Moonrise School of Permaculture

Hello beautiful people!!!
A special welcome to all the wonderful woman I met a the Seven Sisters Festival!!!
I finally have a name for the school -

Moonrise School of Permaculture!!!

I'm so excited!!!
Opening weekend is about 1 moons away - 1 months - its very exciting!!
I've listed some of the events below but I have a feeling I'll add more, especially since May 1 is also my birthday!!
Please email me for more info: Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Moonrise School of Permaculture launch weekend May 1 – 4  2014

Thursday May 1st Launch day!!

Ultra-fast Composting

Practical workshop with Tamara Griffiths

10:00 til 14:00 with optional post workshop visits to the compost for turning and observation

Upwey $50, Book with Tamara - Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Friday May 2nd

Dealing with slugs and snails Permaculture-style

Practical workshop with Tamara Griffiths and Ducky

18:00 til 21:00 for practical slug and snail reduction techniques

Upwey $50, Book with Tamara - Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Saturday May 3rd

Reading and mapping landscape for permaculture designers

Practical workshop with Tamara Griffiths

10:00 til 13:00

Upwey $50, Book with Tamara Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Sunday May 4th International Permaculture Day!

Autumn wildfoods workshop

workshop with Taj aka The Permapixie - Belgrave $60

For more info or to book with Taj - thepermapixie@gmail.com

Taj's education page: http://www.thepermapixie.com/#!education-/c133d

Join us at Aaron Shipperlee's awesome portable GEODOME tent in Upwey for FREE activities Upwey forest garden project planting and mulching from

12:00 til 14:00 - bring a plant or bale of straw for the garden

Permaculture Breakfast at Magpie Café 10:00 onwards

International Permaculture Day Dinner

Magpie Cafe in the afternoon 14:30

$20 adults, $15 children, book at Magpie Cafe

http://tamaraandduckyhaveadventures.blogspot.com.au/

Please - tell me what you want to learn at the new school!
Survey is here! THANKS!!!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/K2QGCS8

Starting a permaculture school - the idea grows

Hi Everyone!

I had a fabulous time at the Sustainable Living Festival (SLF) at the weekend! I promoted Taj's and my upcoming Permaculture Design Course (PDC) and talked to loads of people about the school idea. The support for the school was very positive, with a bit of natural apprehension around it competing with other projects and teachers.

My aim is for "Cooperation not competition" (a David Holmgren permaculture principle) and I don't want the school to teach stuff other teachers have blazed the way for. We will have a PDC but that will be a continuation of the one Taj and I already teach.

Its still very early days yet, and as I said to many folk at SLF the structure and even name of the school is not known yet. I have many people to talk to about these things, and I've had some great ideas on these things already. What I am clear about is that the school will work next to other permaculture organisations rather than under them, I know myself very well and I do much better in a committee of one.

I had my NEIS induction on Monday and apart from getting drowsy during the language and maths literacy tests it went really well. I have a study buddy - my housemate Sarah - we got the train together to Box Hill encouraged each other during the day.

I have the distinct feeling that I'm not that comfortable being a learner anymore but I hope to get over that during the 6 week course! Good news is that I found some acorns under the Holm Oak street trees in Box hill. When I had a taste they were edible as is - no processing!!! I'll be going back there with a rake and some bags as more ripen!!!

The actual course of Cert III in Microbusiness management starts on Monday at the CAE in the city. That means an hour train ride to snooze or read and getting on at Belgrave means we will always get a seat!
We've already planned rejuvenating things like patting the horses that take people on cart rides from Swanston St and having our lunch next to the yarra, on the grass below the princess bridge. As long as we have some nature I think we'll be fine with the hustle and bustle of the city and indoor classes.

So - with the dates of the course I have to start the business within 13 weeks starting on Monday. About weeks 8 - 10 we hand in our business plan and get signed onto NEIS - which falls at the start of May. I was hoping it would be around then because International Permaculture Day is Sunday 4th May and my birthday is Thursday the 1st May. It is also just after new moon, a good time to start new endeavors.

I'm planning a series of workshops and celebratory meals over the May 1st weekend and have contacted some great teachers to get the ball rolling. I still need some women teachers, I want a 50/50 balance gender balance at all times. After that its a continuous banquet of workshops on a range of awesome topics like sawmilling and fencing, edible weeds and animal system design and care.

