Wednesday 29 May 2013

2013 Food Forest PDC - a fantastic experience!

Well, last weekend saw us complete the 2013 Food Forest Permaculture Design Certificate. All we can say is what a fantastic experience it was.


The Food Forest market garden

The PDC course itself was great - there was a good coverage of topics and some excellent presenters who really knew their stuff ..........and what better venue to hold it in than a certified organic working permaculture property that is not only productive but beautiful?  Lots of hands on activities throughout the course saw us put into practise what we were learning, enabling us to build skills while reinforcing the learning process.  And the experience was made all the richer by the people who attended. They were an enthusiastic and inspiring bunch and we all learnt a lot from each other. People came from all over the place - Canada, Italy, South America, as well as from around Australia. There's certainly something to be said by surrounding yourself with like-minded individuals who care about what's happening to the earth and want to do something positive about it.  It really recharges your batteries.

The range of permaculture projects people were leaving to embark on was enormously varied - from a project to create a permaculture food forest to feed school children in Uganda, to creating a sustainable local school, to revamping suburban and larger blocks, making community gardens and creating permaculture farms.  The enthusiasm extended beyond individual projects - people were happy to help each other to make projects become realities. We're looking forward to seeing how the projects all progress.

Okay, and the food was pretty darn good too.

Pear and pomegranate salad - all ingredients harvested from The Food Forest

So bye bye Food Forest. For the time being anyway. The upcoming Strawbale Building workshop sounds very tempting. In the meantime we'll be enjoying the organic shiraz, pickled olives and pistachios we took home from with us.



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