Hello Permaculture People,
The next two months are filled with many great opportunities for our permaculture community to come together and honor the land, to honor people, and to honor our natural resources. Please join in with other likeminded permaculture individuals and organizations. The SLO Permaculture Guild is dedicated to holding space for community members to share knowledge, build support and co-create the solutions for an abundant future that honors indigenous wisdom.
Uniting our group are the three permaculture ethics: Care for the Earth, Care for People, and Share the Wealth.
September 17 – Soil Harmonics Introduction to Soil Ecosystems with Amanda Smith
3:30pm – 5pm – New Office Grand Opening at 225 Ocean Ave, Cayucos. Food, wine & gifts.
What is an ecosystem and what does it mean to build one? Everything we need comes from the soil, so beginning with the land we live on is key to creating any successful ecosystem. www.soilharmonics.com
September 23 – Community Work Day at Our Global Family Farm at City Farm SLO
10am – 2pm at 1221 Calle Joaquin Road in SLO
We are replanting the herb garden in the European section of the farm. Please bring a couple of herbs from the attached list so they can planted as a hedgerow along the northwestern section of Our Global Family Village. Our Global Family Village is a project of the SLO Permaculture Guild. We really need PEOPLE to come and help prep the garden for the field trip on October 6th and the October 8th Harvest Festival at City Farm. We also are going to mulch the pathways in the four quadrants of the garden which showcase food crops from the four corners of the globe.
September 23 - Selection & Propagation of Native Plant Seeds at the Botanical Garden
1pm -3pm with John Chesnut. This is our last in the 2017 Seedsaving Workshops. $15. For more information contact Elizabeth Johnson at stteresa@kcbx.net
Saturday 9/23 - Sunday 9/24 – Heirloom Tomato Festival Weekend
2 days of Tomato Tasting, Farm Tours & Fabulous Food!
Tickets available online from Farmstead Ed: https://farmsteaded.com/
September 30 – Cob Wall Construction at The Lavra
9am – 3pm
This workshop is the second part of a workshop we held on July 1st in which we built a cob wall in a day, though you need not have attended the first workshop to join us at the end of this month! For those who don't know, Cob is a traditional building style similar to adobe that is comprised of sand, clay, straw, and water; in the ideal, it uses local materials indigenous to the site and provides lasting and strong buildings. To finish the wall, we will use the same mixture, though in a slightly different way. The workshop is limited to 30 people and during the hands-on demonstration, we will coat the wall, add decorations, and work on an adjacent cob oven.
Our guide is an internationally known workshop leader in sustainable building, “Cob” Betty Seaman. For those who didn't meet her in July, she is a wonderful teacher and kind person. She has taught in some of the most well-known sustainable building schools in the world and lives in a cob village near Los Olivos. We could not be more excited to have her share with us her passion for Cob.
The workshop is free, though we hope people will be willing to voluntarily contribute $10-20 each to share with Betty for her time and wisdom.
We hope that this will be an exciting beginning to a series on alternative building practices over the coming years. We hope in the future to do workshops on sandbag building, live roofs, strawbale, and rammed earth. We see our workshops as a public service that over time will build a reservoir of knowledge in the county and contribute to making the Central Coast a leader in alternative and sustainable building.
To reserve a spot, please contact us at thelavra@gmail.com. The Lavra is located in Corbett Canyon, between SLO and Arroyo Grande. We will have a potluck lunch during the workshop. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
SEPTEMBER 30 - 6TH ANNUAL HARVEST PARTY at Branch Mill Organic Farm
2pm – 7pm
We'd welcome an appetizer to share and BYOB. Local band "To Wake You: Mark Davis & Karoline Hausted" will play from 2-3pm and The Mighty Croon Dogs will play from 3pm to dusk. Lots of luscious food from the farm!
2815 Branch Mill Road
Arroyo Grande, CA 93420
RSVP with Ruth Madocks 805-481-9205
October 6 & 7 – Growing Edible Education Symposium at Rancho El Chorro Conference Center
Friday 8am – 6pm --- Field Trips and Chef Cook-off
Saturday 8am – 5pm --- Workshops/Panelists/Networking Expo
This important event brings together schools and organizations that support the farm to school, and school garden efforts in Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo counties. The GEE Symposium unites diverse stakeholders such as schools, outside agencies, and farm businesses to promote and support Farm to School activities. The GEE Symposium is packed full of field trips to SLO County school gardens, farms, and agricultural enterprises. Register until end of September: https://www.geesymposium.org/register-now
Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/878728892280033/
October 8th – First Annual Harvest Festival at City Farm
1pm – 5pm - $5 entry fee
The purpose of the Fall Harvest Festival is to bring together the many individuals and organizations who share a commitment to local sustainable urban agriculture to collaborate and celebrate our shared mission with the entire community. We would be honored to have you join us. Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/1943029535973365/?ref=6&ref_notif_type=plan_user_invited&action_history=null
Central Coast Grown website: http://centralcoastgrown.org/events-page/
October 8 – Favorite Rare Fruits for SLO County with California Rare Fruit Growers
1pm - 3pm - Presentation is $5 for Garden members / $10 public / FREE for CRFG members.
