Farm-Scale Permaculture

Long-Term Design for Cooperation with Ecology and Community

January 16, 2014     12 (noon) – 1 PM

A Free, Interactive Webinar Presentation with Dynamic Media

Supported by UVM Extension, Vermont New Farmer Project, the Women’s Agriculture Network (WAGN), and the USDA

The webinar is recorded and accessible here

Upon login (safe and free) you will automatically download “Blackboard Collaborate” with the file, including all slides and live questions, etc.

‘Permaculture’- or ‘permanent agriculture’- is a holistic design system making human landscapes more connected, productive, and ecologically regenerative.  While practiced at scales varying from balconies to broad regions- its origins are in its application to small farms, homesteads, and land-based community-oriented micro-enterpirses.  Join with grower, builder, and professional farm designer Keith Morris to explore how permaculture design can be used by market growers to better cooperate with the ecosystems and communities they depend on to be more profitable and resilient.  We’ll introduce a process for thorough site analysis and long-term (even intergenerational) farm design and planning, and explore some specific techniques best applied in production-scale systems.

If you have Internet access and can hear sound through your computer, you should be able to participate or watch recordings regardless of the type of computer or operating system you use. A broadband connection to the Internet is helpful but not required.

This webinar is free and requires no preregistration.  A recording for the webinar will be available within a week of the presentation date in our online archive. Newcomers to online learning are welcome. All you need to participate is internet access and a computer that you can hear sound through.

To participate, please go to http://go.uvm.edu/aemon at about 11:45 a.m EST on January 16, 2014 and click on the webinar title.

For more information, contact newfarmer@uvm.edu or call 802-223-2389×203. If you require accommodations to participate in this program, please let Jessie Schmidt know ASAP at 802-223-2389 or 1-866-860-1382 (toll-free in VT) or newfarmer@uvm.edu so we may assist you. If you have not participated in a webinar before, we recommend you download the necessary software for free the day before the webinar is scheduled at http://tiny.cc/UVMWebinarCheck.

UVM Extension helps individuals and communities put research-based knowledge to work.

University of Vermont Extension, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, cooperating, offer education and employment to everyone without regard to race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital or familial status.

TOMORROW:

Hardy Organic Nuts for Farms and Yards

     Since the dawn of time, nuts have been some of the most important food plants for human beings.  Nut trees and shrubs offer some of the most nutrient dense foods, provide habitat, show the potential for a ‘carbon-negative’ and flood resilient agriculture, and are economically valuable for a variety of products in addition to nuts themselves.

Join with grower and international farm designer Keith Morris to explore the fascinating ecology and mythology of a few nut trees particularly suited to growing on farms and in neighborhoods throughout in the northeast.  We’ll focus of hardy proven nuts, and introduce some of the breeding, trailing, and hybridizing happening at Willow Crossing Farm in Johnson, VT to select for disease resistance, organic production, high quality timber, oils, medicinal properties, and to migrate some important nuts typically grown in warmer regions.  Participants will leave with a deeper understanding and appreciation of some trees commonly found in towns and hillsides, and be introduced to promising less common nuts.

Keith Morris is the founder of Willow Crossing Farm and is Professor of Permaculture Design at the University of Vermont.  As a grower, builder, and designer, he has created ecologically regenerative and economically viable food systems in New Zealand, Colorado, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Quebec, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nigeria, Ghana, Denmark, and the Netherlands- working regularly throughout New England and in New York City.  He has spent over 20 years developing permaculture with farms, towns, schools, indigenous peoples, squats, activists, and in solidarity with exploited populations.

Willow Crossing Farm is Vermont’s longest established permaculture research and education facility, and a debt-free ‘financial permaculture’ working family farm.   We host one of the most diverse collections of tree crops in the northeast, offer farm-based dining and educational opportunities to the local communities, and host annual events that attract people from across the country and a surprising variety of international students. We grow a variety of fruits, nuts, berries, and vines in an organic nursery; experiment with new crops, techniques, and regenerative farm infrastructure; manage production to create wildlife refuge and pollinator sanctuary; and have been focused on developing ‘productive buffers’ to reforest floodplain and riverside banks with marketable production.

If you can’t make it to Worchester this weekend, a very similar workshop will be presented at the NOFA VERMONT Winter Conference in Burlington, VT on February 15.

 

Also- subscribe to our blog (just enter your email above to the right) to receive announcements about Farm Tours and to view our fruit, nut, and medicinal plant collections, view the listing for the Spring Nursery Sale, and other related workshops and conferences.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Friday Jan. 31 and/ or Saturday Feb. 1:

Permaculture for Public Spaces at the North Bennington Public Forest Garden, McWaters Park

February 15:

Nuts for the Northeast at NOFA VT in Burlington, VT

March 1-2

Orchard Pruning

March 15- 16:

Fruit Tree Grafting and Scionwood Exchange

July 20- August 1:

7th Annual Permaculture Design Certification Course

A residential intensive ‘Farm and Nature Immersion’, world-reknown Permaculture Design Certification Course.  This course if filling very fast!  Reserve your space now.

We are happy to announce that as Vermont’s only fully accredited Permaculture Institute we are able to offer full scholarships to income eligible VTers.  This course is also available for 5 credits (transferable to any college) through the University of Vermont.