Indiana Permies where are you?

I live on the west side of Indy near Brownsburg. I would love to hear from more folks in central Indiana. What are you doing? Here's my youtube channel that shows a bunch of the stuff I've been doing. http://www.youtube.com/user/renh99

I hope to hear from you soon!

I have an acre lot with some nice slope. Without taking a PDC or having full understanding of permaculture design principles we started planting stuff in 2010. We now have two hugelkulture swales on contour, six 4'x4' raised beds, three apple trees, a pair, three cherry trees, two peach trees, four blueberry bushes, a few raspberry bushes, a lot of our landscape around the house has strawberry ground cover. We have a lot more to plant, dig and so on plus years to watch it grow and develop.

I'd love to see and hear from other folks here in Indiana on what you all are doing.

Hi Loren,

Another Hoosier here! I'm just learning, and having to go slowly but I stumbled on this forum and had to introduce myself and let you know you weren't alone!

I have a good-sized corner lot in a southern Castleton neighborhood. We have six raised veggie beds, 2 large herb beds and a (small) strawberry patch. We also have 2 apple and 1 peach tree, 6 blueberry bushes, a grape vine and 2 blackberry bushes. All organic, except when the county sprays for mosquitoes

Our newest addition (2 days ago) are 14 chicks! The goal is to end up with 6-8 laying hens (after sexing and mortality).

One thing I love to do--with little success--is to find wild berries, fruit &/or nut trees. I have found a beautiful Mulberry tree in a Pioneer Cemetery that I will be taking my kids to harvest in the next couple of weeks.

Oh, and springs. I love beautiful fresh water from a spring!

Hi Tamra! Glad to know there is another Hoosier on permies!

Hi! I'm glad to see other people from Indiana on here.

I live down in Evansville. I have a wife and 5 kids still at home. Four kids well married and gone (all our kids are from the same parents, that usually is the first question). We came down from Alaska about 5 years ago and have a couple of acres, about 1/4 of it wooded. We are slowly working our way into permaculture. It was exciting to realize there was a name for something we always felt was the proper approach to growing things. We currently have a few apple trees, a couple of peach trees, triple crown blackberries (I gave away over a 100 starts this year), several plum trees, bush cherries, strawberries, grapes and some more stuff. We had a bunch of chickens, but discovered my wife is allergic to chicken eggs, even home grown ones. Turns out she can handle duck eggs though, so we now have ducks. I'm getting into grafting and cuttings. This spring I was able to give about 20 new grape vines I started from trimmings from my reliance red seedless to friends.

I am excited about the possibillites the midwest offers. I can't get too excited about fishing in the midwest after living in Alaska, but I'm quite excited about the variety of wild edible plants, the mild climate, and the gardening and fruit growing potential (even tomatoes, the holy grail of alaskan gardeners). Each year I get excited and plant too big of a garden. This year I've been harvesting the lambs quarters that grew bountifully in my garden when I was gone for a month and no one weeded. They are delicious with steamed with a little balsamic vineger.

One of the things I'm looking at for the next couple of years is planting chestnuts and grafting pecans into the big hickories at the back of my property. I realize that since the pecans are faster growing than the hickories the pecans will eventually get too big for the supporting trunk and will have to be cut out, with maybe a new limb grafted in a few years before. I hope by then to have pecans growing, allowing me to cut out the hickories

Well there are three of us. I hope this thread grows.

My brother in law lives up in Remington and got me into this whole thing. So I blame him anytime my wife looks at me like I'm crazy for wanting to plant more or do some sort of earth works project.

Hello hello hoosiers,

I grew up mostly in Indiana west central lafayette to greencastle area, so just thought I would say howdy. I actually took my PDC in north east central Illinois with Midwest Permaculture and fell in love with the community over here and moved from Indiana. Love the work your doing and let's make sure us Midwesterners stay in touch. There are a lot of folks in Indiana and Illinois that are looking to make connections with the earth, their yards, and neighbors so us Permies need to keep sharing our surplus and spreading the good news about just how easy it is to change our culture and climate!!

