CRMPI intro to permaculture

Join us on Saturday July 14th from 9am to 4pm for a one-day introduction and interactive experience to learn about permaculture design at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI) with Tia Meer, permaculture teacher and founder of Simple Living Institute from Orlando, FL. The morning session will cover ethics, principals, site survey, and site design. In the afternoon we will get our hands dirty and put permaculture into practice with a few simple projects including permaculture gardening, natural building, and water harvesting. Cost is $75 per person, lunch included. Register with CRMPI at Jerome@crmpi.org or call 970-927-4158. More info at www.crmpi.org

Upcoming CRMPI workshops

From an email from Jerome:

For those of you interested, mark these dates are your calender for CRMPI's workshop series.

Sat May 14 - Forest Gardening - Learn how to turn your yard into an edible landscape with Forest Gardening. In this workshop you will learn how to harness the power of the perennial, create niches that promote beneficial insects, homes for birds, and support delicious fruit trees and much more. This holistic gardening method allows the garden to work with nature, stacking functions and supporting beneficial habitats all the while providing delicious edible fruits, nuts, berries, and veggies to us.

Sun May 15 - Greenhouse - Ever wonder if it is possible to grow bananas or papayas in your cold temperate, high altitude, Rocky Mountain backyard? With the power of a greenhouse equipped with Climate Battery technology it is. Come by CRMPI to see how Jerome Osentowski has managed to grow tropical food at elevation using the power of the sun and minimal energy. Learn how to store heat, harness the passive solar sun, and insulate your garden to extend your season successfully using design principles that are easy to implement. Become a greenhouse grower that encourages polyculture diversity for a wide range of food. With the power of the greenhouse, anything is possible.

Look for our last workshop on Medicinal Herbs and Plants which is 6/25

Each workshop is held the CRMPI demonstration site just outside of Basalt, CO. They run 9:00am-4:30pm and cost $50/workshop which includes lunch and materials. To RSVP or for more info email jerome@crmpi.org or call 970-9274158.

Hibernation

This blog is going into hibernation. I just don't have time to maintain it adequately.

If you are into permaculture, live in Colorado, and want to maintain this blog, please feel free to email me at coloradopermaculture@gmail.com and I'd be glad to add you as a contributor.

Thanks for reading.

Dan

Permaculture Design Course Scholarship

The Boulder Odd Fellows are sponsoring a partial scholarship for the High Altitude Permaculture's "Permaculture Through the Seasons" 2011 class.

More info here.

Permaculture 101 in Boulder

On October 6, there will be an Introduction to Permaculture presentation on the CU campus.

Steamboat Springs Intro to Permaculture

Via the Steamboat Springs Pilot:

At 7 p.m. Oct. 8 in Library Hall at Bud Werner Memorial Library, Deep Roots and Transition Steamboat team up to host an Intro to Permaculture evening with Steamboat resident Herald Stout, who will discuss permaculture, community-supported agriculture principles and gardening as local economy. Gain a local’s perspective from Stout, whose Steamboat home garden was based on permaculture principles.

Full article here.

Colorado Permaculture Convergence Report

I went to the 4th Annual Colorado Permaculture Convergence today. The theme was 'Creating Perennial Culture', and over 100 people attended. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet and greet a lot of folks in the Colorado Permaculture scene. It cost $10, with all net proceeds going to the founding of a Colorado Permaculture Guild, which is just getting off the ground.

The entire event was held at the 63rd Street Farm, a working farm that highlights several principles of permaculture--obtain a yield, start small and slow, and accept feedback. (Incidentally, they have a CSA). After an opening ceremony led by Sandy Cruz with song and dance, some people headed off to yoga, and others, including myself, followed Brian on a tour around the grounds.

After that, we had a panel on the theme of the Convergence with Sandy Cruz, Marco Lam and Adam Brock, moderated by Becky Elder. It was impressive to see so many years of permaculture experience in one place, and I was also heartened by Adam's presence (he's in his 20s). Marco talked about his local currency project, Adam talked about Edo Japan and I can't for the life of me remember what Sandy talked about.

After each speaker talked for a while about what they saw as a way to get to a perennial culture, the floor opened for questions and comments, which varied widely. I enjoyed the range, from 'we're working on a permaculture eco-village' to 'while August has abundance, what about February'.

