Earth Week: Detroit agriculture film screenings

Grown in Detroit tells the story of the heroic efforts underway at the Catherine Ferguson School to redeem the city’s young and its land. Students at the Catherine Ferguson School are working to change those statistics as proud urban gardeners learning to cultivate the land and feed their families.

Thursday, April 22nd. 6:30 pm. Andover Newton Theological School’s Wilson Chapel in Newton. Join Principal Asenath Andrews for a screening, fundraiser and reception of Grown in Detroit, featuring her Detroit school and farm for teen moms.

Tickets available at www.lizwalkerjourneyproductions.org

Friday, April 23rd. 6-8 pm. MIT. EG&G Education Center, Room 101, Cambridge.
The Tufts Food System Planning Coalition and Planners Network Boston Chapter presents a special screening of Grown in Detroit and Detroit:green + a panel discussion about the role of agriculture and justice in community development and urban revitalization.

Panelists include:
Julian Agyeman, moderator (Tufts Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Department Chair)
Matt Kochka (reVision House Urban Farm)
Alice Leung (Top Sprouts)
Betsy Johnson (Boston Collaborative for Food and Fitness, South End/Lower Roxbury Open Space Land Trust)

Perhaps, like me, you’ve been wondering what’s happening in the Boston area for next weekend’s big worldwide pro-climate-change-mitigation actions, coordinated by 350.org. Well, I’m happy to pass on my recent discovery, thanks to the Bikes not Bombs newsletter, of the Mass Climate Action Network summary. Biking with folks to the Boston Under Water Climate Festival is sounding pretty good to me — see some of you there?

See http://www.relocalizemassachusetts.org/ for the deets.

Thanks to brooklinemama for the tip.

About this year’s, Dick says:

What: Permaculture Design Course - 12 days – Martha’s Vineyard, MA

When: Sept 14 - 25, 8:30 – 5:30 daily; 1st day start at 12:00; last day ‘til early PM

Cost: Course: $600 (Is.-Residents, $500); Hostel Room, $220/11 nights; Meals, $280 est.

Presented by: DickPierceDesigns and hosted at Hostel Int’l – Martha’s Vineyard

Desc: Permaculture Design Certificate Course - Join Dick Pierce and a great crew of local experts/practitioners - gardeners, farmers, organics, Green/natural builders, land owners, small/coop businesses, renewable energy folks - in scenic, small-farm, self-reliant MV for this 12-day residential Permaculture Design course. For old pro’s to beginners, tenured land owners to those just starting out (even thinking about it), professionals, students, teachers, parents, retirees. Learn Permaculture design principles, see them in operation, talk with folks who live on/care for the land, create a professional design for your own property. Join a great, like-minded group for a wonderful experience – in the Fall beauty and charm of Martha’s Vineyard.

For more info please visit www.DickPierceDesigns.com, Or Email DickPierceDesigns@gmail.com; or, call Dick on his cell at 512-992-8858.

a 10-day Permaculture Design Course

when

mid-September

who

instructor Dick Pierce; over a dozen Vineyard residents whose farms, businesses and homes we visited; me & 10 other students.

where

the Hostelling International on Martha’s Vineyard — a shining example of the breed. Very clean, with a super friendly staff, very reasonable rates for the Vineyard, and a flock of chickens & ducks to boot. The staff was very supportive of the class, letting us mostly take over the common room, and also install a few things on the property.

why

Before and during the course, I had some good conversations along the lines of what is permaculture anyway and why study it? Obviously I had some ideas when I signed up, or I wouldn’t have committed my money & time — I’d say that I had a general sense of permaculture as a body of theory and practice refined over the last few decades, having to do with designing & implementing ways to live ethically in the face of declining energy supplies.

what it was like

Some days were mostly listening, with some projects thrown in (turning the compost, or walking the property looking for wind, water and elevation changes). Some days were mostly field trips.

I hadn’t thought much about the fact that the course was going to be on the Vineyard, but that turned out to be a hugely influential aspect of the experience. Dick lined up 10 field trips to area farms, orchards, homesteads, and organizations, all of which exemplified some aspects and approaches to sustainable living. I was struck by how much consciousness our hosts had about looming challenges of climate, energy, water and soil, and food production, and how generous everyone was with their time and with their hard-earned knowledge. Not everything we saw fit exactly into the principles we were studying, but that’s the real world for you; discussing the similarities and differences was instructive.

