Enjoy a wild edible plant walk around Harmony Grove with Alden and Ann 

Food preparation class and find out how to:
   * Safely identify and respectfully forage wild edible plants 
   * Incorporate these plants in their food forests
   * Prepare delicious, nutritious recipes

   * Discover how our health can benefit from including these plants in our dietto add text, images, and other content

Learn about fruit tree propagation through grafting.  Class will cover basic grafting principles and techniques applicable to many trees, as well as some more advanced aspects not shown in books or videos.  A limited number of dwarf Apple trees will be available for participants to graft, and purchase if desired.  We will also field graft a few established trees on the property to fit multiple varieties on one tree, conserving space in the garden and allowing for a progressive harvest.  Grafting is fun and the best way to keep heirlooms and other rare varieties from disappearing forever.  Permaculturists should also be propagators; after all it’s a generative process!

Water and food go hand in hand and are inexplicably linked to habitation of Southern California. This slideshow will look at how people have lived and settled in the San Diego region from indigenous to early immigrants to modern day society as a means to understand how San Diego could look in the future

Learn what plants grow best in our hot summers, how to care for them and what to watch out for.  Learn the keys to year-round production and the secrets of pollination and seed saving. 

Learn how to generate income selling in your community and at local events including farmers markets.  Testing what will sell, gathering information from customers and potential customers, and taking advantage of the new cottage food law that allows some home processing.

Come for a short presentation and then a conversation based on the ideas presented.  We are going to be talking about what a complex time we are living in, which requires more and more capacity for very different people and groups to be able to collaborate effectively. We are currently working on an unspoken assumption that if you bring people together who care about something, that it will all work out. But will it really? There is certain something, perhaps it can be called "authentic community", that is necessary.  Community - in a sense- is soil for human life. Yet, it is worth examining what we mean by community, how it is created and how it is sustained. 

An overview of raising chickens in an urban yard, including explanations about:

    - local laws and codes

- needs and requirements of chickens

    - building a chicken coop

    - proper feed for the birds

    - care and feeding of urban chickens

    - what to do with a sick chicken

    - use of chicken poop in the garden

Get "in the Zone" through flowing gentle movements like Tai Chi and other arts, that will stretch your body and awaken your senses. Tai Chi is an ancient Martial Art originated from China, practiced for self-defense and for its health benefits. No skills needed for this easy-to-follow class. Focusing the mind solely on the slow movements helps achieve a state of mental calm and clarity similar to deep meditation.

A sustainable family creates a safe, positive, and supportive environment allowing all family members to thrive and develop their fullest potential.  Topics of discussion will include communication, parenting, and growing food, reducing waste, finances, self-sufficiency, holistic health, community and more.

There is more to planting a slope than ice plant!  This class will help you choose wisely for hillside plantings relying on a variety of types of plants for interest, beauty, and soil stabilization.   Pathways, steps, mulching and irrigation methods will also be discussed.  The PowerPoint presentation features many photos to illustrate examples of good ways to handle slopes as well as less successful plantings you will want to avoid.

Companion planting throughout the landscape is an important part of integrated pest management.  Learn how to use Companion planting as a holistic concept that will fit perfectly into your permaculture designs.  By using companion planting, many gardeners find that they can discourage harmful pests without losing the beneficial allies.  Companion planting can combine beauty and purpose to give you an enjoyable, healthy environment.

Get a Virtual tour of an experimental greywater reclamation system that includes a constructed wetland which supports a wide diversity of aquatic life including dragonfly larva, tadpoles, frogs, diving beetles, and many other native aquatic organisms.  Water from the constructed wetland is used for all current irrigation needs, supplying a drip system to a garden and 50 small fruit trees.  Along with a 10,000 gallon pond/rainwater catchment/Koi system. 1 inch of rain yields about 1000gal. Get a peek at a liner that was designed to withstand sunlight exposure and has other superior characteristics to commercially available liners.  We’ll wrap up with a brief presentation on environmental toxins and even look at some water samples!

Level: Intermediate to Advanced

Level: Beginner

Join Alden for this tour when he will show you the many permaculture features that have been created in the Sky Mountain demonstration gardens. These include rainwater harvesting earthworks, grey water systems, roof water catchments, ponds, food forests and many more!

Bees are absolutely vital to provide abundant, varied food. Beekeeping is a rare example of mankind introducing a non-native species for his own benefit and it not becoming a disaster.  Geoff believes that not only are the bees at risk, beekeepers are also under threat. If we don’t allow, no, encourage, people to accept bees and even learn how to keep bees, a valuable skill will be lost, one which mankind may not be able to do without!

Ryan has begun to put together a new talk about environmental remediation for a permaculture audience.  It will be sure to include information about the conventional remediation process with shared practical experiences with ground water cleanup, soil gas mitigation, and soil remediation.  I will also pull in divergent experiences in low cost bio-remediation for the developing world based on experiments being conducted as part of a PhD study by Henry Haller Co-founder of Finca Montesano.  In presenting an approach for the developing world and conventional remediation practices for the developed world, it is sure that some interesting and perplexing permacultural questions will be raised. 

March 6-8 ,2013

Escondido, CA

FULL WORKSHOP DETAILS HERE
TO REGISTER CLICK HERE

Increase your knowledge of permaculture earthworks during this hands on 3 day workshop taught by Paul Wheaton.   You will be able to watch a raw San Diego hillside side go through a permaculture design process.  From mapping to final construction to planting out of the installations.  It will all be done during these 3 days.  Currently an estimated 350,000 gallons of runoff water runs down through the property untouched.  Some of the earthworks designed and constructed in this class will be placed and designed to alter this erosive overland flow and to maximize water capture and retention in the landscape.  Earthworks will be constructed to create cool zones to give plants a reprieve from the hot summer sun and shield them from the local winds.  The earthworks will be mulched and the construction of a food forest will take place with the planting of cover crops, fruit trees, and support species trees.  Course participants will have the opportunity for hands on participation and to contribute during the design process and work on all of the earthworks.

This will be a hands-on class on the installation, maintenance and importance of the Riparian Landscape in a natural pond setting.