The panel was followed by songs and a potluck luncheon. As always at permaculture events, I ate well--lots of summer squash at this one.

After lunch, there was more networking and discussion. I talked to a fellow who was putting a number of fruit trees in in his property, and had a nice discussion around that. I also ran into a former classmate of mine who had some sage advice about keeping chickens--don't put them where they can see you. Otherwise, they'll clamor whenever they do, and that can cause noise for the neighbors. I also talked to a local winery who was there, and learned a bit about making wine (they make a vintage called 80304, which is from grapes grown in Boulder!).

We then went into a number of breakout sessions. I want to encourage anyone reading this to come to the next one, so I'm going to quote from the program to give you an idea of the vast range of talks today:

Forest Gardens: Take a virtual tour of the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI), one of the most mature permaculture sites in the Americas. CRMPI demonstrates year-round solar greenhouses and the abundance of perennial gardens in arid, high altitude terrain. Jerome Osentowski founded CRMPI in the 1980’s, and is sponsoring CRMPI’s 24th Annual Permaculture Design Course next month.

Permaculture Fuel — Overcoming Oil Addiction, Creating Clean Renewable Fuels, and Reversing Global Warming: Learn how to use permaculture principles to produce inexpensive, clean, renewable alcohol fuel that you can run in your car right now. Learn how to synergize growing organic food and producing plant-based fuel to reduce dependence on poisonous petroleum products and raise awareness of the ecological, ethical, and sustainable alcohol fuel alternative. Todd W. Jones teaches mycology, mushroom cultivation, and myco-restoration as part of Permaculture Design Courses along the Colorado Front Range, as well as working to raise awareness of the emerging Alcohol Fuel Revolution.

Joyful Resiliency: Building Your Inner Sustainability: Do you feel like you’re killing yourself trying to save the world? In this session, we will learn how to use the principles and tools of permaculture to build resiliency and inner sustainability into our daily lives. A certified permaculture teacher, Kay Campbell brings her years of experience as an instructional designer and college faculty member to her current teaching practice.

Permaculture in Other Cultures: A brief overview of some of the issues involved in teaching and working on permaculture projects in other cultures. Kelly Simmons is a permaculture teacher who recently returned from a year of teaching in Bali, Indonesia, and is headed to Nicaragua in a few weeks to help bring a permaculture focus to sustainable development projects in the highlands of Jalapa.

Learn to Build & Use Solar Ovens & Cook with Sunlight!: A condensed workshop on the different types of solar ovens, how to build them and how to cook with them. Bring a 3 ft x 4 ft piece of corrugated cardboard to trace an easy-to-build pattern to take home. Permaculture enthusiast Jeff Graef is a certified Presentations: instructor and has over 20 years of experience in renewable energy, energy efficient building, and gardening in both rural and urban environments.

Harvesting the Abundant Edge between Permaculture & Healing Arts: There are many junctures where the healing arts and permaculture inherently “stack functions” and overlap in common purpose. We will explore these connections and work with some tools for connecting with the intelligence, compassion & wisdom in Nature. Leading a homesteading lifestyle in the 70s, working with permaculture in indigenous cultures, as well as 30 years as a bodywork and wellness practitioner in Boulder, have helped prepare Zia Parker for her current passion — developing Willow Way Wellness, a permaculture herb farm/teaching center/healing center.

Permaculture in Palestine: Come hear about the current status of perennial agriculture and perennial culture in the cradle of Western “civilization.” Tiffany Grell just returned from a middle eastern permaculture tour last week.

Boulder Currency: What if we could radically change how we interacted with our community to create a better quality of life, more local jobs, and to steward our local economy and environment in a sustainable way? Thousands of communities around the world are starting their own currencies, creating a flow that connects unused resources with unmet needs. Marco Chung-Shu Lam has been teaching permaculture for 18 years after training with Bill Mollison, and is passionate about creating a sustainable and regenerative economy with a local currency.

