Detailed breakdown of dates and topics for Tampa Bay weekend PDC

Below you will find a schedule of Fall 2015 PDC, and some of the highlights that we will cover for each weekend.  We provide glossaries, outlines, additional written materials, self-testing material, videos and more, to assist you to access and absorb the information. Please note that there are sometimes changes in this line up based on needs of students/instructor availability (we have sometimes had surprise visits by veteran designers for instance).

Weekend One

Permaculture principles, patterns and design

9 AM to 5 PM

Location: Clearwater, FL (14 Nov TBA, 15 Nov is at Moccasin Lake Park, Clearwater, FL)

Nov 14-15,2015

• Learn to work with nature, instead of against her

• Apply permaculture principles and design in any setting or circumstance

• Recognize and use the patterns of nature to increase abundance

• Get practical tools that can be immediately applied to your life to increase abundance and quality of life

• Hands on design techniques – zones, assessments, sectors, mapping, and more

• We will cover an overview of the scope of what permaculture is and what it can do for your life and your community

To register for this or all weekends, call Taina at 727-495-6145

www.growpermaculture.com

Weekend Two

Secrets of the natural world – energy patterns of trees, water, land

November 21-22, 2015

9 AM – 5 PM

• Special guest instructor

• How to bring the magic of nature into every aspect of an urban environment through conscious design

• Think like an ecosystem

• Climates, strategies for temperate, drylands, tropical, subtropical and changing weather patterns

• Rainwater catchment and sustainable water use

• The transactions of trees – mimic the powerful energy transactions of trees in your design

• Simple  secrets of building soils – how to grow lush, healthy plants anywhere

• Broadscale applications with water and soil – transforming the landscape

• Hands on techniques for preparing your land for regenerative abundance

Weekend Three

Growing food sustainably and abundantly

Work with nature instead of against her to create abundant organic gardens

and “food forests” that need little work to maintain.

December 12-13, 2015

9 AM – 5 PM

• How to grow food in Florida, the easy way, from seed to harvest

• Jump-starting a food supply – feed yourself within one season

• Integrated pest management (organic)

• How to design and build a Florida friendly forest garden – plant lists, guilds, step by step implementation, propagation, low-water and no-water techniques, and more

• Animals in a permaculture system

• Hands on techniques

• Container gardening, aquaculture, urban farming, agroforestry, small integrated farms, making a living by growing food

• Wrap up of food forestry specifics – designing, plant choices, etc

Field Trips and Hands-On Activities

See what is going on locally that will impact our future, get hands on experience,

and define careers and purpose.

Dates – 9-10 January 2016

• Get into the garden and plant! Hands on intensive will assist you to integrate classroom learning.

• See examples of permaculture in action.

• See “green” buildings, organic farms, etc, and get feedback from experts on how to improve the designs using permaculture principles.

Weekend Four

The built environment and appropriate technology

January 23-24, 2016

9 AM – 5 PM

• Learn to retrofit your built environment to reduce costs and help the environment

• Ctting edge “green building” and how to solve problems of the built environment yourself with creative, low cost or no cost solutions.

• Natural building techniques

• Alternative energy and technology

• Appropriate tech workshop – solar power, rocket stoves, and more

• Putting it all together – integrating the off grid homestead for maximum production

Weekend Five

Financial and social permaculture – invisible structures

February 20-21, 2016

9 AM – 5 PM

• Creating a regenerative local economy

• Alternative approaches to creating abundance – how and why do time banks, local currencies, etc, work?

• Business and community guilds; how to create abundance through connection

• Social, economic and energy aspects of city and town life – practical solutions that work

• Urban design – visible and invisible structure design for the specific challenges in cities and towns

• Community building strategies and social permaculture

• Intentional communities, increasing quality of life through permaculture design

Weekend Six

Saturday: Disaster permaculture – creating resilient systems, where do we go from here?

Design presentations

March 19-20, 2016

9 AM –56 PM

• Efficient ways to create more resilience for yourself, family and community.

• Design for disaster – key elements to understand.

• Where do we go from here? Options and resources.

• Sunday: Really Free Market, design presentations, and afterparty

Cob building – “living in a hug”

Pine Ridge home building project – apprentices needed!

Shannon Freed, graduate of our Pine Ridge PDC did not waste any time applying her permaculture knowledge. Last year, she held a 10 week apprenticeship at Pine Ridge which resulted in a beautiful cob home being built for a Lakota on the reservation (sustainablehomesteaddesigns.org)

This year, she wants to repeat that feat, this time building a 30X30 foot pallet home for another family in need of better shelter.  Pro-builder David Reed will be overseeing the project (www.newjurabuilding.info). This is a wonderful opportunity to learn natural building techniques from a top professional while building a home for someone who really needs one.  And also to experience life on the Pine Ridge Oglala-Lakota reservation.   Please let your friends know about this event, it is one not to miss! Shannon runs a great apprenticeship (we checked it out personally last year) and it is for a very worthy cause. This type of building could work well on the rez, and it is badly needed in a place where many people live in really poorly insulated mobile homes and federal housing.

http://nbnetwork.org/events/active/pine-ridge-oglala-sioux-reservation-pallet-house-build/

New Jura Natural Building in collaboration with Sustainable Homestead Designs is proud to announce another Pine Ridge Project, the last Pine Ridge Project was led by Coenraad Rogmans of House Alive and a beautiful cob/strawbale home was built, on this build we are going to build a 30′x30′ pallet house!!

Pallets are a huge waste material in the US and abroad, their use as design structures has exploded among the “green” and architectural communities.

Our goal is to show the practicality of pallets as more than a design and incorporate them into a real living structure!!

Other groups have taken to building these very inexpensive homes in areas such as Mexico and South America and have put together some very beautiful homes.

We will be building this home on the Oglala-Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation, an area where homelessness, violence, alcholism and abject poverty is extremly high!!

From WikiPedia:

“The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux (pronounced [oɡəˈlala], meaning “to scatter one’s own” in Lakota language) live in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota bordering Nebraska and 50 miles east of Wyoming, the second-largest Indian reservation in the United States. The reservation has broadly three parts, pine covered hills and ridges, grassy plains and a desert area. The Oglala are one of seven Lakota sub-tribes, and they are federally recognized as the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation.”

I will be offering an 8 person apprenticeship on this build where I will take you through the complete build, foundation to finished home and teach you how to build your own.

More information will be available on our website http://newjurabuilding.info/