Ernest

Hi, Galveston, IN here. just bought our place last year so starting over. we have two apple trees and two pear so far. getting ready to put a couple hugelkulture beds! we have 9 chickens and live on a half acre corner lot. good to see some hoosiers on here!

Fort Wayne checking in!

Just a few months ago I came across the concept of permaculture when I stumbled upon John D. Liu's Green Gold documentary on www.filmsforaction.org. Though in recent years I have begun buying more organic foods for my family, I now see that there's so much more that I can do not only for improved quality of life, but also to be a force for actual, positive change in the world. Growing up in the city all of my life, I've had minimal experience with gardening and the like, so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage there. However, as my wife will attest to, I've been doing non-stop research into the subject, and have mostly been working carefully on the all-important planning phase for our property.

Our home is in the city, occupying around a quarter acre, with the majority of the landscape being a chainlink-fenced in back yard to the south, which abuts a small creek (ditch) and woodland, much of which is owned by my (friendly) neighbor. We have had the place for around 4 years now, but have done minimal landscaping, which is probably for the best, considering that I probably would have just followed the methods of "tidy disorder" that most people seem to prefer! To get the ball rolling, I have bought (though too late to plant) seed and inoculant for a sod-buster cover crop mix from Peaceful Valley Organic, which I am going to use both as chop-and drop and as weed control some degraded areas, including the perpetually problematic area behind the back fence. Funny though how I now know that it was my own action of "weeding" that has made it such a haven for Pokeweed! I may also use some of it as green manure to mix in with my annual harvest of autumn leaves for compost. (No more curbside service for me, thanks!) We had to have two large oak trees taken down after some heavy storms in June-July 2012, but I decided at the time to keep all of the branches for burning and chipping for mulch, even though I don't have a fireplace or a wood chipper. I'm sprouting apple seeds, composting kitchen scraps, and will be having Energizing Indiana over soon to help reduce my energy consumption in zone 0. I'm about halfway through reading Edible Forest Gardens Vol. 1, so I know I'll be wanting some fruit trees and, of course, the corresponding support species to go with them. Maybe even a pair of Paw Paw if I'm feeling adventurous! The good news is that my wife has been very supportive of my being a "permanently infected" Permie, and since my 1-year old hasn't yet objected, I'm pretty sure I've got the whole crew on board.

I'll be posting more in the future once I get some pics and drawings put together, because I already know I'll be wanting some opinions on water routing and storage, as well as ideas for stacking more functions on whatever designs I come up with. Anyway, I look forward to interacting with all you fine folks, and I wish you the best results from all of your design projects!

Cheers,

Ian

Good evening all, checking in from New Castle, IN. I'm just getting started on this huge lifestyle change. My family and I purchased a 6 acre plot 2 yrs ago. I have been wondering what to do wit it. Now the answer is obvious. I hope to (over the next couple of years) transform my ground into a place where I can grow many different foods, raise a few different kinds of livestock, and overall, simplify my life. It started just a few weeks ago when the black walnuts began to fall from the trees (there are over 30 trees on my ground). I have been gathering/processing them since. I also plan to tap the trees for sap come February. I am just about to finish the evaporator I am making for the syrup making process (pic below). I also just finished digging a small pond about 4 weeks ago (pic below), although I'm not sure about it. There are some walnuts that drop into. I saw somewhere that this may be problematic for most aquatic life. Maybe someone can comment on that There is (what I consider to be) an amazing barn here that the previous owners have really got a good start on (pic below). My plan us to turn the barn into permanent living. These are a few of my current projects. If there is anyone close who would like to visit/trade ideas feel free to PM me!

Southern Indiana here, Orange county. Member of Indiana Nut and Fruit Growers Association. Would love to welcome all of you to come to our meetings. Not permie exactly of course, but you can meet people who graft and there is a scion wood swap at the March meeting, usually in Indianapolis. 4 meetings a year at various locations. I don't get on permies.com much, but message me if you would like more info and I'll try to remember to check back here once in a while.

SE Indiana here... Living in Batesville, have a piece of land in Dearborn county that hasn't been farmed in many years. My kids and I are working toward fixing that, soon.