Worms: An in-depth could-be permaculturist’s discussion on how we can help worms help us in our actions of purposeful intent, while hopefully stimulating lots of Q&A. John Anderson is a radical 15-year CSU Master Gardener from Larimer County pushing the establishment for more reasoned answers about sustainable horticulture, as well as a practitioner of vermiculture/vermicomposting who answers to Worm Man/Guy/Dude.

Creating Wildlife Habitats: Learn to landscape for local wildlife while creating lovely interactive spaces for people to step into nature - low maintenance, natural areas that pulse with life. Becky Elder of Manitou Springs is co-founder of Pikes Peak Permaculture and enjoys working for the future in her community with High Altitude Permaculture, Sustainable Ways and Transition Town Manitou.

Urban Permaculture: Is urban permaculture a contradiction? Or is it the key to transitioning to a regenerative society? Explore what it means to practice permaculture in the city in this interactive workshop. Adam Brock is a Denver native, urban agtivist, and founder of The Wild Green Yonder, a permaculture education and design group. Kenzie Davison, a Denver-based urban permaculture teacher with the Wild Green Yonder, sits on the initiating committee of Transition Denver.

Reading the Landscape: In this session we’ll practice listening to the land, the foundation of a successful permaculture. Alison Peck is a self-described ‘land nerd,’ and has been reading/listening to the land and practicing permaculture for 30 years. She founded Matrix Gardens, a local landscape design/build company, in 1984 and is a landscape designer.

I attended the "Joyful Resiliency" and "Urban Permaculture" breakout sessions. I quite enjoyed the first talk, where Kay Campbell talked from personal experience about applying some of the permaculture design principles to build your zone 0 resiliency. In particular, if you have weaknesses or strengths, you can design systems to mitigate or accentuate them.

I also enjoyed the second talk, where Adam Brock and Kenzie Davison talked about some of the urban patterns (hierarchy, grids instead of capillaries, monoculture) that are common in our urban landscapes. They both work in Denver and then discussed a large number of efforts that they are pursuing to increase awareness and knowledge of permaculture, as well as to make people's lives better. One that spoke to me was the Denver Fruit Tree map--I just opened up the Boulder Fruit Tree map in response and would appreciate any additions (the Denver icons are way cooler). Another cool idea was the "Utra Ninja Leaf Squad" which approaches households in the fall and rakes leaves for a nominal sum. Then they take the leaves back and have them for compost material. They also talked about the Denver Handmade Homemade Market also. I just covered a third of their efforts; it was quite humbling to learn all they are involved in.

After the two break outs I was pretty cooked, so I headed home and missed the closing ceremony.

My overall thoughts: it was a good time, and I learned a lot. I still feel a disconnect between my life and how I saw people living there, but I also learned some useful tools to shorten that disconnect. Well worth the $10 donation!

More details on the permaculture convergence

I already mentioned this a few months ago, but there is a Colorado wide permaculture convergence scheduled for this August 22nd at the 63rd Street Farm.

Here are the details from Elizabeth, one of the organizers:

CREATING PERENNIAL CULTURE!

• Potluck
• Permaculture Music and Arts
• Speakers and Workshops
• Kids’ Activities
• Farm Tour
• And more!

Schedule
8:30 a.m. Registration, Farm Tour and Keynote Talk
12:30 p.m. Potluck Lunch and Permaculture Arts
2:30 p.m. Breakout Workshop Sessions and Closing Circle
5:30 p.m. Dancing and Celebration!

Suggested donation $10. Kids under 12 free. Please bring a potluck dish and your own place setting.

Sponsored by High Altitude Permaculture and Friends

For more information, email elizabethmedia@yahoo.com or call 517-974-8883

Here's a map to the farm. I'm going to be there and hope you'll make it too!

Permaculture Class for College Credit In Telluride

From a reader tipoff (thanks April!), I was pointed to a permaculture design course, resulting in a certificate, happening this summer in Telluride. What's cool and unusual about this class is you can get 4 credits at Mesa State College.

The course starts July 16, so if you want to attend this year, you should call the organizers at 970 369 5255 asap.

Articles about urban farming from PC grad

Here's a list of interesting articles about urban farming from a High Altitude Permaculture Institute grad. Article topics include bees and chickens.

