Wilfred Roe

18th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap

Sunday, January 25, 2026

11-4 pm, Free - Rain or Shine!

Kids Welcome

A celebration to bring seeds & people together

LOCATION:

Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW)

631 Garden Street

Santa Barbara, CA 93101


Please join us for the 18th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap.
The free event takes place on Sunday, January 25, from 11-4pm, at the Santa Barbara Community Arts Workshop (SBCAW), with indoor & outdoor space, rain or shine!
Hundreds attend every year, sharing seeds and knowledge with other
backyard gardeners, plant lovers, beekeepers, farmers and more.

Come be a part of this seed saving movement, making sure that locally adapted seeds & plants are passed on to future generations.
Special speakers, children's activities, & live music.

Local groups will have plant and seed related exhibits with
knowledgeable people ready to share information. Free seeds offered to help gardeners get started, & gardeners are encouraged to bring saved seeds & plant materials to share.

Each year we honor a Local Food Hero. This year the award goes to members of the Trinity Gardens community garden in the foothills of Santa Barbara CA. Join us for an award ceremony at 1:30 pm.
Seed saving is a fun and easy way to connect to the circle of life!

Bring seeds, plants, cuttings, and garden knowledge to swap.
Don't have these?
Then come get seeds.
Seeds to sow.
Seeds to grow.
Seeds to harvest.
Seeds to save and share next year.
Activities for all ages

Music that will have your toes tapping
Special Speakers throughout the day

A gathering of garden friends old and new
A community program hosted and sponsored by The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network www.sbpermaculture.org
Co-Sponsored by Island Seed & Feed , Blue Sky Biochar, Explore Ecology, the Plant Good Seed Company, & Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

More Info: email: sbpcnet@silcom.com, (805) 962-2571,
www.sbpermaculture.org

Seeds, they are our past, they are our future. In past times, they
were skillfully adapted to climate and location. _
Come join us as we encourage our community to save and grow out seed specific to our own climate and place, while honoring our ancestors gift & legacy.

FACEBOOK Event page
https://www.facebook.com/events/733421336083341/

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
2025 Annual Eco Hero Award
Honoring Bill & Athena Steen & Roxanne Swentzell
Natural Building Pioneers
Sunday, March 23, 6:30-9pm, 2025

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network celebrates its 5th Annual Eco Hero Award, a community event that honors those making significant and positive change in the world for more than 30 years. This time we honor Natural Building pioneers, Bill & Athena Steen, & Roxanne Swentzell, who will join us in person on Sunday, March 23, 2025. All three hail from the American Southwest, they are natural builders, authors and acclaimed artists, each one devoted to the beauty of the land, with a commitment to building with care of the earth as a priority.

How we continue to build will affect the chances of survival for our grandchildren & future generations. Modern buildings are often toxic to both the builders & their inhabitants, with many becoming chemically sensitive to products used.  Natural building, with materials like clay, straw, wood & stone are not only non-toxic, they are life enhancing, and if designed correctly, conserve heat & energy. Natural building has joined the modern age with beautiful and functional structures, that are also less likely to burn in wildfires.

Please join us for a very special evening with Bill, Athena & Roxanne in person, with time for conversation and questions about Natural Building.  What is it? Why did it become their passion & lifework? How is it different from Green Building? What do they see as the future of natural building, especially for young people looking for a meaningful lifepath & career.

Bill & Athena Steen are founders of the Canelo Project in Elgin, Arizona, defining their priorities as “sustainability and cross cultural relations”. After building their first straw bale home for their family in the late 1980’s, they began conducting straw bale workshops in southern Arizona and Mexico. They were later invited to teach workshops around the world, sharing their skill and knowledge on how to build sustainably and affordably, using only earth, clay, sand & straw, materials all found easily in nature.

Athena’s heritage inspired her, growing up surrounded by clay artists & builders on the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico. Bill also grew up in the southwest, becoming an author and professional photographer keen to capture the beauty of the land, and in time, the numerous projects they were creating. Together they coauthored many natural building books including The Straw Bale House; Beautiful Straw Bale; The Small Straw Bale House, and The Canelo Project. A family affair, their sons Kalin & Benito, document the Canelo Project with their video series, the Nito Project.

Roxanne Swentzell is a world renowned sculptor, ceramic artist, indigenous food activist, and co-founder of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute. In 1986 Roxanne returned with her two small children to live on the Santa Clara Pueblo in the high desert of New Mexico, building an adobe house where the family together created a lush food forest within its enclosed earthen walls. New to permaculture in those early days, Roxanne adopted some of its best design techniques that were culturally appropriate.  

