* Welcome Paul Wheaton and Alan Booker, for a giveaway for their upcoming PDC!

Please join me in welcoming the Big Man in Overalls himself, Paul Wheaton, as well as the amazing Alan Booker!





Find out about his upcoming Permaculture Design Course here!

Paul and Alan will be hanging out in the Permaculture Science and Research  forum until March 29th answering questions and sharing their experiences with you all.

At the end of the week, we'll make a draw for ONE lucky winner to win a a ticket to Paul and Alan's upcoming PDC! From now until Friday, all new posts in the Permaculture Science and Research forum are eligible to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up to receive the Daily-ish email.

The winner will be notified by Personal Moosage and must respond within 24 hours to receive their ticket. Watch for a PM, and a notice in this thread announcing the winner!


Please remember that we favour perennial discussion.  The threads you start will last beyond the event.  You don't need to use Paul or Alan's names get their attention. We like these threads to be accessible to everyone, and some people may not post their experiences if the thread is directed to the author alone.

Posts in this thread won't count as an entry to win a ticket to the PDC, but please say "Hi!" to Paul and Alan and give them virtual huckleberry pie and gluten free pizza make them feel welcome!

Cool. I've wanted to go to a pdc, but I've never had the money. be neat to win a ticket to this one!

I'm here!  I made it!  I was having some computer trouble.

Hi Paul and Alan,

I'm from Austria and almost a neighbour of Sepp Holzer.
If you give the ticket to me, after finishing the course, I will personally visit the Krameterhof
and show Sepp and his son how to improve his permaculture design with the techniques I've learnt from your PDC. :-D
What do you think about that?

Greetings Paul and Alan,

Taking PDC to the next level, thank you and welcome.

It would be an honor and a pleasure to attend this PDC. Hope to see you there. (Thanks Nicole.)

Hiyaaa Paul!!! Hiyaaa Alan!!!

Hmmm... this is the science and research thread. I wonder what virtual pizza would taste like 100 years from now?
Hopefully lots of interesting things will happen on the forum this week.

?don't understand

No huckleberries here but will be planting some real elderberries, serviceberries and hazelnut soon.  Will that do for a pie? I could make a real one to bring to the PDC.  🤔😏😁😁😁. Maybe elderberry cordial would be a better option. 😘
Have a lovely day everyone!

Welcome and thank you for sharing with the community

Hey, Welcome Paul and Alan!

Hey Everyone!

I am looking forward to being in the Science and Research forum this week to answer questions and participate in the discussion. I am currently in the southeastern U.S. and will be busy during the day, so I will mostly be posting in the evenings.

I just opened up a topic on Tools for Regenerative Research, both to let you know about a free, online class I have coming up and to open up some discussion on how everyone manages to keep track of all the mountains of research that gets published each month, especially if you have to cite references in professional publications. Pop on over to that thread and let me know how you keep up with all those references and citations.

I will try to get out a first batch of answers to questions this evening.

brad weirich wrote:?don't understand

So, what happens with our giveaways is that any post made in the designated forum (in this case Science and Research), counts as an entry into winning a ticket to the Wheaton Labs PDC. So, the more posts someone makes, the higher the chances. Our Pick-the-Winner ap is also wieghed toward quality/helpful posts.

In summary: To raise your chances of winning, make a lot of quality posts!

Then, on Friday night, I'll run our Pick-the-Winner program, and it will select a winner. I'll announce that winner Saturday morning, in the dailyish and in this thread and by PMing the winner. If you happen to be the winner, please respond promptly. Since we often run giveaways back-to-back, it's important to finish up everything with one giveaway before the Monday, lest we forget important details (you'd be amazed at how many hours we put into running each giveaway and how many little details there are!)

Welcome, Alan! (And Paul too, of course)

As always, I look forward to every PDC, workshop, or strange giveaway that Paul puts together, for we all end up benefiting from the knowledge.

Whether it's a product that comes out of the venture, a series of videos, or a boxed set of DVDs, every weird thing that happens creates a fun set of learning for the rest of us.

Who knows what'll happen next?!?!

It would be a real privilege to be able to attend a full PDC !  I'm currently enrolled in an on-line class Observation for Permaculture Design taught by Alan Booker and am learning so much.  The science behind Permaculture Design is so fascinating.  I have lots of questions which go beyond what can be dealt with during the OPD course.  I'd highly recommend anyone who is able to attend a PDC course to do so!

Does tobacco free also mean vape free?

I don't necessarily need a PDC ticket, but I'd love Alan's thoughts on the research and technology aspects of this issue:
https://permies.com/t/108327/Wildfire-Mitigation-Long-Term-Permaculture

Paul and Alan, welcome! I would be super excited to win a slot in your next PDC course. I'm slowly (aren't we all?) putting together a permaculture Paw Paw orchard outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I've got three planted as tests and they've done well over the past year, so I now have another 8 ready to go into the ground this year and 28 seedlings planted in RootMakerII pots. My plan is to have more than 80 trees in the ground by the fall of 2020!