Dates to put in the diary!!! 

Thursday May 1st Launch day!!
Ultra-fast Composting 
workshop with Tamara Griffiths 
10:00 til 13:00 with optional post workshop visits to the compost for turning and observation
Upwey $50, Book with Tamara - Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Friday May 2nd 
Dealing with slugs and snails Permaculture-style 
workshop with Tamara and Ducky
18:00 til 21:00 for practical slug and snail reduction techniques 
Upwey $50, Book with Tamara - Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Saturday May 3rd - day off!

Sunday May 4th International Permaculture Day! 
Join us at Aaron Shipperlee's awesome portable GEODOME tent in Upwey for FREE activities and Upwey forest garden project planting and mulching from 9am til 2pm. Bring a plant or bale of straw! 
Permaculture Dinner at Magpie Cafe in the afternoon (TBA)

Autumn wildfoods workshop 

workshop with Taj aka The Permapixie - Belgrave $60 

For more info or to book with Taj - thepermapixie@gmail.com 

Taj's education page: http://www.thepermapixie.com/#!education-/c133d

Here's a cut and paste document of the subjects I want to teach at the school. Are you someone who can teach these topics? Get in touch! Are you someone who would like to participate in these workshops? Get in touch!

Permaculture education facility – as yet unnamed

Tamara Griffiths

This year I am setting up a trust, school or institute based on the permaculture ethics:

Care of the earth, care of people, limit consumption and share the surplus. I am hoping to undertake a NEIS (New Enterprise Incentive Scheme) to get the organisation started. I am passionate about teaching as many people as possible about practical ways to change the world and have truly sustainable food and shelter while building soil and biodiversity.

It will be a place where people can learn about:

Permaculture - Permanent agriculture and Permanent culture

Practical ways to achieve food security in Australia and the world

Our beautiful earth and how to save her

We will run a program on 3 weeks on, one week off – this is part of the people care ethic, so workers and myself do not get burned out.

The School 

Courses

Courses are to start before land purchase and building at public and private sites and facilities. Many of these topics are covered in the Accredited Permaculture Training (APT) curriculum, particularly Cert IV, and I'd like people to be able to apply for Recognition of prior learning (RPL) if they wish to work towards certification.

·      These are all are paying courses with the offering of scholarships in each course.

·      Bringing the best people in Victoria, Australia and the world to teach these courses. 

·      I want to empower the new generation of permaculture teachers (like myself) to have a go, hone their skills and get their awesomeness out there! The school will be a place of encouragement and mentorship for all who want to start teaching.

Design

·      Permaculture principles and design methods

·      Patterns and permaculture design

·      Permaculture Design Course (72 hour internationally recognised course)

o   Taught 2 week intensively or also over months or a year

·      Introduction to Permaculture 2 day course

·      Introduction to Permaculture Design 2 day course

·      Design intensive course (post PDC) 20 hours, 50 hours, 100 hours

·      Edible Forest Gardening

·      Keyline Design

·      Regenerative agriculture

·      Coppice crop design, growing and use

Earth Activism

·      One or two week course

·      Permaculture design principles and methods

·      Introduction to front line environmental activism, activists and sites such as Toolangi State Forest

Permaculture Teacher Training

·      For PDCs

·      Teaching Permaculture creatively (Robin Clayfield)

·      Teaching permaculture to – adults, teenagers, kids

·      Teaching permaculture in a school kitchen garden

Practical permaculture skills - courses vary from 1 day to 3 weeks in length

Food

·      Food Growing

o   How to grow food – zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, seasonally

o   Forest Garden food growing

o   Foraging for wild food – seasonally

o   Acorns!

o   Edible weeds

o   Preserving the harvest – food processing, fermentation, nutrition

o   Large-scale food growing

o   Growing food in public places

o   Mushroom foraging

o   Mushroom culture

§  Shitake logs

§  Mushroom patches

§  Integrated mushroom and food

o   Broadscale murnong farming with kangaroo grass and traditional aboriginal techniques of fire and kangaroo management

·      Harvesting and storage

·      Food cooking and eating

Saving Biodiversity

·      Seed banks

·      Heritage fruits

·      Heritage vegetables

·      Rare breed animals

·      Endangered species in natural systems

Structures

·      Structures and building techniques for a sustainable future

·      Super adobe - earthbag building construction – Cal Earth instructors

·      Sustainable cooling and heating – home design

·      Energy and the home

·      Appropriate technology

·      Storage

·      Kachel ovens and Kang beds

Hard core rural permaculture skills!

