One Desert City Turns Stormwater into an Abundant Oasis using Green Infrastructure Practices
Community Projects, Conservation, Irrigation, Storm Water, Urban Projects, Water Harvesting — by Jennifer Wadsworth May 18, 2013
At 7:30 Sunday morning, April 21, 2013, people began to gather on a barren lot in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The temperature was already climbing into the 80s and the lot’s bare dirt reflected both heat and light, making lingering uncomfortable. By 8:00 AM, more than 30 neighborhood volunteers, Youth Hostel guests, Green Living Co-op members, PDC and university students were on-site, eager to start the day’s activities. They were here to celebrate Earth Day by installing a green infrastructure retrofit project in the Garfield Historic District; an eclectic neighborhood that is part of the larger Arts District.
Comments (2)From New York to Africa, Why Food is Saving the World (TEDx video)
Community Projects, Urban Projects — by Stefan Boone May 17, 2013
Comments (2)Brian Halweil, publisher of "Edible Manhattan," discusses the problems with the global food system and the solutions he’s found cropping up everywhere.
Dozens of U.S. Cities Board the Bike-Sharing Bandwagon
Community Projects, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Earth Policy Institute May 15, 2013
by Janet Larson, Earth Policy Institute
When New York City opened registration for its much anticipated public bike-sharing program on April 15, 2013, more than 5,000 people signed up within 30 hours. Eager for access to a fleet of thousands of bicycles, they became Citi Bike members weeks before bikes were expected to be available. Such pent-up demand for more cycling options is on display in cities across the United States—from Buffalo to Boulder, Omaha to Oklahoma City, and Long Beach in New York to Long Beach in California—where shared bicycle programs are taking root.
Comments (0)The “Long Emergency”, Permaculture, and Towns that Food Saved
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Economics, Society, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Andrew Willner May 9, 2013
We live in dangerous times, when economic collapse, climate chaos, and peak oil threaten the foundations of society, abundance, and all we hold dear. “Business as usual” will no longer suffice, because that way leads to certain pain, peril and impoverishment.
Unspeakable acts of violence like the slaughter at the Sandy Hook school or the Boston Marathon bombing; natural disasters like Katrina and Sandy; economic uncertainty; technical failure; “peak everything;” and climate change can offer opportunities for either despair and disengagement or innovative collaboration. In the aftermath of such disasters communities often experience a surge of purposefulness to deal with the crisis. As a result, there is a need for better understanding of the specific and general resilience of communities, ecosystems, organizations, and institutions to cope with change.
Comments (0)Naming Convention for Permaculture Research Institute Master Plan Sites
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Urban Projects — by Eric Seider
As we look around our planet we should need no further evidence of the urgency with which we should dedicate ourselves to establishing and demonstrating sustainable systems for human settlement. We especially should need no further evidence as permaculturists. With this in mind and with the intention of facilitating the rapid establishment of more educational, demonstration sites (aka ‘master plan sites’), The Permaculture Research Institute (PRI) would like to announce a change to the naming strategy concerning master plan sites.
We feel it would be a much more effective way to encourage the rapid development of master plan sites if we focus on local naming. Currently we have whole country denominations like PRI Australia, PRI New Zealand, etc. This creates an issue if another PRI site wants to be established within one of those countries, and we hope to facilitate as many demonstration sites as possible. Ideally the name of a master plan site should be: The Permaculture Research Institute "Property Name and Location".
Comments (34)How to Build a Cheap Raised Garden Bed
Land, Plant Systems, Urban Projects — by Samuel Alexander April 30, 2013
I’ve been advancing my guerilla gardening efforts recently, with a significant new raised bed now beautifying my nature strip, as seen in the picture at right. I thought in this post I could provide a brief overview of how to build a cheap raised bed, either for use on your nature strip or in your front or back yards. This overview might seem a bit basic for the handy builders among you, so I direct this post to those who are beginning their journey into guerilla gardening and urban agriculture.
I was moved to write this post after attending an environmental festival recently where raised beds like the one I have built were priced between $800 and $1000! Mine cost considerably less than $100, including the soil and plants, and that’ll pay for itself soon enough. I also earned the joy of construction, making me doubly well off. Below I describe the method for building a raised garden bed that is two boards high, which provides good depth.
Comments (8)Greening the Desert (the ‘Sequel’ Site) Project – Spring 2013 Photo Update (Jordan)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Urban Projects — by Salah Hammad April 26, 2013
It’s spring time for the Jordan Valley Permaculture Project (aka "Greening the Desert – the Sequel"), the lowest place on earth (400 metres below sea level) and one of the hottest and driest, and our trees and gardens are full of produce. During the internship that was held at the project in November 2012 the students worked on installing a new irrigation system that has obviously made a big difference!
Comments (7)“Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space” Trailer
Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Land, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees, Urban Projects — by Geoff Lawton
The trailer for my next video is up:
"Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space" trailer
Register your email here and we’ll let you know when
the full movie is ready to watch
Many of you have been asking what Permaculture can do for you in the small Urban space.
Well, one of my students, Angelo, has transformed his tiny Melbourne backyard into an amazing productive garden and documented every detail over the last 4 years. You’ll find out how much food you could grow in the micro space when you apply Permaculture design creatively.
You will be amazed.