Permaculture Mentioned in Summit Daily

Nice article about permaculture in the Summit Daily. From the article:

So here it is: Permaculture strives to apply the intelligence and long-term self sustained productivity of nature to human systems, creating abundance, zero waste and fundamental sustainability.

Urban Permaculture Class in Arvada June 12

From a friend who is teaching the vermicomposting section, I found out about "Using Permaculture to Create Sustainable Urban/Suburban Lifestyles", a 6 hour workshop happening on June 12 in Arvada, CO.

From the flyer:

We will cover simple: effective Permaculture soil building techniques, how to hide composting from your landlord and neighbors, indoor and outdoor container planting, sprouts and microgreens, how to plan an efficient low-work garden, creating the suburban food forest, the urban/suburban chicken, the urban worm (vermiculture composting), hands-on planting, and related topics specific to suburban and urban areas.

Cost is $45. For more info, see here or here.

Permaculture Classes in Manitou Springs

Black Cat Books in Manitou Springs is hosting a couple of permaculture classes this June.

• Biosystems - Animals in the Gardens
• Integrated Pest Management

More details here or call Black Cat Books at 719 685 1589.

Small Acreage Seminar

From a meetup mailing list I'm on:

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What: Small Acreage Seminar

When: Saturday, June 5, 2010 8:30 AM

Where:
CSU Extension Office @ the Jeffco Fairgrounds
15200 West Sixth Avenue
Golden, CO 80401

Colorado State University and Natural Resources Conservation Services are offering a Small Acreage Seminar at the Jeffco fairgrounds June 5, 2010 from 8:30 to Noon. Admission is free. Among the subjects being discussed will be Beekeeping, Sustainable Landscapes, Alternative Energy Resources, and Homestead Planning. The location is CSU Extension office located at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds
15200 West Sixth Avenue, Golden, CO (near intersection of I-70 and W. 6th Avenue). A minimum of 20 people is required to host this workshop. Preregistration is appreciated.

Please RSVP to: Jennifer Cook
303-659-7004 ext.3 or jennifer.cook@colostate.edu

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Liberation Economics: Financial Permaculture for Transition

May 25th from 6-8pm at the Boulder Meadows Community Room.


This is the second of a series that will take place on May 25th from 6-8pm at the Boulder Meadows Community Room. You do not need to have attended the first session to gain benefit from this one! Each session will be different but both will share a common introduction to our core concepts. This session focuses on complimentary currencies. A $10 suggested donation.

The following tells about the introduction to the first Liberation Economics event for Transition Colorado:

We share a common purpose in knowing we have the potential to live in a ecologically beneficial society. We feel the possibility and share the inspiration to create deep sustainability in our ecosystems and to live our lives in balance with both our watershed and community.


While we hold the intention for this more harmonious way of living in our communities to emerge, we become aware that there are several crucial misalignments.


What are these? If we really feel into the needs of our community right now, they become quite obvious. While many of us are inspired to share our gifts and passion around living in sustainable community, there is also a large problem around the financial sustainability that is needed to make the changes we know are needed.


Many of us have also awakened to a broader sense of awareness and see a deeper meaning for our lives. From this place, we want the opportunity to create abundance for ourselves from offering our unique gifts to positively impact the world. Yet for most of us this is still an aspect of our lives that we still feel constrained by, and perhaps even an ongoing pain around. This pain comes from the deep longing to express all of who we are in our lives and through our work to benefit others, but not knowing how. That’s because we can’t do it alone.

The good news is that we are not alone. The intention of Liberation Economics is to invite you into an emerging practice community that collaborates, supports, and even relies on each other to co-create opportunities for all members of the community to make a living through living our purpose.
Whether it is the financing of the Transition Movement or the support needed to pursue right livelihood, working together it becomes possible for us to have both the means and the meaning.

In the Permaculture movement, we have this saying, "The Problem is the Solution" The widespread economic challenges we face are an incredible opportunity to actualize our potential in the Transition Movement. The opportunity to use these challenges to create new economic structures and livelihoods around the abundance in our local community.


We invite you to share in a common inquiry that is taking place in our community where we become catalysts for moving us from the potential of a sustainable economy to its manifestation. We are working on updating the financial permaculture curriculum to meet the needs of our particular community in Boulder and we need your help and feedback to help us match our curriculum to your needs.

