Basecamp Garden: plan for Summer

Permaculture, Permaculture DesignLeave a comment
basecamp gardens plan

Basecamp gardens plan – click for enlargement. As for my illustration skills, that’s what happens when you spend your life on a laptop – you draw like a 12 year old…

Planning, making and planting the gardens around Bascamp has become one of my favourite parts of the week, and we are finally starting to feast on the results! I really cannot believe that i didn’t garden for the first 30 years of my mishappen (but oh-so very full) life… what was i thinking? This is great! And you can eat it! Yum.

The Transition Handbook by Rob Hoskins

Book Recommendations, Community Projects & Resilience, PermacultureLeave a comment
Transition handbook cover

“The Transition Handbook: From oil dependency to local resilience” – front cover

The reason I am brandishing this book about at the moment is *not* because it crushes the reader with an avalanche of undeniable evidence. I feel that we’ve all been beaten about the head a fair bit with how the media portrays Peak-Oil and our society’s utter and complete dependence upon this black sauce. Not to mention Global Warming. And/or a potent combination of the two. It’s enough to make you go and find a large rock to wedge yourself beneath.

The reason I am brandishing this book about at the moment *is* because it is a template for community-level solutions. It ain’t a call to run for the hills, nor is it a treatise on how to greenify your life. This book describes (and very well, I think) possible ways to set up structures for community awareness, organization and implementation of action that will make a community more resilient to massive change.

2009 Permaculture Calendar + Diary

Book RecommendationsLeave a comment
permaculture diary and cal

How good are these? You probably don’t know, so I’ll tell you – they’re great! Oh and though this looks like a shameless plug saying, basically, *buy stuff*, I’m afraid I have to mention it because they really are splendid. And really, how many other 2009 diaries will you find that contain the gruff but pertinent quote:

“there are two sorts of people in this world – those who poo in drinking water, and those who don’t…”

Ok, a little background… the 2009 Permaculture Diary + Calendar have been put together by Michele Margolis + David Arnold over the last 6 months or so. During this time, they invited contributions from people + groups all over to contribute projects and images for the two publications. I recently bought one of each to see how they turned out, and they are really, really good.