Loren Hunt wrote:I live on the west side of Indy near Brownsburg. I would love to hear from more folks in central Indiana. What are you doing? Here's my youtube channel that shows a bunch of the stuff I've been doing. http://www.youtube.com/user/renh99

I hope to hear from you soon!

I guess I'll be the first to rep the northern part of the state. I'm a real greenhorn at this stuff but I'm in nonetheless. My family and I (7 in all) live in Portage and we are currently looking for some acreage here in the northwest part of the state. I would love to hookup with some locals to work together if needed. Would be nice to have some input from experienced permies also once we get our land.

Peace to you all and go Hoosiers!

Brad Cloutier wrote:

Loren Hunt wrote:I live on the west side of Indy near Brownsburg. I would love to hear from more folks in central Indiana. What are you doing? Here's my youtube channel that shows a bunch of the stuff I've been doing. http://www.youtube.com/user/renh99

I hope to hear from you soon!

I guess I'll be the first to rep the northern part of the state. I'm a real greenhorn at this stuff but I'm in nonetheless. My family and I (7 in all) live in Portage and we are currently looking for some acreage here in the northwest part of the state. I would love to hookup with some locals to work together if needed. Would be nice to have some input from experienced permies also once we get our land.

Peace to you all and go Hoosiers!

I forgot to mention that I just subscribed to your YouTube channel Loren Hunt! I look forward to keeping up with you. We head that way in late April every year to Morgan Monroe forest where we (my dad and son) roam around the woods hunting the tasty turkey! Beautiful country down there for sure.

Hi everyone Rick here.

Been working with permaculture for the last 5 years. I have www.wolfbeachfarms.com and co-organizer and presenter at www.midwestsustainable.org.

I blog and try to help people in the area turning their back yards into food production machines.

We live in 0.2 acre suburban lot and have aquaponics, chickens, fruit trees, edible landscaping just to name a few.

Glad you started this, didn't know there were so many right in my back yard.

Southern Illinois here. Just getting set up. PM me if you would like to visit.

Central Indiana in Plainfield. Just found out today of the permaculture conference next weekend in Plainfield wish I had known about it earlier. Just started working on a rocket heater and I am starting to find an interest in the permaculture area as I would like to start growing some of our own food. Would love to meet up with local people interested in the same things.

Jared McKee

Spencer Davis wrote:Good evening all, checking in from New Castle, IN. I'm just getting started on this huge lifestyle change. My family and I purchased a 6 acre plot 2 yrs ago. I have been wondering what to do wit it. Now the answer is obvious. I hope to (over the next couple of years) transform my ground into a place where I can grow many different foods, raise a few different kinds of livestock, and overall, simplify my life. It started just a few weeks ago when the black walnuts began to fall from the trees (there are over 30 trees on my ground). I have been gathering/processing them since. I also plan to tap the trees for sap come February. I am just about to finish the evaporator I am making for the syrup making process (pic below). I also just finished digging a small pond about 4 weeks ago (pic below), although I'm not sure about it. There are some walnuts that drop into. I saw somewhere that this may be problematic for most aquatic life. Maybe someone can comment on that There is (what I consider to be) an amazing barn here that the previous owners have really got a good start on (pic below). My plan us to turn the barn into permanent living. These are a few of my current projects. If there is anyone close who would like to visit/trade ideas feel free to PM me!

That is an amazing barn!

Also a Hoosier permie here. Southeast of Indy. We will be in Chicago during that conference, darn it.

Hi Lauren! Glad to see another Hoosier here, too! I am in Avon, If you ever need any help on your land I would love the experience!

Brittany - b.smith1287@yahoo.com please feel free to shoot a msg!

So happy to see all these Indiana permies and the projects everyone is working on! I grew up in Indiana and have found it little is known here in my circle of people about permaculture methods. I have become inspired to teach a course around Indianapolis around December 2014. I thought I'd reach out to you all and see if people are interested. This is usually the only time I am in Indiana and I really want to get the word out. I would probably begin with an Intro to Permaculture Course, but if there is a lot of interest in a PDC I will do that also!