·      Sawmilling using a portable mill

·      Fencing for small and large scale properties

·      Land survey and landscape mapping for rural properties

·      Keyline and earthworks

·      Large scale earthworks – swales, dam building, gabions, checkdams

·      Large scale Composting

·      Jean Paine hot water and methane

·      Regenerative Agriculture

Reclaiming traditional skills

·      Basket making and practical home skills

·      Scything

·      Blacksmithing

·      Herbal wisdom

Soil

·      Composting

·      1 week soil course

·      2 week soil course

Water

·      Water cycle, rainfall variation planning for disaster

·      Permaculture systems for water

Understanding natural systems and Ecology

·      Nature awareness

·      Water and waterways

·      Forests

·      Seashores

·      Bioregions, EVCs and native species

·      Landscape

·      ecosystem knowledge

·      Indigenous plants and how to use them

·      Fungi

·      Fossils

Social permaculture

·      How to start community projects

·      How to start a community group

·      How to start a permaculture business

·      How to start a community or eco village

Aid work

·      Introduction to aid work

·      2 – 3 week aid work course

Aboriginal Australia

"Close the Gap" between Aboriginal and average Australian lifespan

·      Indigenous food knowledge 

·      Remote community food security and sustainable habitation

Climate strategies

·      Temperate permaculture design and strategies

·      Tropical permaculture design and strategies

·      Arid permaculture design and strategies

Animal systems and practice

·      Polyface farming theory and practice

·      Milking goats design and care

·      Pig design and care

·      Chooks design and care

·      Ducks design and care

·      Geese design and care

·      Sheep design and care

·      Dairy cow design and care

·      Beef cow design and care

Tree systems - more to come

Research and reporting - more to come

Internships  

·      Coursework and practical experience with educators and supervisors present at all times, based around APT Cert IV subjects, which are practical and done in such a way that the candidate can apply for RPL.

Free Edible Forest Garden workshops - Upwey 20th and 21st of July

In return for the sponsorship and support of Permaculture Melbourne and people of the Upwey community to enable me to attend Dave Jacke's Edible Forest Garden Intensive at Milkwood Permaculture I am offering free workshops.  

Two day workshop in Upwey on the 20th and 21st of July

Saturday 20th 10am to 5pm

Sunday 21st 11.45 to 5pm  

We will start following Permaculture breakfast at Magpie Cafe - 10.30 to 11.30am.

Location is to be announced. 

You must be an "Upwey or surrounds" local to attend this workshop.

Please contact me for info or registration: Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

If you can't make these dates please contact me anyway and I will let you know when I am running these workshops for other groups. All Upwey and surrounds people will be free. If the response is too large I will run another lot of workshops later in the year. 

Texts: "Edible Forest Gardens" Volume One and Two by Dave Jacke

If you have these books please bring them. My volumes will be available on the day. You can probably share someone's book if you don't have a copy. The cheapest place for these books is Amazon or you can purchase them from Dave Jacke direct at: http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/about_book 

Two Day workshop: Theory and Implementation

Theory:

• Permaculture, Ecology and Forest mimics

• Understanding forest dynamics and succession

• Resource sharing guilds

• Mutual support guilds

• Edible Forest Garden Pattern Language

• Site Analysis and Assessment

• Edible Forest Garden design basics 

• Patch Design using the matrices in Volume 2 of "Edible Forest Gardens"

• Coppice crops

• How Australian EFGs must differ from examples in the UK and USA


Action: 

• Implement an Edible Forest Garden design at a public place in Upwey with donated plants (please let me know if you would like to donate plants by 15th July so I can design them in)
 

These are the first of many forest garden workshops in Upwey. These classes will well and truly get you started, but as people get acquainted with Forest Gardening and have specific areas of interest I can run more workshops and possibly an EFG book reading club.

