Student Testimonials

These testimonials are communications from students who have completed their Permaculture design certification with me. It is an encouraging sign to a teacher when former students are busily at work making manifest what they have learned in so many varied ways.

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Fall is just as busy as any other time of the year. We’ve sold the truck. Several things will need to happen before springtime to clear out more debt (taxes really – the IRS is a bitch). We need to log out some timber in our woods, which we hope will yield some much needed cash as well as give a boost to the understory plants and provide firewood. We have a camper that we’re planning to sell in the springtime, and it looks like we’ll have to sell our tractor as well. Both demand fossil fuels, although the tractor is pretty darn useful. I’ll miss it, but it’s a necessary sacrifice. 

According to my estimates, hot water accounts for just about half of our electric bill. I’m planning to connect the hot water system to the wood stove so we can have hot water on demand (most of the time) without expending more energy or cash except for the one time conversion. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a used water heater to use as a storage tank. After converting the hot water system, refrigeration is the next challenge.

The other week our 15 year old daughter mentioned something she was doing or had done and I blurted out, “You’re such a consumer!” She was actually abashed by the comment.

I’ve been putting some swales in to hold the rainwater high, they’re working quite well. One of the local farmers came by and saw what I was doing and asked when I was planning to have a demonstration day. I told him maybe in a couple of years. We’ll see. One day maybe we could have some classes out here. Who knows.

Larry McAuliffe

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Because of my geographic location, climate and weather, and the size of the land, I have followed a model similar to Mark’s (Shepard) but leaning a bit more on annual vegetables right now.  I put in a plug for you using your wise words when I spoke at the class that was in town.  I was talking about swales and said I got some really good advice from a wise man named Wayne who said, “Start at the top and work your way down”  This has been some very sage advice. 

It was an interesting process as I put this plan in action.  I had some ideas on paper, but as I went to lay out my swales, I found my property was quite bowl shaped.  This didn’t change the basics, but did change the final layout and how I now farm the area.  In the long run I think it will be much more aesthetically pleasing, but a little harder to farm.

I have planted asparagus, fruit trees (apple, pear, plum and want apricot), berries (blueberry and raspberry and want some strawberries), hazelnuts, black locust for N2 fixing, biomass and firewood for a few things as just a start.  Trying to figure out what will make some good guild assemblies as I look at nature.  So far, wild raspberries are sprouting among my fruit trees and blueberries, so I think raspberries will be part of it.  One of David Jacke’s colleagues found hops growing amongst the wild apple trees in their native lands.  I like beer, the smell of hops and I think there is a market, so I would like to try hops as part of a guild.  I am debating between using comfrey and stinging nettles for a dynamic accumulator.  I like nettles as they are native, but have also planted some comfrey as a start.

Mike Lilja

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I attended the Permaculture Certification in Custer, WI. Perhaps you will remember me by my performance during the talent show as a sprouting seed, haha. 

As of late I have moved in with my father in the small town of Capac, MI. We have about 5 acres of land with a big pole barn and are planning to build an aquaponic and mushroom growing system. We are going to start a 10 share CSA next spring as well.

My father and I have lots of plans and even more learning to do as his experience with farming is even less than mine.

It is so lovely to wake up in the morning and not wish to still be dreaming.

Jake Aldrich

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I (plus 8 others) recently put up a 20′ x 50′ hoop house in my backyard. I will be experimenting with growing cool climate veggies and herbs without any additional heat source other than the sun. I’m looking into different ways to create thermal mass (straw bale, water, soil) and maybe attaching a chicken coop for some added heat and fertilizer. 

I also expanded my veggie garden over the summer to include more edible perennials, and I diverted the downspout of the gutter into a dry creek bed to irrigate another garden.

I have lots of ideas of how to convert our woods into an edible forest garden, if only I was a bit bigger and stronger with an endless budget!

I smile to myself every time I see a picture of Elliot Coleman – he always looks so perfect!!!

Molly Jaffray

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A quick update on my permaculture projects. First remember me?…We met in the first permaculture course at Stelle. Judy Spear called me for a ride and we have been deep ecology /gardening friends ever since. Also we met at The CSA Learning Center at Angelic Organics when you and Bill came to visit us. I still volunteer there, but last year I stopped working so I could build permaculture projects at home, during a cool weather year !! 

I built 2 rain gardens, one for shade loving woodland natives and one for prairie plants, with rainbarrel systems. I built a three bin compost system for last years veggie gardens, one expanded with sheet mulching. Then in Aug. I took Bills Pond Permaculture workshop at Stelle (just what I needed!), came home and built two floating gardens for our 1.6 acre pond.