Have you heard of this site We the Trees? I just started this campaign and thought it may be a good way to see if anyone would be interested in taking one of my courses this year. I will be traveling this year to experience permaculture projects in central america and Canada, and hope to use this as interesting examples in my courses in the future.
I am an artist and have offered my art as rewards to anyone who contributes to my campaign. Consider it an investment in bringing permaculture courses to Indiana!
http://www.wethetrees.com/campaigns/traveling-artist-seeking-permaculture-and-friendly-neighbors

Also if anyone would be interested in having a cob building workshop on their land in June, please contact me about this!! My own friends and family don't seem too interested in getting muddy but I'd love to have a chance to practice (I will be taking a course on this as well)

I have a lot to say to you all but that's all for now! My flight to Costa Rica just got cancelled from this snow so I need to do something about that! Happy 2014 to everyone! We're making it all happen this year.

I'm up in Northwest Indiana. Highland, near Gary.
I would love if we could create a more cohesive statewide permaculture community here in Indiana.
I know there is a Bloomington crowd, an Indy crowd, I'm working on a NWI crowd slowly...

Last year, I was at both the Michigan Perm Convergence and the International Permaculture Convergence in Cuba and wrote a booklet on the things I learned at the IPC.

PRI (Permaculture Research Institute of Australia) posted my description of it, and the booklet is available for free download.

http://permaculturenews.org/2014/01/20/bringing-permaculture-solutions-back-ipc-cuba/

Does anyone want to meetup in Indy sometime?
I'm usually there every 3rd saturday for a meeting with another organization I'm involved with.

Also, feel free to facebook me if you want to stay in touch.

Thanks ,
Randall Jamrok

Thanks for the compliment George I have recently started the slow process of turning the barn into livable space. I'm hoping to complete it in a couple years.

I'm right here up in Fort Wayne!

I'm kind of a novice, but I'm so enthusiastic about permaculture that it annoys my friends and family.

Hi, I recently discovered this forum. We have a home/land west of Indianapolis. It was a cattle pasture until about 20 years ago, so the forested areas are still maturing. I've been gardening several years, started foraging the property last year, and now want to apply both short and long-term permaculture plans. The difficulty is in adding any sort of livestock as we are sometimes gone for long hours.

Nice to see all the folks here in Indiana learning ways to be more sustainable which I guess is what permaculture is all about. I live in west central Indiana near Turkey Run State Park. For the past 30 years or so (egad) I have been trying to learn how to make my life more sustainable, or to be less dependent on this incredibly complex and, it would seem, increasingly fragile society we live in. Not an easy task. My view is that brighter days are not ahead but that we live in interesting times and all we can do is embrace our reality and get on with the exciting and challenging task before us.
One of my goals is to decrease my admittedly large environmental footprint and increase my resilience. In a spiritual sense I suppose this means learning to find joy and satisfaction in the wonder of our existence and in the beauty that surrounds us; we can't buy happiness. But on a practical level maybe it's about efficiency.
Tools are pretty important to sustaining ourselves, and I have come to possess quite a few of them. But tools are something that require attention...care and feeding (tools come to possess you)...and after my early years of acquiring them, I have become aware of how unsustainable many of my tools really are. Now the pressing question becomes how to get the work done more simply, more sustainably (though not necessarily more easily). How can I get a task done without gas or electricity? How can I make a garden without using a rototiller... at all? How can I build without need of a shop full of power equipment? What can I do to make my home more energy efficient? How can human muscle or ingenuity be used to do many of the jobs I relegate to my machines. Efficiency. Of course, people will say that we can't replace machines. However, I'm afraid the time is fast approaching in which we will have no choice other than to replace some of them.
So I just keep limping along, exploring and experimenting with new ideas. Lots of failures along the way and a few successes too... Of course a big component in all this is a community of people with somewhat similar goals, sharing ideas, providing support of various kinds and hopefully creating a space for synergy to occur. Look forward to hearing more from you all and some others as well.