Anyway, welcome again and good luck to everybody in the drawing!

Julio Budreaux wrote:Paul and Alan, welcome! I would be super excited to win a slot in your next PDC course. I'm slowly (aren't we all?) putting together a permaculture Paw Paw orchard outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas. I've got three planted as tests and they've done well over the past year, so I now have another 8 ready to go into the ground this year and 28 seedlings planted in RootMakerII pots. My plan is to have more than 80 trees in the ground by the fall of 2020!

Anyway, welcome again and good luck to everybody in the drawing!

Hey Julio,

I'm glad to hear you are working with Pawpaw. We need more folks working with this amazing native fruit. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend Pawpaw: In Search of America's Forgotten Fruit by Andrew Moore.

Are you planting one (or more) of the improved varieties? Where are you getting your stock?

Also, what is the larger context of your orchard? Pawpaws definitely seem to do better in a diverse food forest setting where they can act as an under-story tree. What else are you working on for the other layers of your system?

Alan Booker wrote:Hey Julio,

I'm glad to hear you are working with Pawpaw. We need more folks working with this amazing native fruit. If you haven't read it yet, I recommend Pawpaw: In Search of America's Forgotten Fruit by Andrew Moore.

Are you planting one (or more) of the improved varieties? Where are you getting your stock?

Also, what is the larger context of your orchard? Pawpaws definitely seem to do better in a diverse food forest setting where they can act as an under-story tree. What else are you working on for the other layers of your system?

I have read the book--I bought my copy when I visited D.C. over new year's 2018. I heard about it on a few permaculture podcasts I listen to and was excited to see it in the store, though I can't remember which museum gift shop it was now.

Regarding your other two questions, I planted three specimens of two different named varieties (one Shenandoah and two Allegheny) in the understory of a few tall pine trees in one corner of the property as my testers. They're doing well enough so far for me to continue with the project, so I have a couple PA Golden, Sunflower, Taytwo, and Shenendoah set aside for planting this year. They will be planted in full sun as they're all about 3 years old now; the Pawpaw only needs to be shaded for the first few years of its life, from what research I've found. Because of this, and because of the ultimate goal for the project (first as a you-pick-it and then hopefully supplying a local ice cream company with a seasonal product) I'm going to be planting in rows with a modified ANP (in this case, PNP) layout.

However, the back 2 acres or so are heavily wooded and stay relatively moist due to low elevation and a creek that runs through the property. I plan on growing ungrafted seedlings from the KU project here, in deep undergrowth and amongst wild muscadine. This would allow people to pick improved varieties or "wild-type" pawpaws from the same orchard, though commercial harvest of the wild-type is likely not feasible.

Anyway, that's the plan!

The winner of ONE TICKET to Paul and Alan's PDC is......



Devin Lavign!

Devin, please reply to your PM by the end of Sunday to claim your ticket!

Hey, all. I am excited to be the winner. I have never won anything, so this was a big surprise just for that reason. It was a surprise as well though since I did not try to win. I didn't look at the contest rules or make an effort to post more in the appropriate section. I only looked at this thread after getting the email.

This will really be awesome for me, as I have yet to do an official PDC. I have watched free PDC videos, read books, had awesome knowledgeable bosses who taught the principals. But I just never had the time/money to take a PDC. So this is an awesome opportunity for me to finally do one. Best part with such great permaculture folks like Paul and Alan. Not to mention getting to see Wheaton labs.

Congratulations, Devin! I hope you do a write-up of your experience at Wheaton Labs!

Congrats Devin!!!  Very excited for you! :)

Julio Budreaux wrote:Congratulations, Devin! I hope you do a write-up of your experience at Wheaton Labs!

I hadn't thought of it, but yeah that does sound like a good plan. The hard part will be remembering to take pics for me. I tend to get so into doing things and forget to document. But I will try to do my best to remember to at least do some pics. Writing about it shouldn't be too difficult, I tend to mean to write short things and find myself doing large posts.

So I have been blown away about this since hearing about it. It has been going around in my head a lot over the day.

Something I realized, if I hadn't been on vacation for this last month with constant internet access I likely would not have won, or missed the notification and it would have passed to the next person.

At home I don't have internet on my property yet. I could get it, but I am waiting till I start to build my house and have a better idea of where I want it set up. Plus it gets me into town to the coffee shop where I can be social and not turn into a hermit. But I tend to only get to town once maybe twice a week tops, and often I can go 2 weeks without going in. Especially during the spring melt when I try to use the road as little as possible.

So since I was able to participate more than usual and get the notification right away, YAY!

Just funny thinking about how the random chance wheel works. So many variables at play to make something happen, one piece of it missing and it could all fall apart.

Just thought I would share that with folks.