It’s sometimes a bit hard to explain to people just what a Permaculture Design Course entails – the scope is both broad and intricate – but in it’s essence it’s ecological systems theory, applied to an everyday context.
Over this winter Nick is heading a PDC in Sydney, in a one day per week format. After each week, the students get emailed a summary of last week’s class. In case you’d like to peek inside all this stuff, I thought I’d post some snippets of these weekly notes here, for viewing by whoever is interested, starting with Week 1: Permaculture ethics and history: Read More »
Following on from last year’s overwhelmingly positive experience, Milkwood Permaculture is holding another of our unique Part-Time Permaculture Design Certificate courses in Sydney this Winter, starting on the weekend of May 15 and running until the 31 July.
We’ve found this one-day-a-week format is an effective way to enable many folks to learn permaculture design who have weekday commitments, small kids, or are just plain busy. And given this course’s fabulous teachers, site visits and workshops, we’re sure this will be a winter of amazing learning for everyone involved, including us! Read More »
Deep in the heart of Marrickville, in a little street of workers cottages, right under the flight path to Sydney International Airport, there is a food forest.
A splendid wrangle of Australian rainforest food trees, sugar cane, herbs from all parts of asia, plums and even citrus, grow on a small suburban block with a little brick cottage nestled in the center. Read More »
November 30, 2010 – 12:02 am
Putting the soil where we want it...
During the Spring Permaculture Design Certificate here at Milkwood, a funny thing happened to our basecamp garden. Somehow, it quadrupled in size. It was the most un-anticipated permablitz i have ever been a part of, and this time (for the first time) it was at our house! Or our woolshed, to be precise.
Rosemary Morrow, the lead teacher of this PDC, had come up to me the day before and asked (in her marvelous, quiet way) if the student’s could extend our basecamp garden a bit. Of course, Rowe, I said. Read More »
August 17, 2010 – 6:34 am
We’ve always been all about aquaponics in theory: a closed-loop system that provides abundant vegetables and fresh fish – what’s not to like? But it wasn’t until Nick took some PDC students on a tour of this amazing bathtub aquaponics system in Alice Springs last April that the true wonder of aquaponics really began to sink in.
Alice Springs is one of the driest places in Australia. But here, in Steve’s backyard, was an oasis of mythical proportions. Fresh spinach, greens, vegetables, berries and beautiful shady pools containing healthy, fat fish. Not what you normally think of when you think of an Alice Springs backyard. Read More »
December 20, 2006 – 5:44 pm
I’ve spent the past week attempting to re-enter the world as i know it with a head chock-full of knowledge about permaculture. This has occurred following a two-week course (the Permaculture Design Certificate) at Aldinga Eco Village (well not actually IN Aldinga but at the caravan park nearby… long story) in South Australia.
The plan was that, since Nick is still working in his high office building until christmas, I would head off and do a PDC in order to get my head around Permaculture principles in readiness for our move… Read More »
December 18, 2006 – 11:24 am
When you’ve been planning big changes for a while they seem to take an eternity to actually happen. It feels like we have been preparing to leave Melbourne for years and although we love this place and its people, the day we leave has felt like an age away.
Well, all that has all changed in the last few weeks, I have all but finished up at my high rise job, we’ve booked the movers and this last weekend we invited a bunch of friends for a farewell farmyard BBQ. The big day is rushing towards us and we are being swept in the details of turning our lives upside down. Read More »