I am also interested in the area. Purchased 42 acres near Milton Indiana in 1999. One procrastination has lead to another and have done little with the property. It has nothing but Edge between the elevation, the pond the woods the 7 acres of Alfalfa. I guess the good thing you can say is that nature has been left to repair things. I live In Indianapolis and look for some sort of partner(s) to move the thing forward. I have flirted with Permaculture and don't feel I am a lazy person but the outcomes so far argue otherwise. Part of how I earn my daily living is as a financial advisor and part is as a controller businesses advisor. I have clients from time to time comment on farmland it's cost and it's value as an investment. My reply is the land is too expensive now what they need is invest in a farmer somehow. My goal would be to find a partner that has the know how since I have the land and put together something that funds itself.

I am listening to a podcast of Paul and this Geoff Lawton talking about what to do to get more farmers to do permaculture. My answer is find those of us who have interest and help us do it successfully so that the neighbors start to wonder what the heck we are doing. It seems to me that we here about all these dessert etc efforts. I don't understand why no one wants to come out of the wilderness and try a place like Eastern Indiana that has water and reasonable climate already productive soils yada yada.

What am I missing. I and my land are just getting older and I am not in the frame of mind that I need to spend thousands of dollars to take a class to then spend 10's of thousands of dollars. So I guess I am the problem. What I want to figure out is, identify something that we could do today with what I have that would then fund something that then could fund something else and wake p one day ready to build a home and move after my daughter is safely out of the house. I thought that was what this discipline did but I seem to be too much a curmudgeon or lazy dolt to get my feet on the path. Having the land over an hour from the house is probably not a smart move but in the end it is where I am. Any thoughts or talents to collaborate with is appreciated and it is certainly a real pleasure to see the work more intelligent and dedicated people than I are doing with things like the rocket heaters etc.

Hello and I am not always a grouch just today.

Mike

Mike Jasper wrote:I am also interested in the area. Purchased 42 acres near Milton Indiana in 1999. One procrastination has lead to another and have done little with the property. It has nothing but Edge between the elevation, the pond the woods the 7 acres of Alfalfa. I guess the good thing you can say is that nature has been left to repair things. I live In Indianapolis and look for some sort of partner(s) to move the thing forward. I have flirted with Permaculture and don't feel I am a lazy person but the outcomes so far argue otherwise. Part of how I earn my daily living is as a financial advisor and part is as a controller businesses advisor. I have clients from time to time comment on farmland it's cost and it's value as an investment. My reply is the land is too expensive now what they need is invest in a farmer somehow. My goal would be to find a partner that has the know how since I have the land and put together something that funds itself.

I am listening to a podcast of Paul and this Geoff Lawton talking about what to do to get more farmers to do permaculture. My answer is find those of us who have interest and help us do it successfully so that the neighbors start to wonder what the heck we are doing. It seems to me that we here about all these dessert etc efforts. I don't understand why no one wants to come out of the wilderness and try a place like Eastern Indiana that has water and reasonable climate already productive soils yada yada.

What am I missing. I and my land are just getting older and I am not in the frame of mind that I need to spend thousands of dollars to take a class to then spend 10's of thousands of dollars. So I guess I am the problem. What I want to figure out is, identify something that we could do today with what I have that would then fund something that then could fund something else and wake p one day ready to build a home and move after my daughter is safely out of the house. I thought that was what this discipline did but I seem to be too much a curmudgeon or lazy dolt to get my feet on the path. Having the land over an hour from the house is probably not a smart move but in the end it is where I am. Any thoughts or talents to collaborate with is appreciated and it is certainly a real pleasure to see the work more intelligent and dedicated people than I are doing with things like the rocket heaters etc.

Hello and I am not always a grouch just today.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Welcome to Permies.com! Glad to have another Hoosier on here!