Question: I remember Bill said there is a chapter on Auquaculture in a Permaculture book, but it not in mine . I remember the books you shared with us…Is it in yours? If so, what is the title ?

Sometime this winter I’ll finish figuring out how to share photos and films of these projects, and post on your site. I look forward to this!

Mari Wiekel

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I’m the sole Canadian eh? (from last fall’s course). Personally I have given 1 introduction to Permaculture session for a Conference in Dallas Texas live - last January via the internet and teleconferencing. I liked being able to reach a larger number of people and yet sit at home to talk with them as I felt it impractical money wise to attend in person! I taught a small segment of a local Permaculture course here that my husband Jim took this summer (sheet mulching) and sat in on half the course and helped cook the other half to make it all possible. There was 22 students that attended the full course from all around our province – so we now have 5 graduates in Red Deer where we live. 

Jim and I have redesigned our own yard and implemented some of it to date. We are presently involved in designing two farms for practice for a friend and a cousin. I recently did an intro to Transition Towns here in Red Deer at the local College for a group which I belong to called ‘Re Think Red Deer’ and it seems people are likely interested in becoming a Transition Town. We are meeting again this week – to decide as to whether our city will now host a TT Training here early next year.Over the summer we grew all our own vegetables from heritage seed and collected seeds from many. I also started my own sole proprietorship business called “Permaculture Plus__” and I am presently involved in setting up a website and getting my books in order. I haven’t really made much money yet as I work full time as yet with children. My plan is to slowly fade into Permaculture full time. I plan to do a number of small local courses this coming spring as I attended a number last year around here (those by the Urban Farmer in Edmonton (he has a great Website) and I got him as a speaker at a Spiritual Organization I belong to (Hearts Center).

Wow I feel more passionate than ever now and somewhat driven to get the Permaculture message spread far and wide. Great to hear from you and to see you too are as committed as ever to teach.

Marion Davidson

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For me it is coming up to one year since I was in Grass Valley doing the permaculture training with you. My practice with permaculture remains largely personal, although daily I have fantasies of one day combining my love of kids and their learning process with farm and garden work and I dream of having a farm school or urban farm school as the case may be here in the Bay Area. I am currently teaching a small Dharma school with very young kids at the Zen Center.  We are focusing on the Buddhist paramitas – and right now we are growing some veggies as a way of considering generosity – all the giving of the soil, the water, the microorganisms, the people, the air needed in order for life to unfold. And then of course the giving of the plants themselves for our eating and then the giving of their seeds for future life, the giving of their bodies for compost, and then we give to ourselves and other people with this food we grow….. it’s really marvelous!  Kind of an “all of life is giving and receiving” lesson. 

Just this morning I went into my backyard garden and was stunned to see a very large red and black striped snake slithering in behind some pots where I planted tree collards and green beans. I haven’t been able to identify it amongst any of the common Bay Area snakes so far.  I do take it as a good sign for our garden and for our lives on this day of the dead.

We built a chicken coop in our back yard this year and raised nine little chicks from day one who will soon begin laying.  They enjoy getting the low-hanging tomatoes and sunflower seeds grown for them in the garden and are doing a marvelous job of eating slugs and snails.  On top of that they are a source of tremendous joy and hilarity – I never knew chickens could have such personality.  I am still experimenting with different vegetable growing methods.  One bed is a layered mulch no dig bed with some young raspberry and blueberry bushes along with some alpine and native strawberries growing below them.  Another no-dig bed has had some medicinal volunteer herbs along with lettuce, beets, chard and spinach.  In other beds I’m experimenting with John Jeavons approach.  I have to say, so far these double-dig beds win, with marvelous cabbage-soon-to-be-sauerkraut, beets and winter greens coming.   My guild exploration is largely intuitive, trying planting different things together based mostly on feeling – like the echinacea with the mint!  I’m more of an experimenter than a reader, so I have to accept numerous failures, but I enjoy myself immensely.

For the whole summer we had an outdoor bath and shower set up and we watered lots of garden stuff with it.  We were somewhat careful because we didn’t have any sort of filtering process with the water, but it did feel like a simple starting place for conserving water – that and having a bucket in the sink that all water from washing veggies went into and then was turned back into the garden.

It continues to be a balance, figuring out what can be done as a renter and what is too big of a project for a place we will eventually leave.  I have some trees in pots and have planted lots of vining plants, including a native gooseberry that I’m very excited about.

