Design

Planting seeds of restoration, resilience & community

April 4, 12-2pm

This introductory workshop explores how ethics-based permaculture design can enrich our lives as we care for the Earth and people. We will learn to plant seeds, make raised beds and build healthy soil in them, even if free and salvaged materials are all we have at hand. These activities will be the basis for discussion of other practical steps we can take in this revolution disguised as organic gardening. All skill and knowledge levels are welcome. Already an expert? Come help teach a beginner!

What to Bring:

• Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground. (Rain boots are best in Spring)

• Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea).

• Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)

• Seeds you would like to share or get advice on planting.

• Salvaged or up-cycled seed starting containers to bring starts home

• Gardening tools (optional, label so they go home with you)

• An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.

SIGN UP FOR WORKSHOP 1 HERE!

Turning potential pollutants into fertility & filtration

April 16, 12-2pm

Many natural resources can become pollutants when over abundant and underutilized. Wood and underbrush in regrowing forests are a classic example. We can help forest and watershed health while turning potential smoke into soil by thinning the overpacked understory and using it in our gardens. This workshop will cover how to do so, including:

• identifying the source species of woody debris and woodchips, and best uses of each

• hugelkulture, a woody debris based raised bed that holds water while also improving soil drainage and fertility

• woodchip mulching best practices

• other uses of woody debris, including animal bedding, biochar, water absorbing and filtering drainage structures, and other watershed restoration uses

Woody debris is just one example of this principle, and we will discuss other abundant materials we can salvage to turn potential pollutants into improved human habitat.

• What to Bring:

• Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground. (Rain boots are best in Spring)

• Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea).

• Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)

• Gardening tools (optional, label so they go home with you)

• Observations of salvageable materials and ideas for how to use them

• An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.

SIGN UP FOR WORKSHOP 2 HERE!

Shaded fuel breaks for fire protection & biochar production
Date & Time TBD

In collaboration with the Del Norte Fire Safe Council crew, we will be working on a shaded fuel break that protects surrounding homes and forms a strategically important firebreak for everything downwind of the Myrtle Creek watershed (Jed Smith, Hiouchi, Crescent City). Participants will learn how to:

• Make a shaded fuel break that protects structures and the largest, healthiest trees

• Connect with the Fire Safe Council crew for help or advice doing so at home

• Use woody debris for making biochar, a soil amendment used by native people of the Americas for millennia. Biochar increases soil fertility, water retention and filtration for centuries. It is also useful for livestock, reducing feeding requirements and bedding odors. 

Participants will get inoculated biochar to bring home for their garden, compost, or livestock.

What to Bring:

• Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground.

• Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea). If you'd like to be involved with burning, cotton or wool clothing, leather gloves and boots are best. Plastic based clothes melt surprisingly easily!

• Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)

• A bucket or bin for bringing biochar home with you

• A truckload of woody debris if you'd like us to make biochar with it for you (no treated or painted wood, nor plywood)

• An open mind, positivity, and your ideas.

We will provide things to cook over the biochar kiln for lunch, and snacks. Please pack a lunch if you have any special dietary requirements.

LET US KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHEN WORKSHOP 3 IS HERE!

Water cycle restoration with woody debris, inspired by beavers
Date & time TBD

Our continent has been short at least 40 million of beavers since the 1800's. Each pair of these industrious ecosystem engineering rodents hydrated a couple acres of wetlands and forests with their work, stabilizing the water cycle of North America. Now, with only 1/10th of their historic population, we must do the beaver's work. In doing so we encourage their return to finish the job on our partially restored, rehydrated watersheds. Our region may be the most important to restore in all of North America, as our forested coastal mountains prime the hydrological pump. We will cover how to use the larger woody debris from fire mitigating shaded fuel breaks to build beaver dam analogues and other water retention and infiltration structures. Doing so can rehydrate forests, mountainsides and aquifers–feeding springs, creeks and rivers through dry summers.

What to Bring:

• Closed-toed shoes comfortable for walking uneven ground. Rain boots help working around water.

• Weather appropriate clothing (rain jackets are always a good idea). Long sleeves and pants are a good idea.

• Gloves and safety glasses (we will have some to share but bringing your own would help)

• An open mind, positivity, and your ideas

• Lunch (we will provide water and snacks).

LET US KNOW YOU ARE INTERESTED IN KNOWING WHEN WORKSHOP 4 IS HERE!