Later with other community members she embarked on an experimental journey of eating only foods available to their ancestors before the Spanish arrived in 1540. This experiment led to a marked decrease in diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure with those participating. To complement the experiment Roxanne coauthored The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors. Today the Flowering Tree Institute has eight sites, including a native seed bank, and intern residences and farms where workshops are held. Roxanne’s artwork is displayed in museums and galleries worldwide, and the Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallery, located at the Pojoaque Pueblo Cultural Center north of Santa Fe.
 
The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award honors those individuals who have committed themselves to work in service of the planet and its inhabitants for more than thirty years, with actual solutions and concrete ways forward that benefit many, often on a global scale. We encourage the next generation to come and participate in a robust Q&A, a part of every Eco Hero event, learn from our Eco Heroes, who have so much to share.
Past recipients of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award include John D. Liu; Paul Stamets & Louie Schwartzberg; John & Nancy Jack Todd, & Albert Bates.  We are honored to have Bill & Athena Steen, and Roxanne Swentzell as the recipients for the 2025 Eco Hero Award.  Buena Onda Empanada buffet reception follows in the Lobero Courtyard, all ticket holders welcome.

A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org

3rd Annual SLO County Beaver Festival
Saturday, April 12, 2025
10 am – 3 pm, free admission
SLO Mission Plaza, 989 Chorro Street, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401

Cosponsored and cofounded by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network

The SLO Beaver Brigade invites eager beavers of all ages to the Third Annual San Luis Obispo County Beaver Festival on Saturday, April 12th in Mission Plaza from 10 am to 3 pm. We will have strong focus on the nexus between prescribed burn, beaver restoration, and ranching at this year’s festival.

The day includes free admission, food, vendors, live music, children’s activities, a beaver trivia contest, speakers, and a plethora of information on the benefits that beavers provide to us in our state and county. Live music by local violinist Miles “Danger” Kennedy and Cuyama Mama & the Hot Flashes.

Event Schedule

10:30 am ♫ Miles ‘Danger’ Kennedy on the violin ♫

11:30 am Opening Speaker Shaunie Briggs, Salinan Tribe

12:00 pm Keynote Speaker Molly Alves, California Department of Fish & Wildlife

12:30 pm Restoration Focus Speakers
Sophia Marquez, SLO Prescribed Burn Association
Grant Johnson, Grant Johnson Ag
Cooper Lienhart, Nature’s Engineers

1:00 pm Kids’ Beaver Trivia Contest

1:15pm Creek Walk & Talk Creek Lands Conservation: The Creek as a Classroom

1:30 pm ♫ Cuyama Mama & the Hot Flashes ♫

Our Keynote Speaker

Molly Alves, Beaver Restoration Supervisor for California Department of Fish and Wildlife

Molly Alves has a long history relocating beavers from areas where coexistence is not possible to headwater streams that beavers struggle to naturally recolonize in an effort to store water, enhance biodiversity, and protect our landscape from wildfire. Come learn about California’s relocation efforts from the experts.

SLO Beaver Festival 2025

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network’s
2025 Annual Eco Hero Award
Honoring Bill & Athena Steen & Roxanne Swentzell
Natural Building Pioneers

Sunday, March 23, 6:30-9pm, 2025
TICKETS $10, $20, & Friends of Eco Hero $100 (students & kids free)  

Location: Lobero Theatre
33 E Canon Perdido St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Tickets on Sale Now: Lobero Ticket Office

Reception follows in the Lobero Courtyard for all ticket holders


Santa Barbara Permaculture Network celebrates its 5th Annual Eco Hero Award, continuing to honor those making significant and positive change, this time honoring Natural Building pioneers, Bill & Athena Steen & Roxanne Swentzell, joining us in person on Sunday, March 23, 2025.

All three hail from the American Southwest, they are natural builders, authors and acclaimed artists, each one devoted to the beauty of the land, with a commitment to building with care of the earth as a priority.

Bill & Athena Steen are founders of the Canelo Project in Elgin, Arizona, defining their priorities as “sustainability and cross cultural relations”.  After building their first straw bale home for their family in the late 1980’s, they began conducting strawbale workshops in southern Arizona and Mexico.  They were later invited to teach around the world, sharing their skill and knowledge on how to build sustainably and affordably, using only earth, clay, sand & straw, materials all found easily in nature.  Athena’s heritage inspired her, growing up surrounded by clay artists & builders on the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico.  Bill also grew up in the southwest, becoming an author and professional photographer keen to capture the beauty of the land, and in time, the numerous projects they were creating.  Together they coauthored many natural building books including The Straw Bale House; Beautiful Straw Bale; The Small Straw Bale House, and The Canelo Project.  A family affair their sons Kalin & Benito document the Canelo Project with a video series, the Nito Project.

