Toby Hemenway, American author and educator, Died at 64

Toby Hemenway was born on April 23, 1952 and died on December 20, 2016.

He was an American author and educator.

Hemenway has written extensively on permaculture and ecological issues.

Hemenway was the author of Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture and The Permaculture City: Regenerative Design for Urban, Suburban, and Town Resilience.

Hemenway served as an adjunct professor at Portland State University, Scholar-in-Residence at Pacific University, and a field director at the Permaculture Institute (USA).

When he had obtained his degree in biology from Tufts University, Toby worked for many years as a researcher in genetics and immunology, first in academic laboratories including Harvard and the University of Washington in Seattle, and then at Immunex, a major medical biotech company.

Toby Hemenway passed away at 64 years old.

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UN recognises unique Australian farm built around Natural Sequence Farming as sustainable

abc.net.au writes…

“A radical environmental approach to holding water in leaky weirs on a farm — one of only five in the world — has been recognised by the United Nations as sustainable.

Mulloon Creek, near Braidwood in New South Wales, uses the Peter Andrews method of Natural Sequence Farming — growing weeds and slowing the movement of water in the landscape.

The farm has proved itself in the past seven years, increasing pasture growth through the drought and feeding more cattle.

The farm was run down before the owner, Tony Coote, adopted Mr Andrews’s methods to rehydrate the land.

As it sits at the headwater of the Shoalhaven River, it feeds into the Sydney Water Catchment.

“We are making more sustainable agriculture, improving the environment, [producing] cleaner water,” Mulloon Institute chairman Gary Nairn said.

Having left federal politics, Mr Nairn has taken over running the institute that hosts workshops and field days on the farm…”

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NEW BOOK: PERMACULTURE TEACHING MATTERS

 

bluemountainspermacultureinstitute.com.au writes…

“We are happy to announce the release of the NEW book: Permaculture Teaching Matters, written by Rosemary Morrow and designed by Alba Teixidor.

This book was funded by a crowdfunding campaign early in 2015. It is a step by step guide to assist holders of a PDC to become effective and inspiring teachers. We look forward to them training the next generation of permaculture practitioners.”

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RIP Bill Mollison – Bruce Charles ‘Bill’ Mollison 1928-2016

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‘Brilliant’ Climate Change Cartoon

 

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What is the difference between permaculture design and landscape design?

 

‘What is the difference between permaculture design and landscape design?’. This is a common question when people are first developing an understanding of permaculture design. It’s a good question!

Permaculture design goes deeper than landscape design. While both seek to create a functional and aesthetically pleasing environment, permaculture design thinks beyond the boundaries of your block. It aims to create connections that will sustain the design well beyond a lifestyle trend. The result is natural and urban elements that are better able to co-exist.

Permaculture design is systems thinking that can be applied to many situations beyond landscape garden design. This depth contributes to conditions that support permanent culture or as we know it, permaculture.

Let’s explore the difference between permaculture design and landscape design. Here are three points that make permaculture design stand out for us…

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How to Set up a Permaculture Farm in 9 Steps

permacultureapprentice.com writes…

“Now that I have seven acres of countryside to steward, I’m feeling somewhat overwhelmed about where to begin. I’ve done my PDC and designed my property, but now I have all these pieces that I somehow need to fit together and I need to prioritise my tasks.

The problem is that permaculture is a set of principles, not a framework. While it is certainly a process, it lacks a set of linear steps to follow. Clearly, what permaculture lacks  is a clear decision-making process.

Taking a PDC doesn’t solve the issue, while it helps with the design phase and developing a site plan, what is frequently ignored is “how to install the design”.

It is most manageable when the design is implemented in stages which build upon each other. That’s why, having taken some time to read up more on the subject, I have created a multi-stage plan based upon the components of the ‘keyline scale of permanence’

This helps me develop my design incrementally, envisage the ‘big picture’ and, most importantly, I have an order in which to establish my farm.

In this post, I’ll share some advice on beginning your farm’s development and on how to implement your design in stages. Even if you haven’t yet designed your property you can still follow the process. Let’s dive in…”

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HomeBiogas – Create Your Own Energy

“Turning waste into gas and fertilizer, creating an in-house cycle of energy.

HomeBiogas is a family-sized affordable biogas system. It converts any organic waste into clean cooking gas and a high-quality liquid fertilizer for the garden. Your kitchen leftovers can turn into 3 hours of cooking per day. You’ll be cooking dinner with the gas produced from lunch’s leftovers. Pretty amazing, right?

HomeBiogas maintains a closed-loop eco-cycle: organic waste turns into energy and a liquid fertilizer byproduct which enables us to produce more food thus maintaining the critical cycle of life. Know exactly where your energy is coming from and where it’s going.”

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Geoff Lawton presents The Permaculture Designers’ Manual

permaculturevoices.com writes…

“There’s a book… a book that is 576 pages long.

It was first published in 1988.

Some of you may have read it, some of you maybe haven’t.

“This book is about designing sustainable human settlements, and preserving and extending natural systems. It covers aspects of designing and maintaining a cultivated ecology in any climate: the principles of design; design methods; understanding patterns in nature; climatic factor; water; soils; earthworks; techniques and strategies in the difference climatic types; aquaculture; and the social, legal, and economic design of human settlement.

It calls into question not only the current methods of agriculture, but also the very need for a formal food agriculture if wastelands and the excessive lawn culture within towns and cities are devoted to food production and small livestock suited to local needs.

The world can no longer sustain the damage caused by modern agriculture, monocultural forestry, and thoughtless settlement design, and in the near future we will see the end of wasted energy, or the end of civilization as we know it, due to human-caused pollution and climate changes.

Strategies for the necessary changes in social investment policy, politics itself, and towards regional or village self-reliance are now desperately needed, and examples of these strategies are given. It is hoped that this manual will open the global debate that must never end, and so give a guide to the form of a future in which our children have at least a chance of reasonable existence.” Bill Mollison: Permaculture, A Designers’ Manual.

This book is Permaculture, A Designers’ Manual.

And this show is Geoff Lawton covering the whole Permaculture Designers’ Manual in about an hour at PV1 in March 2014…”

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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SWALE CALCULATOR SPACING TOOL

permaculturenews.org writes…

“Douglas Barnes of permaculturereflections, who is a sustainable designer from the countryside in Tweed Ontario, has created a great tool that can be used to help with Swale implementation.

This calculator, located on his website here, addresses Swale spacing that has been a perennial question in Permaculture. This calculator turns the problem on its head and gives you the best estimate for spacing based on swale size.

WHY CALCULATE SPACING?

Installing swales costs time, energy, and money. Over-installation of swales is a waste of resources. Under-installation is a missed opportunity. If you want to have an optimal system, you’ll need to calculate spacing. The good news is that now it’s easy with our calculator!…”

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