Read how Dave Jacke explains forest gardens here:

http://www.edibleforestgardens.com/about_gardening

Make sure you check out Angelo Eliades' Melbourne demonstration EFG at his website:

http://deepgreenpermaculture.com/my-garden/ 

Angelo has created a huge resource for budding permaculturists and Forest Gardeners. 

Angelo runs excellent tours of his garden and speaks eloquently about it and many other topics. 

Other upcoming courses: 

• Introduction to Edible Forest Gardening at "Upwey Townies" Monday 15th July from 6pm, Upwey Township Hall
• Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with Tamara Griffiths and Taj "The Perma Pixie" runs Wednesday evenings from 10th July until December email Taj: thepermapixie@gmail.com 
• Permaculture Design Intensive, this post-PDC course runs 5 weeks, October and November
• register your interest with Taj: thepermapixie@gmail.com 
• Understanding and improving soil with Taj "The Perma Pixie" August and September email Taj: thepermapixie@gmail.com
• Spring Wildfoods workshop with Taj "The Perma Pixie" Sunday 6th October, Thornbury email Taj: thepermapixie@gmail.com 

Tamara Griffiths

Moonrise Permaculture

Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

0407 45 7707

A Permaculture Winter in Belgrave - with Ducks!

Its hard to believe that my last post was written in January!! What a slack blogger I have been. But I haven't been doing nothing - Taj and I have been teaching two Permaculture Design Certificates (the 72 hour internationally recognised course abbreviated to PDC), I've been back in the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden at the Aspendale Gardens Primary School and I've studied hard at the Edible Forest Garden with Dave Jacke course at Milkwood Permaculture!

Its winter and in true permaculture style I am sitting outdoors at my little coffee table enjoying the cloudy daylight. The ducks - yes ducks as in plural - Ducky has some new friends - two lady ducks called Boodicca and Drusticc - have just found the lush grass around the grey water outlet for the house - which needs some designing done to clean and reuse it. We are thinking maybe bathtubs with reed beds leading to a duck/prawn growing system near the water tank green house... none of which exist at this stage, but as ideas we are enjoying the thoughts!

The ducks have just started to lay eggs, this morning I got eggs 7 and 8 and so far they've all gone to the house upstairs - my permaculture community that lives 2 minutes away from my nice private little studio. I have a view of the acre or so of the land we have here. It is glorious to see Ducky and two white pekins in the lush green landscape searching for goodies; very picturesque with the Crimson Rosella adults and juveniles nibbling seed on the swale.

Where to start! The previous post is about starting the Wednesday night PDC and advertising the upcoming saturday PDC. Well the saturday course finished last weekend with some brilliant permaculture designs presented by the four awesome graduates. We were super impressed with the designs, and astonished at the level of effort and research that had gone into them. Where people had done patch designs, they had taken the forest garden technique of resource partitioning guilds and had researched not only the needs of fruit, vegies and vines, but also their root structures so sun and soil space was shared. I could have been knocked over with a feather!!!

It was a little sad to say goodbye to the class; over the last few months we've spent many days together learning and designing but it felt awesome to unleash some more permies on an unsuspecting world. The PDC is supposed to be transformational and I am pretty sure this one was. For Taj and myself as well. This was Taj's first PDC and only my fourth so it was a huge achievement for both of us. Taj is also the queen of admin, organisation and class resources - you can see some of her notes and at her blog: http://thepermapixie.blogspot.com.au/

What else is happening? The Wednesday night class from my last blog has been going for nearly 6 months and many evenings and dinners have been shared. There comes a point in a course where people have gotten to know each other and it becomes a night out with friends as well as a learning experience. The communal meals each week have been part of that - sharing food that you have made with people creates bonds that you just don't get in situations without food. Food is a fundamental part of our culture as humans, we've been sharing food and fire for millennia. This class finishes in the next few weeks and the permaculture family we've built will stop meeting weekly - hopefully people will visit me at Permaculture Breakfast at Magpie Cafe in Upwey. Some of the students are refusing to stop coming... they may be helping with the next course and possibly teaching on it, so we'll see.