Roxanne Swentzell is a world renowned sculptor, ceramic artist, indigenous food activist, and the founder of the Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute.  In 1986 Roxanne returned with her two small children to live on the Santa Clara Pueblo in the high desert of New Mexico, building a strawbale house where the family together created a lush food forest within the homes enclosed earthen walls.  New to permaculture in those early days, Roxanne adopted some of its best design techniques that were culturally appropriate.  Later with other community members she embarked on an experimental journey of eating only foods available to their ancestors before the Spanish arrived in 1540.  This experiment led to a marked decrease in diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure with those participating.  To complement the experiment Roxanne coauthored The Pueblo Food Experience Cookbook: Whole Food of Our Ancestors.  Today the Flowering Tree Institute has eight sites, including seed banks and intern residences and farms where workshops are held.  Roxanne’s artwork is displayed in museums and galleries worldwide, also at her own gallery, The Roxanne Swentzell Tower Gallery, located at the Pojoaque Pueblo Poeh Cultural Center north of Santa Fe.

How we continue to build will affect the chances of survival for our grandchildren.  Modern buildings are often toxic to both the builders & the inhabitants, with many becoming chemically sensitive to products used.   Natural building, with materials like clay, straw, wood & stone are not only non-toxic, they are life enhancing, and if designed correctly, conserve heat & energy.  Natural building has joined the modern age with beautiful and functional structures, that are also less likely to burn in wildfires.

Please join us for a very special evening with Bill, Athena & Roxanne in person, with time for conversation and questions about Natural Building.  What is it? Why did it become their passion & lifework?  How is it different from Green Building?  What do they see as the future of natural building, especially for young people looking for a meaningful lifepath & career.  

The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award honors those individuals who have committed themselves to work in service of the planet and its inhabitants for more than thirty years, with actual solutions and concrete ways forward that benefit many, often on a global scale.  We encourage the next generation to come and participate in a robust Q&A, a part of every Eco Hero event, learn from our Eco Heroes, who have so much to share.

Past recipients of the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award include John D. Liu; Paul Stamets & Louie Schwartzberg; John & Nancy Jack Todd, & Albert Bates.   We are honored to have Bill & Athena Steen, and Roxanne Swentzell as the recipients for the 2025 Eco Hero Award.  A reception follows in the Lobero courtyard for all ticket holders.  

The event takes place at the Lobero Theatre on Sunday, March 23, from 6:30 pm–9 pm, tickets on sale at Lobero Ticket Office (fees apply), 805-963-0761; more information, www.sbpermaculture.org.



A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org



Cosponsors:
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network, Blue Sky Biochar, Bamboo DNA, Buena Onda, Teeccino, AH Juice, Community Environmental Council, SBCC Environmental Horticulture, Explore Ecology, Regenerative Landscape Alliance, Island Seed & Feed, Orella Ranch-Gaviota Giving’s, Santa Barbara Aquaponics, Sustainable World Radio, Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Foundation, Paradise Found, Quail Springs Permaculture, HourBooks, Mesa Harmony Garden,  Rincon-Vitova Insectaries, Building Health Matters, Central Coast Building Council, Voice Magazine & the Santa Barbara Independent.
[youtube]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZGXZFTzuC8[/youtube][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6fkiU4THhM[/youtube][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmmcuQnUFQg[/youtube]

anta Barbara Permaculture Network presents

The State of Fire; Why California Burns
Talk & Book Signing
with Award Winning  Author Obi Kaufmann

                                             

Thursday, February 20, 6:30–8:30pm, 2025, FREE

Location:  Fe Bland Auditorium/BC Forum
SBCC West Campus, 800 Cliff Drive, Santa Barbara, CA 93109

Joined by a panel of Community Members &

special guest:

Santa Barbara Poet Laureate, Melinda Palacio




“The past, present, and future of fire are key in understanding  humanity’s power to upend the world”, Obi Kaufmann


Please join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network on Thursday, February 20, for a special evening with naturalist, illustrator, and award winning author Obi Kaufmann, sharing his timely book The State of Fire, Why California Burns.  