The Central Coast of California is known for its mellow climate and robust agriculture, but what are some unique and delicious fruits that
are right for your home garden? Join us at the Garden to hear from members of the California Rare Fruit Growers (CRFG) as they share
their favorite fruits and how to grow them on the central coast without a greenhouse! Enjoy refreshments and mingling with CRFG members
with the presentation starting at 1:30, followed by a free docent-led tour of the garden at 2:30 PM.
No preregistration required. For more information visit www.slobg.org/fruit
October 14 – Soil Harmonics talk with Amanda Smith and Cristy Christie “It All Starts With the Soil”
3:30pm – 5pm at 225 Ocean Ave, Cayucos
This talk gets into all the amazing magical science details of the life in the soil and how it instinctively cooperates together to create health and balance below ground, at ground level and above the ground. Amanda and Christy make understanding the soil food web easy, fund and entertaining.
October 21 - Sally Fox talk to Central Coast Weavers’ Guild and SLO Seed Exchange in Atascadero
10am — 12:30pm at The Barn in Atascadero. Sally grows cotton & wool for fiber art on her biodynamic farm, is a renowned heritage wheat grower in Capay Valley, and is a renowned organic colored cotton breeder. Contact Elizabeth Johnson for more information at stteresa@kcbx.net
October 28 – Blessing of Mother Corn at Our Global Family Village at City Farm
10am – 12noon
We will be celebrating Indigenous Peoples traditions to Honor Mother Corn & the Fall Harvest Season
This event allows us to bless the food that nourishes us as a community and to honor indigenous peoples who have carried plant knowledge forward for generations. This multicultural gathering spot at City Farm allows us to all come together as one big family to grow food together and to learn about one another’s food culture, horticulture, agriculture and permaculture.
Check out the new website: https://treelees.wixsite.com/website
October 29 – The Chumash Kitchen, The Acorn Awakening
8:30am – 1pm with Violet Cavanaugh and Jeanette Acosta
Fall is a time to harvest, store, and prepare for the coming winter. Join us this fall as we reconnect with the local environment, the season, and your health during the fall Chumash Kitchen offering with Chumash chefs and herbalists, Violet Cavanaugh and Jeanette Acosta. This offering will leave you nourished, connected, and grateful for the gifts of nature.
Violet and Jeanette will share the autumn practices of collecting, processing and transforming acorns into several modern and traditional recipes, paired with other fall flavors. After breakfast, you’ll take a short hike up to visit the traditional Chumash grinding stones, discovering the native plants and sacred space. The beautifully prepared lunch will again feature flavors of the season. You’ll develop a deeper relationship with the oak trees, enjoy a wide selection of prepared wild edibles while learning new methods for incorporating more indigenous foods into modern dishes and your life. Please wear shoes appropriate for the short hike. Pre-registry is REQUIRED for this intimate offering.
NEW OFFERING! Pre-Prep Day on Friday October 27 from 10am – 1pm, join Jeanette and Violet in the kitchen at the SLO Botanical Garden to learn and help process acorns and other wild foods in preparation for the Sunday offering. You’ll learn how to roast and grind acorns, and collection and harvesting techniques. This hands-on and in-depth work-trade is offered for an additional $25 and is open to the first ten people who select the pre-prep day in the sliding scale PayPal drop-down menu.
Details and sign up here:
http://slobg.org/Chumash-Kitchen/
Added bonus: Amazing Grains with Larry Kandarian interview on Sustainable World Radio host Jill Cloutier
http://sustainableworldradio.com/amazing-grains-with-larry-kandarian/#
Episode 141: Larry Kandarian is an organic farmer and ancient grain advocate. In this episode, Larry takes us on a whirlwind tour of Kandarian Organic Farms where he grows over 200 varieties of plants. As you’ll hear in the interview, Larry is a man with a mission- growing the most ancient and nutrient-dense grains he can find and providing the world with alternatives to modern wheat.
I first became aware of Larry and his work when I saw an ad for a talk he was giving at our local seed swap entitled, “Ancient Guy Talks About Old Grains.” When I read that, I knew I wanted to interview him!
Larry Kandarian has been farming for over 25 years. A former mechanical engineer, who worked on the Space Shuttle, Larry is now committed to growing ancient grains in the most ecological way possible.
Respectfully yours,
Teresa Lees
SLO Permaculture Guild