HANDS-ON! EVENTS AT B STREET FARM
Imagine your neighborhood is going Permaculture in a big way... This is what it could look like: a neighborhood site to model permaculture with all kinds of workshops and examples of how to turn your own home into a Permaculture Shangri-la! Friday from 8 to 2:30, B Street Farm is open to those participating in the Full 3-Day event, the Intro to Applied Permaculture Friday am special session, and any Friday Shoulder Events.
Check-in at Registration on Pac U Campus prior to proceeding to B Street. Parking will be available at B Street.
Visit the SCHEDULE page for times and visit the PRESENTERS page for individual presenter bios and their other campus lecture topics.
Introduction to Applied Permaculture
Register online or at Registration Hub on Pac U Main Campus.
Fee: $25.00 for adults. Kids 12 and under free. Under 18 must be accompanied by their parent. Open to public. Limit 120 participants.
Adam Huggins
NW Plant Walk
Join in for a plant walk exploring the native and introduced flora around the convergence site. We’ll share stories and discuss the edible, medicinal, and utilitarian applications of our plant friends. Cascadian forests are composed of a beautiful and diverse array of plants, many of which are edible or medicinal. We’ll identify the plants growing around and nearby the convergence site and share our experiences with them and the many ways that they can help us create resilient, interdependent relationships with our ecosystems. Patterns can help identify plant families in the future.
Charlene Murdock & Gay Wiseman
Outdoor Permaculture Food Preservation Kitchen
This demo kitchen will operate each day of the event weekend. We will use rocket stoves and the earth oven, perhaps a solar oven as well. Produce gleaned from the B St. Farm, produce from Charlene's garden, contributions from other presenters and attendees, and perhaps some locally foraged wild foods. Kitchen activities may include: jam and jelly making; canning of acid fruits; grinding wheat into flour; baking bread (or pizza?) in the earth oven; pressure canning vegetables, and drying of fruits and veggies. Also learn about making kombucha, yogurt, kefir, meat jerky, juices, fruit leather, herbal tinctures, sauerkraut, kim chee, pickles, and more!
Charlotte Anthony
Winter Gardening Without A Cover
This is a hands on workshop, so those of you who learn by doing, come prepared to do. In Cascadia, we are fortunate in that by planting in August, or early September, we can harvest vegetables all winter long. There are specific varieties that hold up all winter, creating a continual harvest. We start planting again in February, so when these plants are running out in March, we may continue to eat our home grown vegetables. You will learn which varieties work well for this overwintering process. By planting in a polyculture, including what most people call weeds, the plants grow better, and offer greater nutritional value. We will work together on several methods for creating a thriving soil life which is the basis for thriving plant life, and demonstrate what amendments are used to support this soil life.
Dan Schuler
Landscape Graphics 101: Translating Principals to Hand Drawings
Clearly conveying your ideas and vision through the use of hand drawn graphics is an incredibly useful tool in the design of any environment. Learning to sketch the visual language of Landscape Designers is a great way to document, plan, and pitch many of the principals of Permaculture. Learn simple tips and techniques that can make a quick sketch look like a professional conceptual, or illustrative, drawing. Whether you're interested in sketching entire site designs, or specific details, understanding the basic visual lingo can greatly improve your outcome!
Deston Denniston
Got Balls?
For as long as 3 millennia, farmers and gardeners have made seedballs to protect seeds from rodents and birds, and to assure nutrients are where the seeds need them at germination. Made of clay and compost, seedballs were scattered with confidence that germination would be realized on the seasons first wetting rains. More recently, Masanobu Fukuoka, a farmer and naturalist from southern Japan, developed methods of mechanically creating seedballs, increasing production radically over early hand production methods. At Abundance Consulting we've moved this legacy forward by introducing a variety of modern organic nutrients to the seedball, and developing seedball packages for conservation, agriculture and forestry applications. Bring your own seeds to be rolled in clay! Come find out how you can join us in re-greening the west.
Jan Spencer
Transform Your Home and Neighborhood
This hands on session will include a slide show, tour of B Street plus show and tell for what can be done with a suburban property. You will gain a new sense of possibilities where you live in terms of edible landscaping, passive solar design, rain water catchment, reclaiming automobile space, home economics, aesthetics, resilience, working with your neighbors and much more. Your place could become a community educational resource for transforming a single property and the neighborhood. Jan Spencer has been making big changes to his quarter acre property in Eugene for 13 years and has a great deal of information to share.
Jessica Schilke
Aquaponics Lab
Jessica Schilke has designed, built and manages the Aquaponics system at The Evergreen State College Organic Farm. This project is student organized, student designed, student built, student run and student funded. This 2200 gallon system features koi, goldfish, and plecostomus, wetland plants, vegetables, fruits, perennials and annuals. The system also includes a vertical air lift system for moving water with air and most recently a vertical grow system above the raft tank. This presentation will include general information about aquaponics and the journey of this particular project. Visit www.greenaquaponics.org for more.
