Hi All,
Just signed up for Permies, there is a Yahoo! group for the Boise Permaculture Guild that hasn't been very active in a while, so a couple permie friends and I are planning an event and would love to draw the permie community together. I hope folks can make it, we are looking forward to bringing the permaculture community into a more prominent role in this area!
Howdy Permaculture folk!
It's been a while since we've had a local event and we thought that with as cold and dreary as it is, now would be a great time to get together and talk about things bright and beautiful! Mark next Tuesday at 7pm on your calendars!
Eric Johnson has had the wonderful idea of us all doing a plant share (since thanks to the amazing new Commonwealth Seed Library we don't need a seed swap). Eric had a great crop of Jerusalem artichokes last year and would love to share some tubers to help sunchokes conquer the world - starting with Boise. Eric can also share grapevine cuttings of himrod and maybe a few other vines. Dan has Lamb's Ear and probably a few other things that he'd love to share. What cool plant have you got too much of that you'll be tossing into the compost pile come spring? Wouldn't it be great to have some local market or virtual commons to give and get and sell and trade stuff like this? We thought we could all get together and compile a list of what people have to share and figure out the logistics of splitting things up and moving them around.
In addition, as our thoughts begin to turn towards the planting season, Eric had also suggested a cooperative buying thing. We are all familiar with some great catalogs that we've been salivating over and haven't we all wondered if anyone would like to go in on things together to buy en mass and save on costs and shipping? Eric just got a great amish nursery catalog that sells all sorts of wonderful fruit trees for about $15 each. Dan is working on an order from One Green World (which has great permaculture appropriate plants. Let's make a big order and save cost and share shipping.
Maybe you have some inside deal or even propagate stuff you'd like to sell at great prices to your fellow permies? I'd wager Eric and Chad both have a few things they could propagate for us.
After the fun of plant swapping/trading/buying, Eric has a pretty cool idea that he'd like to bring up for anyone who wants to stay and chat about it. Eric's idea... "There is a piece of land i go by often that has been set aside for a future city park. I'm guessing there are a bunch around town (around the whole country even?) that are just sitting there unused. Wouldn't it be cool if we could use these undeveloped park sites to start setting up permaculture example areas? A permaculture park?
Some potential benefits would be:
1 - Sustainability demonstration, educational and volunteer opportunities
2 - Low resource usage areas - would cost the city much less than a normal park and could actually produce income
3 - Could produce valuable high nutrition food and materials that could be used in food banks, school lunches, rehabilitation training programs, art programs, etc.
We could talk to nurseries, schools, the city and state sustainability departments, rehab programs,
about getting involved. This sort of project has the potential to get more folks innoculated with the permie bug, build the local food web, jumpstart some permaculture product growth, build local community, and lots more good things! What do you think?"
Seems like we've got plenty to talk about and it's a great time to get together as a community. So... how about a get-together at Dan's house (2701 North 29th Street) next Tuesday (the 29th of January) at 7pm?
Dan
it's easy to work with. if you have a list of plants already, it's just a matter of using copy and paste to put it together.