While the hour drive is likely the main culprit for you not moving forward on your property, I think there are some options for you. It would involve you spending more time there, but not all your time. First, going slow is a good idea - since you've had the land a while, do you feel you've observed enough about the water direction, slope, wind, aspect, vegetation and wildlife? Observation is the first step and will be necessary to inform good decisions along the way. I think a 30 dollar soil test and some general plant id would help you as well. Next you can do some low input, "lazy man" style changes - like a food forest. Finding a mix of trees, shrubs, perenials, etc that you can incorporate to improve what you've observed that you have would be a huge step forward. Then implementing that vision would take some bit of effort in the beginning, but then you can just watch it grow and then maintain it very seldom. Look into zone 4 or 5 food forestry on here and in permaculture books. Or if you want to push into it this spring, time is of the essence, so hiring a permaculture consultant would speed you along. Lastly, I think you could look at a Salatin style livestock operation if you can find someone to work for you eventually that will do the daily operation. Look into Salatin's 60k pork operation video. The initial blueprint is laid out there, but you'll have to figure out how to market your harvest to obtain the income he gets. It sounds like you could be an owner / manager of your property, but again, the startup phase will take a lot of effort - more than the food forest. But if you're tuned into making money and profiting from your land, Salatin is the leading example out there. How removed you can be is probably tied to how little profit you can stand to make. Considering wealth in terms of food security, quality of life, quality of food, and perhaps even resell value of a property that has these things may be better than looking at the dollars of yearly income. Smart design will lead to loads of intrinsic value to your future self or the future buyer of your property. Good luck!

Thanks George,

I would welcome hearing from someone that works in that part of Indiana. I see you have been an active poster. As I get time I will see what you have posted and get a better idea maybe of what your are up to down south.

Mike

No problem! I am a newbie myself, but this is the first season I've started implementing more projects. I've spent the last year or two asking questions and reading books and watching youtube stuff. The repetitive exposure has given me a lot, but next is the doing. Permies is a friendly place, so I'm sure many of the real experts here will be available as well. Feel free to ask me anything and I'll do my best to assess the question.

Ya, Mike. I don’t really like the mindset that you need to be doing something. If you’re taking care of your place and seeing that it’s not being degraded, that’s doing a lot. If your soil is growing alfalfa, it’s in good shape by conventional standards. And by growing alfalfa, you’re not further degrading the soil. It’s not unusual to see people who feel they should be doing, doing harmful things. One of the tragedies of modern agriculture is the loss of farmers with a deep knowledge and understanding of place. This understanding takes a lifetime of experience and observation. Too many people do before they understand.

Having said that, with regard to land stewardship, one learns by studying and doing. With ag land, a pond and forest, you have a great laboratory in which to learn. And what a super opportunity you have to learn together with your daughter. I always felt that the first products I sold from my land were products I sold to myself…food, lumber. And when influencing others, my primary target of influence was my kids.

It is sad to witness the fact that it pays to destroy land. To pay for land at current prices, farmers face gamblers ruin. To make the purchase of land cash flow, one needs to drive it hard. Though there are niches where sustainable farming is competitive….such as the mentioned pasture meat system… it’s pretty hard to compete with people farming with such a short time window. As a forester, I’ve had opportunities to buy land over the years in which I could have made money had I been willing to degrade the land. In reframing, I have watched others step in and do exactly that. I think people who are not money focused move to the margins to keep investment low and avoid gamblers ruin; take advantage of niche markets and to find a more favorable and supportive social environment. It’s tough living in areas, i.e. much of rural USA, where progressive ideas about land stewardship and social structures find little traction.

Another Fort Wayner here.

I'm a bit of a newbie. I'm really into DIY, and permaculture is a growing and intense research interest for me, both on the web and within the dusty annals of the good old library.

I love renewable energy ideas and building alternatives, etc, but I live in a pretty strict subdivision, so there’s a finite amount of things I can get away with. For the life of me I can’t figure out where to get land at a reasonable price around here so I can have my own little sandbox.

:wave:

Hey there! I'm located in Gibson County, but we also garden in Vandeburgh County. Due to our wonderful small towns restrictions, we can't do much with animals/livestock. I'm a total newbie to gardening, but I'm going for a polyculture type garden this year and I'm trying to find some trees to put in our yard to maximize our small properties yield. I'll sub to your channel when I get a few minutes on my phone!

Brad Cloutier wrote:

I forgot to mention that I just subscribed to your YouTube channel Loren Hunt! I look forward to keeping up with you. We head that way in late April every year to Morgan Monroe forest where we (my dad and son) roam around the woods hunting the tasty turkey! Beautiful country down there for sure.