Kelda Miller
Installation of Permaculture Gardens
Ever wonder what the very first steps are in creating an abundant, edible landscape around you? As a positive side to itinerant renting and land-sharing, Kelda Miller has installed numerous kinds. Come learn about different types of mulching, pros/cons of bringing in offsite materials, and even(!) just digging up sod with a shovel, tiller, or sod-cutter.We'll also talk about establishing the famous self-seeding, low-water-needing, shared-nutrient profiles that make our permaculturegardens so easy to love and hard to leave.
Marcia Wilcox
DIY Grid-Tied Solar with Battery Backup
Think you have to pay a mint and hire contractors to have a grid-tied solar system? Let's take the mystery out of solar power! Learn how to: easily calculate your solar needs; choose the right size and type of panels (or cells, if you want to build your own--it's easy!); understand the various components in the system; hook your array into the grid ; understand why you would want to produce power for the electric company; and create a battery backup for storing power. Then you'll build a tiny array and watch it power your lights and charge your backup battery.
By the time you're through, you'll see that building your own solar system is affordable, expandable, renewable, responsible, and best of all, DOABLE.
Limited to 12 participants per session.
Michael Kessler
Tai Chi for Gardeners
The Garden is a metaphor for life. If you're growing as a person—you’re a gardener. Tai Chi for Gardeners is an opportunity to strengthen the body and soothe the mind. We'll use Tai Chi and Chi Kung to explore powerfully gentle ways to do both easy and strenuous gardening. You'll learn how to use your body in a way that avoids injury and general discomforts.
Pat Rassmussen
Learning to Plant Fruit Tree Guilds
We will be planting fruit tree guilds in the permaculture food forest of 15 trees at Pacific University: a blend of grass suppressors, insect and bird attractants, nutrient accumulators, mulch plants, nitrogen fixers, soil fumigants, and pest repellants, all surrounding a central food-producer tree.
We will sheet mulch around the trees with three layers of cardboard and 4 inches of woodchips then plant the perennial plants. We will make a mushroom patch to begin reconnection of the mycelial network. Once established, this food forest will be self-sustaining. It's no-till, organic and will be a climate-friendly carbon sink.
Peter McCoy
Radical Mycology
An overview and discussion on the numerous ways fungi (mushrooms) play a role in our lives and how we can strengthen these relationships thru intentional interactions with them. As potent medicines and powerful remediators, fungi play crucial roles in these changing times. By understanding the roles fungi play in nature, we can learn to lead more balanced and mutualistic lives. Join us in this exploration of the incredible fungal kingdom.
Rick Valley
Build a Bamboo Dome Tent
Using sisal twine and small diameter Oregon-grown bamboo we will create 30 foot long bundles of bamboo and connect them to form a dome and hang a parachute on it to provide shade for other hands-on activities. Although larger than a dome tent, it will use similar geometry. These bamboo structures are stable and resilient and create pleasant spaces. It is anticipated to take about three hours to build, depending on the number of people taking part.
Sam Burchell
Simple building with bamboo and bike tubes!
Using simple tools and techniques, many things can be done with bamboo and old bike tubes. Such things as woven fences, shelves, work spaces, domes, green house frames, cold frames, sheds, and much more. All can be built for free from harvested and found materials. Also how to harvest and bundle stems and branches from bamboo patches with ease and effeciently and leaving the space clean. Also some techniques and tricks for curing green bamboo with fire and water. Other building techniques explored as well.
Scott Olsen
Rebel Composting: Extra Income and Soil Fertility
Fruit and vegetable production generally requires soil amendments and the unused portions of the produce we sell can be the perfect addition to a soil fertility program as well as a disease and pest prevention program. Why buy expensive soil amendments when you can get them for free, or in some cases even get paid for them, and use them to amend the soil with the greatest benefit for the least effort.
Simon Walter-Hansen
Construction Techniques for Homesteading
Bringing simple, regenerative ideas to life is a cornerstone of empowering the manifestation of our own future. Appropriate from urban to rural, participants will gaining a basic understanding of a few simple homestead infrastructure projects, built with onsite and locally-found material. Work clothes and gloves highly encouraged for hands-on participants. Weekend projects may include a dry-stacked urbanite "living" wall, hügelkultur (mounded beds), passage gate, and a trellis. Special Bonus! Urban Gorilla Placemaking Project (if materials available): The Pallet Bench!
Steve Leppold
Scythe Renaissance
Introduction to the European scythe, a human-powered tool with permaculture applications both rural and urban. Whether harvesting fields of grain or cutting vegetation and grass for fodder, mulch, or compost, a scythe can do it gracefully. There will be demonstrations of scythe setup, usage, and sharpening. A multitude of scythe blades and snaths (handles) will be displayed, including snaths made from backyard branches and local oak tree lumber. Information will be provided about good sources for scythe equipment, as well as directions for making a homemade snath. Hands-on participation will be possible at the end of the demonstrations.
