Permaculture Design at The Village, Cloughjordan August 28, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Courses, Permaculture , 3commentsThe 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 the site of the new Eco-Village, which currently has several houses under construction- an exciting stage for the project after 10 years of planning and development.
Houses under construction at The Village, Cloughjordan
L-R: Albert bates, Davie Philip, Martin Giannini
Course tutors are myself, Davie Philip of The Village, Klaudia van Gool from the UK; and Albert Bates from the farm, Tennnessee.
The course has covered a range of the usual permaculture topics, with evening sessions from Davie Philip from the Powerdown Course, and special input from Albert on eco-village design, biochar and keyline design.
Tree ID exercise with Klaudia in the yurt
Planting a Forest Garden
This will hopefully be the first of many Permaculture Design courses held at The Village, which is destined to become a major learning center and focus for long and short courses on sustainable living and design, as well as being a place to come and see cutting edge examples in practice.
Mixing Cob with Saul Mossbacher
Design work begins in earnest
Oats Harvest August 26, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , add a commentSpent 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 years. The oats will need to dry in the field for a few days, then brought in and threshed before being taken for dehusking. Shareholders can expect up to 100 kg of whole oats, which can then be used as animal feed or rolled for porridge.
Thanks to Tom for posting this short film.
Permaculture course a First For Cashel August 25, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , add a commentFrom 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 country.
Taming the Dreaded Knotweed August 14, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Biodiversity, Environment , add a commentA 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 be the first ever “biological control” deliberately introduced into Britain.
At present, knotweed can only be controlled with heavy-duty chemicals, and then only with great difficulty- it can remain dormant under the ground even after being cut for over a decade, and chews its way through concrete and tarmac for breakfast.
It is becoming a serious threat in Ireland however and there needs to be a concerted effort to educate how to stop its spreading. Take good note of the advice given in the above article:
And how to tackle it
• Don’t ignore it. A small Japanese knotweed plant quickly becomes a major infestation. • Do not strim, flail or chip it. It can reproduce from tiny fragments of rhizome, twig or even leaf. It is extremely unlikely you can eradicate it by digging it out, because the roots stretch down so deep into the soil. • Herbicides can check its growth but only the most powerful chemical treatments will eventually clear it. These are unsuitable for spraying near water. One approach is to allow the weed to grow to about 1m, in early summer, and spray then. You will need to re-spray regrowth in midsummer and again in September if necessary. Another approach is to cut it back and apply to the stumps a powerful weedkiller such as Roundup’s treatment for tree stumps and roots. • Be careful not to allow cuttings into any drains, streams or waterways. • Do not compost cuttings or put them in the rubbish bin. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to cause Japanese knotweed to grow in the wild so if you dispose of it carelessly you will be breaking the law. Do not dump it in the garden waste bin of your local recycling centre. Japanese knotweed (and contaminated soil) is classed as “controlled waste”, which means you must only dispose of it at certain, licensed landfill sites: check with your local council. If you are allowed to have a fire, burning the waste on site is another way to dispose of it. There are also commercial companies that specialise in the eradication of Japanese knotweed. • More advice at environment-agency.gov.uk
Permaculture at Kerry Earth Education August 11, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Forest Gardening, Permaculture , add a commentKerry 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 design Principles; the theory of natural succession; forest garden design and plants; and mulched and planted the start of a forest garden.
Gortbrack Farm is a 10-acre smallholding established in 1991, and the dedicated team have been promoting and teaching organic gardening, school gardens, teacher training and biodiversity programmes since then.
They have recently put up some very pleasant timber “eco-cabins” complete with solar water heaters and wood burning stoves which are available to rent for holidays and courses, where I was very comfortably ensconced for the two nights of the course.
KEEP have also just produced a wonderful 50-page booklet on The Year Round Organic School Garden written by Lucy Bell, Niamh Ni Dhuill and Aine Ni Fhlatharra, complete with garden designs, steps to setting up a garden, monthly garden projects and many more resources.
This is an essential resource for teachers, parents and anyone interested in seeing a school garden be established in their school. Contact KEEP for details.
