That's my motto and permaculture seems to fit that concept, too - once it's installed anyway. There's a lot of planning that goes into a good, permanent layout and without proper training, I'm hesitant to start much off the paper. I've reached out to a few teachers but none are in the immediate area - strangely enough. But I've got the land and the desire just need some help and guidance and would love to host a pdc class here for a teacher. I farm full time so I can't take off 12 weeks' worth of Saturdays. Maybe I will be able to pick up the next on line class in 2014 Geoff Lawton is going to offer. Unless there's a teacher who wants to put a class together and use my farm as a project.... pm me if you're interested. Surely we can come up with a minimum number of students to make a class worthwhile - even if it's just one week's lesson - the farm and ranch session perhaps....? Hope to learn a lot by watching others' posts, too. I'm limited on manpower/equipment, but will do what I can with a potato spade and my little John Deere. LOL Greetings to you all, nice to be here!
Welcome to the forum What part of the world are you in? There are other online courses in addition to Geoffs. Use the forum Search for 'online PDC' and set it to title only and you will find some discussions on different ones. hmm, let's see if this link is permanent https://forums.permaculturenews.org/search.php?searchid=1349471 If not, this is a good thread to start with https://forums.permaculturenews.org/showthread.php?12231-Online-PDC
I took Geoff Lawtons Online Permaculture Design Course starting in May this year, going through the summer, and finished with the Earthworks Course a month ago, or so. The course ended with a test - not hard, but enough to get a sense the time was spent watching the online videos. Then I had to send in a design for approval. The design was approved immediately and I received a Geoff Lawton signed certificate a few weeks later. So now I am a bonifide Permaculture Consultant, and have been promoting Permaculture around the area, plus have been working my land into a frothy Permaculture frenzy! Beforehand I have considered enrolling in other in-person courses, but the timing wasn't right in the few cases I considered it. When this online course was offered, it was an either now or never moment, so I enrolled. Best information I have ever been associated with. Here is the video I responded to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maORQPbEwJM Here is his website with a sign up box. During the course he said the next course will be on steriods! https://www.geofflawton.com/sq/15449-geoff-lawton Here is after the enrollment was completed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lcrrlQCoBc
Sorry - should have indicated here where the farm is located, not just on the profile page - 20 mins outside of downtown Dallas, Texas - semi-arid depending on what time of the year - or the year. LOL
Thank you both for the links! Seems as though there's not a great deal of interest in pdc here in the city, but I'm hoping to find a minimum number of students to come in for a 12 week (or at least the farm and ranch week) course. This is a blank slate for the most part, and while it has its challenges, with planning, I see a forest!
Hi and welcome to the forum. My partner is from Houston,Texas. I havent done a PDC either and for pretty much the same reasons as yours. I'm not convinced that its absolutely needed though with the amount of information available both on line and elsewhere. It would be great though, if you could get someone to hold one on your farm. As I understand it, Texas has a topography and climate that just cries for more and more trees, so I hope you do well in creating your forest.
There is a small area on the property that is pretty well still native and undisturbed, that does have trees - foresty anyway - and I'd love to expand on those species and add edibles to newly created areas around the 14 acres. There's just SO much to learn and to do - it seems it will take a lifetime and then some to develop it all by myself. There is a young couple that put up a yurt on the back of the property, the other side of a deep ravine, in a prairie portion of the property with another bit of forest area nearby. They're wishing they'd have put it further into some trees now to protect it from the hot summer sun, but we're planting some shade trees to help with that in the future. They're totally off - grid and were thinking access to sun for the solar panels more than anything else I think. I'm hoping they'll be able to stay as the city "code police" are having a hard time adjusting to an off-grid "temporary structure" that exists outside of their realm of thinking.... You can barely see it from the border of my land - they'd have to fly overhead to really see it - or come on my property's easement line where they put in a sewer line underground 10 years back. We're not bothering anyone, they've eliminated the criminal element back there and give me peace of mind that if something happens 3/4 of a mile away from the front of my property where I spend most of the time, I have a set of eyes back there to take care of things. Thanks for the welcomes! See you all around on the forums. Marie
Ludi is in Texas, near Dallas I think. She's been doing some very interesting permaculture in response to the drought. Check out some of her threads https://forums.permaculturenews.org/showthread.php?13049-Water-harvesting-strategies
Thank you, I checked out that thread and made a new comment - she's not updated it in awhile, it'll be interesting to see how things have progressed.