The 10-Day Permaculture design Course at The Village, Cloughjordan, Tipperary is well underway and as I write this the 18 participants are out on the land working on their design projects, which will be presented to the group on Sunday morning. The course has been a great experience so far, taking place in and around [...]
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Spent a lovely couple of hours yesterday helping with the oats harvest for the West Cork CSA. The continual heavy rain this summer has resulted in the smaller field lodging, which meant we had to harvest by hand and scythe. It was felt the yield will be good despite one of the wettest summers for [...]
From the Tipperary Star: The news media is full of bad news stories about the environment, but rather than concentrating on problems what would happen if we put our energies into finding sustainable solutions. That is just what 14 student did recently on the Principles of Permaculture Design Course, which was a first for the [...]
A new biological control is being considered as a way of controlling one of Britain and Ireland’s most pernicious weeds, Japanese Knotweed, according to this story in The Guardian. a species of jumping plant lice, aphalara itadori, could bring down the mighty knotweed by guzzling its sap. If released to do its worst, it would [...]
Kerry Earth Education Project (KEEP) hosted a 2-day Introduction to Permaculture and Forest gardening course which I led for 18 participants last weekend. The course was wonderfully hosted by Niamh and Ian and Cathy of KEEP at their centre at the Gortback Organic Farm, near Tralee, Co. Kerry. On the course we looked at Permaculture [...]
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Update Aug 10th: Thanks to Robbie for sending me the link to Dominic Lawson’s piece on the FSA report and responses from the organic movement in the Times. Lawson quotes research suggesting farmers may have lower cancer rates possibly because pesticide use may protect against cancer! Now that has just got to be corporate spin… [...]
Just got back from saying goodbye to 14 new permaculture Design Course Certificate holders who completed a 9-day course in Cashel, Co. Tipperary. Above: Mayor of Cashel Cllr. Eddie Bennet (second from left) with course organiser Micheal of Aimsir Bia discuss a design for an educational center in Cashel town made by one iof the [...]
The Food Standards Agency published a scientific review last week which found no evidence of organic food being more healthy than non-organic food. This is being widely denounced amongst the environmental movement, in particular the Soil Association, as being a corporate scam and “bad science”. Ben Goldacre in the Guardian makes a stab at seperating [...]