Thanks for everyone’s support and participation on the weekend and good luck to you all with future permaculture and forest gardening adventures.
The Real Dirt on Organic Food August 5, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Environment, Food, General, Health, Peak Oil, Science and Rationaltiy , 13commentsUpdate 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…
The findings in last weeks’ FSA report that there is little to choose between organic and “conventional” food in terms of the major nutrients is hardly a surprise.
For many including myself, less rigidly defined labels such as “local” and “chemical-free” have been more important especially if we can see for ourseleves how the food is grown.
What is more surprising perhaps is some of the responses from some parties in the organic movement, which are not helping us understand the issues raised, or move the discussion onto other aspects of sustainable food and farming.
Rob Hopkins wrote to me to ask:
Might it be possible that this is actually an example of bad science, which just might have set out to prove a point, been subject to some kind of political interference and the might of the multinational food industry? Clearly it is very useful for some quite unpleasant institutions if we all believe organic farming is a waste of time. Might one argue that to believe that such a study is completely impartial and rigorous is somewhat naive? Might this report be an example of where we need to take what is presented as ‘good science’ with a rather large pinch of ‘organic’ salt?
In order to assess whether or not the review meets the highest standards of science, it is necessary to understand something about how science works, and this is an issue which goes right to the heart of what is wrong with environmentalism, because the movement in general is poorly informed about science, despite being dependent on it for assessing the general health of the environment. (more…)
Permaculture Design Course in Cashel August 2, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Food, General , add a commentJust 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 course design groups
The event was organised by local sustainability group Aimsir Bia and The Tipperary Institue, and supported with funding from the UK Carnegie trust
Tutors included myself (permaculture design; forest gardens; woodlands; local currencies);
Philip Quinn (stone building-
Feidhlim Harty (water and wetlands-
David Brickenden (cob building-
http://timberline-ireland.com/; and staff from the Tipperary Institute (energy and housing)
The Aimsir Bia group have already achieved a great deal in a very short period of time, including establishing allotments, school gardens and a community salad garden, and have many other community and sustainability projects in the pipeline.
Above: the Aimsir Bia salad garden
Part of the course took place in the community garden where the canopy payer of a forest garden had been planted earlier in the year with fruit and nut trees supplied by Woodkearne Nurseries. The area was mulched with cardboard and straw and groundcover plants including rubus Betty Ashburner, alpine strawberries, comfrey and herbs were planted as an understory to the fruit trees and bushes.
Other activities during the course included making charcoal; creating a cob bench; dry-stone walling; and site visits to The Apple Farm.
The course ended on Sunday with presentations by the four design groups of sites in and around Cashel The quality of the work and the variety of ideas the groups came up with was of a very high standard and the Aimsir Bia group intend to implement some of the designs in the future. Design certificates were presented by the Mayor of Cashel. A short documentary including interviews with some of the participants will be available online via the Carnegie Trust and Tipperary Institute in the future.
Below: course participants Sean Laffey and Roger Lonergan (L-R) and course organiser Kevin Healion of the Tipperary institute taking a breather on the mulch
It was a great experience for me also and a privilege to be amongst such a group of creative and talented people. Many thanks to everyone who put in such a lot of hard work to make this event possible, and good luck to all with your future endeavors.
Saturday night barbecue for the class at Michael Hickey’s house
Organics, Science and Corporations August 1, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , 1 comment so farThe 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 fact from fantasy, and explaining how scientific reviews here actually work:
In reality, this is not about organic food. The emotive commentary in favour of organic farming bundles together diverse and legitimate concerns about unchecked capitalism in our food supply: battery farming, corruptible regulators, or reckless destruction of the environment, where the producer’s costs do not reflect the true full costs of their activities to society, to name just a few. Each of these problems deserves individual attention. But just as we do not solve the problems of deceitfulness in the pharmaceutical industry by buying homeopathic sugar pills, so we may not resolve the undoubted problems of unchecked capitalism in industrial food production by giving money to the £2bn industry represented by the Soil Association.
And you thought slamming quack medicine was controversial…