Elanne Kresser

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Robin and I are still in the experimental stages of permaculture, trying to figure out what is possible in our very shady small trailer park plot.  Some successes and some failures.  We have planted many shade-tolerant perennials, many indigenous species, and are waiting for them to mature.  We have been successful in composting, in using kitchen and community yard waste and worms in building fertility in our soil. 

We are in the beginning stages of building a networking permaculture website for northern California and hope to develop a business around this.  Next year we hope to hold 3 permaculture related events including a cob oven class.  I am in the process of purchasing 40 acres in partnership with 3 other individuals.  One of these individuals, Chip May, is also a Midwest Permaculture graduate.  Here we plan ultimately to develop a low impact dwelling and garden utilizing permaculture principles.

Aaron Beverly

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My goal seems to recede faster than I can approach it, as I am still enmeshed in the labor movement, right now a huge, enveloping, existential fight with Temple University, which leaves little time for anything else. Today (Sunday) however, I harvested Jerusalem artichokes which are the descendant of the tuber I took home from the workshop three years ago. They are small, mostly cherry sized, finding the scant rocky soil left after the scraping of the lot for my house difficult, and I gathered what the chipmunks had missed. But as I dug I was amazed at how well even the small effort of these plants had loosed the soil. My home garden suffers the very limited time I can give it, but more perennials and fruits getting established year by year. 

The Philadelphia Orchard Project is still the most enjoyable expression of Permaculture I’m involved in. The “Project” is to launch permaculture food forests in urban neighborhoods in Philly, in cooperation with community organizations. POP provides the initial plants, and labor to set up the bed with a sheet mulch, and then hopefully our role becomes one of guidance and advice to the local organization. We have planted 13 that are going concerns, several others where the neighborhood partner was not up to it, or the location was indefensible from looting.

Jerry Silberman

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I’m so excited! I’ll be doing a mixture of planning new urban/suburban farms and then physically farming the land. So far I’ve been researching species of fruit and vegetable plants to figure out what will do best where and how much of which crops we’ll need to plant. I’m definitely utilizing permaculture ideas every step of the way and understand not only what we’re working towards, but what it takes to get there! I applied to this company last year but they were still starting up. Now they’ve got more clients than they can handle, and they gave me a job as soon as they looked at my resume with that “Permaculture Design Certified” right at the top! A few of my coworkers are also permaculture certified, and I’m truly among wonderful and like-minded people! I’m so thrilled that I not only got to take an inspiring and fantastic class but that it landed me a job at the company I would love to spend my entire career with! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!! 

Amy

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I just finished an intensive week long Permaculture certification course with Wayne and Bill Wilson. Wayne is a terrific teacher with extensive practical experience. He teaches by example and by telling compelling stories. It was a difficult and important week for Permaculture training and fellowship. I recommend Wayne as an instructor and as a consultant to anyone who is interested in living in a post carbon world.

Andrew Willner

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Dear Bill and Wayne—

I have attached a document with some extra thoughts on the course evaluation. I hope they are somehow constructive, and I welcome your thoughts in response. (I welcome your thoughts on anything, for that matter!)

So this part is a thank you letter, thanks of the deepest, truest nature. You two are as good as gold and as rich sweet soil. What I took home from this week was not only a more thorough understanding of Permaculture, soil, aquaculture, and poop, but a reminder that I want to do many, many things (not everything, I realized, Wayne), that I’m capable of them all, and that I better get started. With such grace, subtlety and beauty do you uplift your students; I think I could be an educator someday, and I’m reminded of this when I get to learn from people like you. To bring someone back into herself, challenge her and at the same time make her feel powerful—you guys have something figured out, that’s for sure.

Here’s a story: Since coming back to the cities, Emma and I have been looking far and wide in the city for milkweed, to make bracelets for each other as we will be moving to different cities come January. We hadn’t found one stalk, for all our miles of trekking around the city, though we have run across some cherry trees and lots of mullein. And then yesterday I approached our house from a direction I rarely come, and there it is, in our trashy little side yard, five strong stalks of milkweed, at least twelve plump pods. I laughed at my need to look far for what is near. But I’m glad we walked, we’ll probably continue to. What we need is here.

I hope indeed I will see you again, and sooner rather than later. My coming year is still wide-open and I’ll say again that I welcome any ideas regarding travel, programs, volunteer work—whatever you know of, I’m open to it.

Happy frost, deep thanks,

Sophia

And the Wendell Berry poem, to go with my story:

What We Need is Here

Geese appear high over us,

Pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

As in love or sleep, holds

Them to their way, clear

In the ancient faith: what we need

Is here. And we pray, not

For new earth or heaven, but to be

Quiet in heart, and in eye,

Clear. What we need is here.