Comments (2)Letters from New Zealand – a Permaculture Food Forest in the Far South
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems, Seeds, Trees, Urban Projects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor April 21, 2013
The home of Robert and Robyn Guyton stands amidst an abundance of food
All photos © Craig Mackintosh
Robyn Guyton stands in the Zone 5 area of her food forest
Riverton is a quaint little windswept fishing settlement on the far-south coastline of New Zealand’s beautiful South Island (map). As well as being one of the southernmost inhabited towns in the world, and one of New Zealand’s oldest European settlements, Riverton has another, more relevant, claim to fame — that of hosting one of the best food forests I’ve ever seen! With this post, and the video included, I want to give you a bit of a look at this temperate climate, biological cornucopia.
Comments (11)Working With What You’ve Got: How Losing My Vision Gave Me Perspective
General, Health & Disease, Urban Projects — by Jennifer Wadsworth March 20, 2013
House front — before
House front — after
We all encounter rough spots in our lives. Fortunately, we get to choose how we handle them. For me, permaculture provided the perfect lens for placing hard times into a healing, long term context.
So often today, we are taught to think of things in the short term: a week, a month, a season. Within this timeframe, rough spots can seem monumental and occur as a total breakdown in our way of life. However, by slipping on a permaculture telephoto lens, we can begin to see the solution in the problem.
In 2005, life dealt me a rough spot of a magnitude I had never encountered. After months of odd symptoms, I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease, Wegener’s Granulomatosis. While Wegener’s can attack any bodily system, it affected my vision most severely, to the point where I could no longer perform my IT job. Now I live my life seeing the world around me as if it was an impressionist painting – a very blurry impressionist painting.
Comments (13)Ron Finley: A Guerilla Gardener in South Central LA
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Health & Disease, Urban Projects — by Kim Hayes March 11, 2013
In this inspiring TED talk, Ron Finley teaches us all how to be ‘Gangster Gardeners’ and how to let your shovel be the weapon of choice. In his own words, "Growing your own food is like printing your own money". Let that be our new battle cry across the land. Ron and his volunteer gang are showing us how to end the scourge of cities — ‘the food desert.’
Comments (2)The Tale of a Local Community Network (Melbourne, Australia)
Community Projects, People Systems, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Elspeth Brock March 5, 2013
I attended the Community Gardens Conference in Canberra in 2010. Myles Bremner, CEO of Garden Organic, Europe’s main organic gardening organization, was speaking about how surprised he was that in Australia there was no unified network of Community Gardens. In fact in Australia no one even knows exactly how many there are. This highlighted for me the importance of building local networks to improve the credibility of local food growing and share experiences and resources.
I wanted to share my experience of The Moreland Food Gardens Network (MFGN) in Melbourne, Australia, to show how a local network can work. It began with a group of people all somehow involved in community gardens and there are now a wide range of organisations and individuals involved, such as horticulturalists, community members, local schools, community health organisations, local council and academics.
Comments (0)SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) Turns Problem into Solution With Composting Toilets (Haiti)
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Compost, Conservation, Rehabilitation, Urban Projects, Village Development, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 3, 2013
A few months ago I shared a three minute video from John D. Liu of the EEMP about the work of SOIL (Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods) — an organisation that’s doing great work in Haiti to improve sanitation in a sustainable and affordable way, whilst simultaneously turning the problem (human waste) into a solution (improving agricultural production whilst reducing the incidence of diseases like cholera). John has just sent me the latest edit from his video work on the impoverished island nation, so below you’ll find an extended look at the work of SOIL, and its context. This video makes an excellent follow-up to the article we just posted a couple of days ago: Recycling Animal and Human Dung is the Key to Sustainable Farming.
Comments (3)
The Cynefin Permaculture Project (North Wales)
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Land, Markets & Outlets, Retrofitting, Social Gatherings, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Catherine Griggs February 7, 2013
If you want to make permaculture happen, then just start. This is the story of how one garden ended up providing work, food and fun for people in the community of Gwynedd, Wales.
History
It was autumn, March 2012, and unemployment was at an all time high in North Wales. I was a qualified permaculture consultant wandering the lands searching for my next project, but also suffering the strain of recession. I then stumbled upon some unusual funding from an organisation called Nacro. The organisation provides paid work experience for people who are generally deemed antisocial or who are long term unemployed. The organisation had funding left for the year and needed somewhere to put it. So I went dressed, suited and booted, and proposed an idea to Nacro that would help at least three people find work in the future. Luckily the man I encountered empathised with me and I managed to secure a paid job for myself and two others, implementing a permaculture garden for three months only.
So I had 3 months to find the land and build a garden with only enough money to pay a small wage and no materials. Quite the challenge! I asked my friends Lizzy and Dwynwen if they would help and of course they were up for the challenge.
Comments (8)More Yard Waste to Raised Beds
Urban Projects — by Mark Feineigle January 25, 2013
Shed Bed
Continuing from my last post, after cleaning up our yard and several neighbors’ yards from another unusually strong storm here in south western Pennsylvania, I had a cache of branches to utilize in my garden construction. Our summers here have been getting hotter and drier so I wanted to take advantage of wood’s ability to help retain moisture, coupled of course with a blanket of straw to further retard evaporation.