And now to tell you about the next PDC course! It starts on Wednesday July 10 and runs for 6 months. We are starting at almost mid-winter and will travel with the sun as spring and summer return. Here is the write up:

July 10 2013 Permaculture Design Certificate

Join The Perma Pixie and Tamara Griffiths this winter as we snuggle up next to the combustion stove with tea constantly brewing and share our knowledge and experience about the wonderful world of Permaculture!

The course will run through spring and into summer, when we will start to put our winter lessons into practice and get our hands dirty!

Permaculture was what lead us to believe we can make a positive change in our world, helping to heal the environment, bring ecology back to a healthy equilibrium and give ourselves an inherent sense of well-being through this work. We hope others will find the same sense of connection to their surrounds and empowerment within themselves through our courses. 

A full 72 hr PDC which aims to empower and inspire students to continue their lives with a sustainable and conscious outlook.
Topics covered include:
- Permaculture Principles and Ethics
- Ecology
- Patterns in Nature
- Methods of Design
- Water
- Soils
- Animal Systems
- Community and Social Permaculture
- Forests and Plants
- Wild Foods and Herbal Medicine skillday
- Food Forests

The course is Wednesday evenings for 3 hrs from 6:00pm - 9:30pm, and runs for the duration of 6 months. This is to accommodate for peoples busy lives and ensure that we keep warm by the heat of the combustion stove for the winter evenings while we learn some theory, before stepping out and getting our hands dirty in spring!

Cost: $700 waged, $500 concession

Payment plans available - talk to us

Join Tamara Griffiths and Taj Scicluna (The Perma Pixie) as we continue our journey to revolutionize the world through Permaculture.
For more info check my website:www.thepermapixie.com
For bookings: thepermapixe@gmail.com 

More info from me: Tamara@moonrisepermaculture.com.au

Tamara and Taj at the recent PDC excursion!

Taj and Tamara's first Permaculture Design Certificate has started!

Hi Everyone!

I am mega excited to tell you that teaching has started on Taj and my first ever joint Permaculture Design Certificate!!! We are doing a weekly Wednesday evening PDC!

Taj and I started the course on the 16th of January, with everyone sitting outside on rugs I gleaned from  hard rubbish! We are teaching from our amazing home in Belgrave, where we are settling into after moving here late last year. We had shade for the most part on this warm evening as we introduced ourselves using Robin Clayfied's process called "Symbol of Passion".

We put out all our textas, pencils and pastels and each person has a piece of (recycled) paper and writes their name, has a symbol that represents them and pictures or words of what we are passionate about. Then we tell the group about what we've drawn. I love this process, I find it an awesome way to cut to the essence of someone - and it helps us teachers know the interests, backgrounds and learning styles of our students. It is also an opportunity to see if people shy or outgoing and adjust our teaching methods accordingly. This group is very musical - we might have some permaculture songs coming out of this lot!

It is also very diverse with two young women who have just left year 12 through to a woman in her fifties who visited one of permaculture's best example of urban food growing throughout Cuba last year (see the documentary "The Power of Community"). We have one young man, who studied horticulture with Pete the Permie (read this as permaculture!) and is a great asset to the class. Others in the class have been involved with sustainability (real sustainability not the greenwash crap) for many years and are active in their community. I can tell it's going to be a great 6 months.

After our introductions - Ducky met everyone too - we shared a meal around our huge dining table. Everyone brought food to share, some homegrown, some wildcrafted, some organic, some conventional, some from the biodynamic store in Kallista, some from the supermarket. I mention this because some people asked me if it was alright if they could bring food from a shop as they were worried it would be frowned upon. Our reply was - look, no one can live up to the expectations of what the permaculture life "should" be. We can do our best under our circumstances and ease up on the judgement of ourselves and others. This is part of the fourth ethic of permaculture the Gaiacraft team use: Transition Ethic (more on this later).

Dinner was fabulous, so much wonderful food and a buzz of conversation. Taj's basil pesto was a standout for me! I pay attention to how people are engaging with each other and the subject matter at break times to gauge how they are going with the learning, and possible changes needed with teaching style or processes. I love it when people are so enraptured with their discussions that it is hard to get them to come back to a structured class (until I have to ask them three times!!!!).