What was it like living in a hostel with a dozen strangers (and dozens of others passing through), taking this course for a week and a half? The overall experience was surprisingly good, though there was definitely some friction and frustration. I think that the main controllable factor was that the course had a tremendous amount of material and activities crammed into 10 days. This was the first time for this particular configuration of the course, so I’d hope that future incarnations would either cover a bit less, or spread it out over another few days. Despite / because of this, the group did build a great relationship & will hopefully continue to collaborate.

where I could go with the experience

The last few days of the course consisted of a design exercise. I worked on a design for the yard of the property I’m renting, focusing mainly on protecting and building the soil, and will be pursuing implementation of that design. I’ve also talked to a few friends who own land about doing designs for their properties, and hope that the chance arises to pitch in on other students’ projects as they come up.

Longer term is less clear. I can definitely see the potential to turn permaculture design into a part-time pursuit, if the above projects go well. Even if I find that it’s not as good a fit for me as I’m currently thinking, I’ve got a whole new set of skills and ideas for evaluating and dealing with any property I’ll be living on in the future.

thinking of signing up for a course?

Apart from the money, spending 10 days away from family and job is a big commitment. It’s really worth thinking through what you want to get from the experience, and verifying with the instructor that what you’re interested in is going to happen. For courses such as this where students do a design exercise based on a piece of property of their own choosing, it really does pay off to get to know the property ahead of time. I’d definitely do it again, and it sounds like Dick’s intention is to do the two trainings again next year, one in Vermont and one on the Vineyard — I’d expect details to be posted at http://www.permie.us/ as the time draws nearer.

For the rest of you, boston localvores have announced a local beer tasting at MIT on Sept 13th. Sounds fun!

Tomorrow, izzitgreen.com and alldaybuffet.org have teamed up to hold a happy hour event raising money for The Food Project. COME AND JOIN US @ Church in the Fenway neighborhood of Boston from 6 to 9pm on Wednesday. For more details, check out: http://alldaybuffet.pingg.com/CauseForDrinksBos

$2 from every drink purchased will be donated directly to TFP.

(TFP being The Food Project, my current employer)

Update - finally caught up on my boston localvore reading and noticed that they’ve got a free cheese tasting going on tonight at Somerville’s Growing Center. Sounds delicious.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s concern with these two horsemen of the apocalypse that in large part motivates my interest in local food systems. Holmgren’s widely regarded as a deep and experienced thinker on the topic, but his works have been pretty hard to get into. Future Scenarios is certainly a briefer, more focused look into Holmgren’s thoughts on possible futures.

What’s the local connection, you ask? As you may have read here a couple of posts ago, Bostonians have two nearby options for getting some hands-on permaculture training in the coming season, so there’s a chance to make something of any inspiration/perspiration you might get from reading your Holmgren. The first design course is just a few weeks away, starting June 11 at Plowshare Farm, in Greenfield, NH (pdf info sheet). In September, the same course is being offered down on the Vineyard (pdf).

Look for me at the latter of the two — I’ve never made it down to the Vineyard, and a week hanging out with permaculturists in the early fall sounds like a great way to get introduced to a place. Not to mention it being high time to get more familiar with a great body of knowledge and practice
that seems likely to be of ever greater importance.

Though I’d been reading about permaculture and talking to permaculturists for a few years, there’s really no replacement for spending some concentrated time going through a well-ordered learning process. In particular, some of the basic concepts about energy flow and the benefits of different sorts of edges had previously escaped me, but now I’m starting to see them all over the place.

Based on my experience, I heartily endorse the two-day course for anyone interested in the stuff I write about on this blog, and I’m happy to pass on the news from Dick _{(after sitting on it for quite a while)} that the same two-day course is being offered this coming weekend, April 12-13, and as of a few days ago there were still a few slots — more info here (PDF).

If that’s not an option or not enough permaculture for you, Dick is going to be doing two full-length (nine day) courses later in the year, one in June in Greenfield, NH (PDF) and one in September on Martha’s Vineyard (PDF). Of special interest for people such as myself who’ve been through the two-day course, is that having done so cuts the full course down to seven days. Although getting the time free will be a challenge, I’m fixin’ to find a way to get out to the Vineyard course — maybe I’ll see some of you there.