HOAs and Community Gardens

I lived in a condo association for a number of years, and organized a community garden for 2 of them. Boulder has a number of area community gardens, but none of them were close enough for me.

A community garden can be a great way to build community--even people who didn't really want to garden appreciated seeing the veggies grow.

I didn't find a lot of good resources about this particular problem of starting a community garden within the confines of an HOA (though this page is full of information about starting a community garden, and this page is a great example of documenting support for a garden to an HOA), so I decided to post some of my observations.

• Define the type of garden you want--it can either be shared entirely, or divided into plots for each interested resident.
• Gauge the interest of residents as best as you can, but realize you can have a successful garden with just 2-3 gardeners.
• Gain the support of at least 2 owners. Yes, renters do have a voice with the board, but owners have a louder voice.
• Ask the board for permission. As in the link above, make sure you know what you're asking the board for: tool storage, water, money, gardening space, access to the space, etc, etc.
• Aesthetics are key for many board members, so address this up front, and make sure you keep the garden looking neat.
• Siting of the garden is crucial as well. Because of the aesthetics concerns, it's useful to find a place that is out of the way for at least the first year. But also find someplace that you won't ignore or have too hard a time getting access to.
• Put the garden to bed every year with a nice layer of mulch--that leaves it looking clean for the winter.
• Start small--it's better to have a few people interested in a small space that is kept clean and neat than to have an acre that is ignored and unkempt.
• Report back to the board a few times a year. Remember that the garden reflects on them, since they gave permission.

Any other thoughts on how HOAs and community gardens?

Urban Agriculture meeting in Lakewood

Looks like they're revising the zoning laws in Lakewood, Colorado, and want to discuss the place of urban agriculture.

Lakewood is hosting an event to explore the topic of urban agriculture. The event will allow residents and business owners to hear from experts on the topic and to share their comments and ideas as a part of the Lakewood! Zoning Improvement Process. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m. with an open house in the Civic Center South Building and a formal presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the City Council Chambers. Both sessions will be at 480 S. Allison Parkway.

Urban agriculture is gaining momentum in metropolitan areas around the country. While Lakewood allows the keeping of food producing animals in some residential districts, the areas that allow for this type of use are limited. The City is hosting the event to provide education on urban agriculture topics such as keeping chickens for personal egg production and harvesting bees for honey. There will also be an opportunity for Lakewood residents and business owners to voice their views on how to address this emerging topic as the City updates the Zoning Ordinance.

More information here

Via the Greater Denver Urban Homesteading Group

Denver Urban Permaculture Salon

From a mailing list I'm on

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The Salon of Urban Permaculture SoUP) is a new monthly potluck focused on building skills and community around permaculture in the city. Each SoUP gathering showcases a different urban permaculture site, and includes an informal talk, activity or workshop based around that month's theme. People of all levels of familiarity with Permaculture are encouraged to attend.

The first Salon is happening on Saturday, May 15th at 5:30 PM, at the Orbis House on 1818 Gaylord. The theme for the month is "Becoming Native to this Place", and we'll be exploring what it means to be an inhabitant of the South Platte watershed on the Shortgrass Steppe. You're encouraged to bring a dish featuring native or wild-harvested ingredients - although of course every dish is welcome!

Rainwater Harvesting Workshop April 17-18

Rainwater Harvesting at Home Workshop

Saturday April 17th and Sunday April 18th, 10am-4pm, Boulder, Colorado with Jason Gerhardt and Steve Morgan

Explore the soggy, spongy oasis of rainwater harvesting -- for the home landscape, urban areas and beyond. Water harvesting earthworks, cistern systems, plant ecologies, Colorado legalities, hands-on work, and more. Directly applicable to any landscape, no matter the size. Attend one or both days.

Detailed flyer

Questions? Jason, 303-258-7982, jasongerhardt@gmail.com

Registration

Neighborhood Farming Plan

Here's a great blog post explaining how to expand food production via your neighborhood network. It's the next step past community supported agriculture (by the way, here's a directory of Colorado CSAs I maintain).

For all the issues with suburbia, including sprawl, car dependence and resource inefficiencies, the fact is suburbia has some strengths. Here's a video to that effect: