rainwater in Colorado

Rainwater collection is often a key part of permaculture design. Permaculture calls for redundancy in resources, and water is a key resource. This is especially true in the American West and in Colorado, where the average rainfall ranges from 70-80 inches a year in a few mountain hideaways to 5-10 inches a year in the San Luis Valley (here's a PDF map of Colorado precipitation).

Collecting rainfall can use earthworks, such as swales, cisterns or buckets. But until recently, it was illegal to collect it. "You can direct it, but not collect it, according to [Paul] Lander", the executive director of Colorado Waterwise.

But, thanks to Chris Romer and Marsha Looper in the Colorado Legislature, some residents can now collect water:

The bill's sponsors figure about 300,000 people statewide will now be permitted to harvest rainwater, mostly the in rural areas who already have exempt wells for household and domestic use.

There is now a second bill up for consideration that would expand rain collection to new developments in urban areas. That would allow for a pilot program and the bill will be heard on Friday.

Here's a PDF of the bill CONCERNING LIMITED EXEMPTIONS FOR WATER COLLECTED FROM CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL ROOFTOPS and here's a PDF of the proposed bill, CONCERNING AN AUTHORIZATION OF PILOT PROJECTS FOR THE BENEFICIAL USE OF CAPTURED PRECIPITATION IN NEW REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENTS, AND MAKING AN APPROPRIATION IN CONNECTION THEREWITH (as far as I could tell--navigating the legislature's website was a real nightmare).

Permaculture businesses around the metro area

The ReDirect Guide, an online and offline directory of businesses and information forcues on healthy and sustainable lifestyles, has a section on permaculture businesses. If you're looking for permaculture consulting or just want to ask a question about it, feel free to consult one of these companies.