Site Visits at the Madison Permaculture Design Certificate Course 2011

Yesterday we visited two home sites and Troy gardens, a four acre community garden, a four acre CSA, cooperative housing, greenhouses, prairie restoration, medicinal herb gardens and children educational areas.

Education

“Modern life, with its over valuation of intellectual thinking and its neglect of feeling and willing- especially in education- forms man’s physical constitution in a pathologically one-sided way. This raises once again the deep connection of education and healing…All education should be healing, just as all healing must ultimately be educational.” – Rudolf Steiner

Chris Hedges on Education: The Truth of the Matter

“A nation that destroys its systems of education, degrades its public information, guts its public libraries and turns its airwaves into vehicles for cheap, mindless amusement becomes deaf, dumb and blind. It prizes test scores above critical thinking and literacy. It celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns [...]

NOFA PDC at Duke Farms in New Jersey

We are here at Duke Farms in New Jersey finishing up a design course. The first half of the course took place in July. Duke Farms is a 2000 acre site formally owned by Doris Duke. Duke Farms is being rebuilt into an educational model for the teaching of appropriate technology and eco-agriculture. Our students [...]

NOFA Course at Duke Farms Continued

We are already into a design for a Permaculture educational area at Duke Farms, but not before local ecological landscaper, David Scarinci, demonstrated his process of making compost tea.

Permaculture and the Three Epochs Curriculum: More on Water

E) Wetlands • Chinampa system- world’s most productive agriculture, using banks next to water, maximizes productive edge. Swampy or marshy land ideal for this development. System of water-land nutrient exchange in harmonic effect. (Mexico and Thailand) • Ducks (main livestock) cycle nutrients, return potash to water and land. • Fish are marginal feeders • Azolla [...]