The next topic was

"What is permaculture"

We used a simple brainstorm - Taj leading the session with me being the scribe - we used the "popcorn" method (again thanks to Robin Clayfield) of having turns to speak - often easier than going around in a circle (it depends on the topic and group). Once everyone had a go Taj and I gave a few quotes and examples of what permaculture is: we use our own sources and the worksheet "Defining Permaculture" from the Gaiacraft workbook. I like to define permaculture as a way of thinking and designing our lives, communities, homes and food growing systems in an ecosystemic way - everything is connected and we find ways to make our problems our solutions.

See the entire workbook at this link - it is awesome!!!
All of our students get one of these is soft cover as part of their course fee!
http://www.gaiacraft.com/gaiacraft-workbook/

It is a great joy teaching with Taj again, we sit next to each other, bouncing off each other and giving the other the support to hold space for creative facilitation of learning. I missed Taj so much while she was away in Europe, and when we taught together again I remembered why - we totally rock!

So - thoroughly enjoying ourselves we launched into

Permaculture Ethics:

Care of the Earth
Care of People
Limit our consumption and share the surplus
And the fourth ethic the Gaiacraft team use - Transition. The quote below is taken from the gaiacraft  workbook:

Often people feel overwhelmed by the ethical implications of permaculture or the idea that they must make radical changes all at once. This ethic helps people transition into a permaculture consciousness and dissolves the judgemental attitude that can come along with some permaculture perspectives, making people feel more comfortable to learn about permaculture without being judged or overwhelmed. 

To introduce these ethics we used the Gaiacraft Permaculture Principles deck - a wonderful resource for teachers. Have a look at them on my facebook photos page: https://www.facebook.com/tamara.griffiths/photos

These cards have several levels. First is the ethics, second is the principles, third is strategies and fourth is techniques. Passing around only the four ethics cards Taj and I introduced them and facilitated a short discussion on each one. Then we passed each ethic card around and people made a statement about how they could use that ethic in their lives. It was a pretty inspiring exercise - I was a bit teary hearing how people were going to start living by these ethics straight away, and a great way to move from thought to action.

The night ended on this wonderful high note and I came away feeling totally inspired that I've made teaching permaculture a central part of my life and livelihood. I am so lucky to have found what I am on the earth to do, and even luckier to be able to live it.

In the words of Bill Mollison: "The harder I work, the luckier I get!" It's been a long and difficult road these last few years but I am finally feeling it is all coming to fruition and my dreams of being a permaculture are coming true! Thanks for sharing my journey!

More on topics and methods of week 2 soon!

You can download the cards or get them printed to order at:
http://www.gaiacraft.com/permaculture-principles-deck/

For more Gaiacraft awesomeness go to:
http://www.gaiacraft.com/

Taj and Tamara's weekly Saturday PDC starts February 16th

Our second Permaculture Design Course of 2013 is running weekly on Saturdays from our home in Belgrave. This course will allow people with weekends off to spend the whole day learning with us.

This course starts on Saturday February 16th. It then runs until May. The days start at 10am and we finish at 5pm. We have a shared lunch and shared morning afternoon tea (this keeps the price down for everyone).

This course will have awesome guest teachers - our past teachers include Seila Hierk, Angelo Eliades, Pepo Dib, Mystee Unwin, Michelle Jones, and Ed Adamthwaite. Ducky will also be bringing his unique brand of teaching!

We are extremely excited to share our new home and garden with our students, where we teach the full 72hr Internationally recognized Permaculture Design Certificate. We are still in the early days of the design and implementation of our permaculture dreams on this one-acre site. We have zone 1 and 2 gardens underway - with lots of design challenges. Join us and help us create our dream!

There are other PDCs coming up, including a parent's PDC - and we take requests!!! Our practical courses will also start soon!

Cost: 
$600 waged
$400 concession
$300 for second person (friend, partner, family)
We offer payment plans if you can't pay everything up front.
Our PDCs are reasonably because we believe that permaculture education should be accessible to all. Its part of our commitment to Fair Share.

Please contact:
Taj: thepermapixie@gmail.com

All my profits from this course will go towards payment for the 9 day intensive Forest Garden course at Milkwood with Dave Jacke! I can barely contain my excitement!!! Watch out Melbourne, I am going to come back DANGEROUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!