Cool! Sorry it's been a while since I checked this thread. I am going to be sure I am watching it.

Rick Beach wrote:Hi everyone Rick here.

Been working with permaculture for the last 5 years. I have www.wolfbeachfarms.com and co-organizer and presenter at www.midwestsustainable.org.

I blog and try to help people in the area turning their back yards into food production machines.

We live in 0.2 acre suburban lot and have aquaponics, chickens, fruit trees, edible landscaping just to name a few.

Glad you started this, didn't know there were so many right in my back yard.

Super cool Rick! I'll have to check out your blog. I hope to see more folks on here. Would be cool to have a meet up sometime.

Brittany Smith wrote:Hi Lauren! Glad to see another Hoosier here, too! I am in Avon, If you ever need any help on your land I would love the experience!

Brittany - b.smith1287@yahoo.com please feel free to shoot a msg!

I grew up in Avon! Are you doing any permy work on your land?

I agree with some comments above about taking it slow and observing. We've been on our acre for four years. The first year we did do a little planting but I really tried to observe. We now have planted about 41 trees and have four hugel beds on contour a la Jack Spirko style swales.

Something you can do along with listening to big Paul's podcast and being one of his pod-people is to take Geoff Lawton's online PDC. I took it last year (2013) and it was a great experience. I think this years has already started but there is a wealth of information on his site in regards to videos if you haven't taken his PDC. I think it was like under $2000 and we got a library of his DVDs after the course was done.

I should always get notifications of replies to this post now & I hope to keep it active. Hope more Hoosiers join it and we can do a meet up.

I agree too that Indiana, IMHO is a perfect place for permaculture. The land and climate are already good for agriculture - so it MUST be GREAT for permaculture!

Anyone in central Indiana looking for red wigglers or to get started in vermicomposting and want products, I went with Castaway Compost (http://castawaycompost.com) and my worms are good. Have had them a few months now and all's well. Keith was featured in NUVO here http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/vermicompost-takes-root/Content?oid=2441834#.U2b6_61dWqB

Just some helpful info for my Indy Permie friends!

I am another Hoosier Permie. I am located on the east side of Indianapolis. I am definitely interested in meeting all of you (that I haven't already) and trying to make some positvive motion in the central Indiana area.

Loren Hunt wrote:

My brother in law lives up in ******** and got me into this whole thing. So I blame him anytime my wife looks at me like I'm crazy for wanting to plant more or do some sort of earth works project.

Your wife should be used to it, her father had crazy ideas too.

Hello from Westfield! I was very happy to see a forum here for those of us that live in Indiana. We have a small suburban property (roughly .20 acres), but I have been informally studying Permaculture Design and Edible Food Forests and I've caught the bug. I've been gardening for several years now and love it. We have about 250 square feet of vegetable garden space, but this year we planted blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and three fruit trees (Stella Cherry; 4n1 Apple and a Peach). This fall we will be tilling up one whole side of our backyard so that I can plant an Almond tree, Plum Tree, Nectarine tree, two Pear trees (Bartlett and Asian) and two grapes around an arbor. I'm contemplating planting a mulberry tree and two sour cherry trees behind our fence as well. Next Spring, I will be planting some perennial vegetables (rhubarb, horseradish and asparagus) as well as all of the other shrubs (Nanking Cherry, Goumi and Currants) to go along with the Comfrey, herbs and wildflowers. I'll probably plant a few more blueberry bushes as well since my two girls love them! I built an herb spiral for my wife this summer and she is really looking forward to using it next spring. I'm very interested in learning more about any PDC courses here in Central Indiana as well as learning from all of you. While I will never give up my vegetable garden, I will be converting it to raised beds this fall and next spring as well as utilizing polyculture/companion planting techniques to hopefully create less work and more enjoyment for my family each year. I'm looking forward to attracting wildlife as well as beneficial insects to keep everything in balance. Please offer up any advice you have as I'm still new to this and I'll try to keep everyone updated on our progress while also uploading pictures as time allows.