From the creator of The California Field Atlas, Obi Kaufmann shares a book of stewardship, resilience, and hope.  Fire is an essential part of California’s ecology and humans have been using it to shape the California landscape for thousands of years.  But today many Californians’ relationship to fire is primarily one of fear.  

Obi Kaufmann now asks: How do we live with fire?  What makes fire essential to a healthy and biodiverse Golden State, and how do we benefit from its teachings?

With the same solution-minded ethic as his earlier book The State of Water: Understanding California’s Most Precious Resource, Kaufmann presents fire as a force of regeneration rather than apocalypse. He considers the long history of ecological burns, the varied ways fire behaves across the state, and the lessons we can learn from California’s largest fires of recent decades.

Packed with Kaufmann’s signature watercolor maps and paintings, The State of Fire confronts one of California’s most pressing social and ecological challenges.  From the maelstrom and devastation fire often presents to humans and their communities, Kaufmann emerges to share a deepened love for the natural world—and a refreshingly hopeful vision of California’s future.

Born in California, Obi Kaufmann is an award-winning author and illustrator of best-selling books on California's ecology, biodiversity, and geography.  Based on decades of exploring the backcountry of the Golden State, artist-adventurer Kaufmann blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of living, connected systems in all of his books.  Kaufmann’s earlier books, The State of Water and The California Lands Trilogy present a comprehensive survey of California’s evolutionary past and its unfolding future.   A former student at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) connecting him to our region in earlier times, Obi Kaufmann now makes his home in Oakland, CA,  where he continues to work on future Field Atlases, and posts his essays on coyoteandthunder.com.
The free event takes place at the Fe Bland Auditorium/BC Forum on the Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) West Campus on Thursday, February 20,  6:30–8:30 pm. For more information, www.sbpermaculture.org,  margie@sbpermaculture.org, 805-962-257.

Community Panel Members include:
Ray Ford, Santa Barbara County backcountry author, photographer & journalist;  Betty Seaman, Natural Builder, Spirit Pine;  Cooper Lienhart, Nature’s Design & SLO Beaver Brigade;
Em Johnson Community Environmental Council (CEC) Director of Climate Programs



A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
www.sbpermaculture.org

Cosponsors: Community Environmental Council (CEC); Santa Barbara Beaver Brigade; SBCC Environmental Horticulture, & Santa Barbara Wildlife Care Network

Facebook Event Page

                                                                                     https://www.facebook.com/1600387994176548/






-end-

17th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap

Sunday, January 26, 2025
11-4pm, Free - Rain or Shine!
Children Welcome

A celebration to bring seeds & people together

LOCATION:

Santa Barbara Community Arts Center (SBCAW)
631 Garden St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Join us for the 17th Annual Santa Barbara Community Seed Swap at the SB Community Arts Center (SBCAW). The free event takes place on Sunday, January 26, from 11-4pm, rain or shine, with both indoor & outdoor activities.

Hundreds attend every year, sharing seeds and knowledge with other backyard gardeners, plant lovers, beekeepers, farmers and more.  Come be a part of this seed saving movement, making sure that locally adapted seeds & plants are passed on to future generations.  Special speakers, children activities, food & live music!

Local groups will have plant and seed related exhibits & speakers throughout the day.  Seed saving is a fun and easy way to connect to the circle of life!

Once again we will honor a Local Food Hero, this year the award going to Mesa Harmony Garden.  Join us for an award ceremony at 1:30 pm.




Bring seeds, plants, cuttings, and garden knowledge to swap.

Don't have these?
Then come get seeds.
Seeds to sow.
Seeds to grow.
  Seeds to harvest.
Seeds to save and share next year.
Activities for all ages
Music that will have your toes tapping

Special Speakers throughout the day
A gathering of garden friends old and new.



An annual community event hosted by:
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network


Co-Sponsors: Island Seed & Feed, Blue Sky Biochar, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Explore Ecology, & Plant Good Seeds


Event Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/632203483488117/

More Info: Margie@sbpermaculture.org, (805) 962-2571


-end-

Saying Goodbye, Honoring the Trees - Sat, Sept, 21, 2024
How blessed Santa Barbara has been with the Downtown Farmers Market
that started at the Cota St location more than 30 years ago, soon to be moved.

A commuter parking lot, with a mandate from a visionary City Council years ago to plant trees in all their commuter lots, 35 trees have graced & shaded farmers and shoppers here on Saturday mornings.

Santa Barbara has a wonderful city wide tree canopy, these trees among them.  
We honor and encourage all to say goodbye with a colorful blue ribbon

Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE https://www.facebook.com/events/1723455021736467/[/url  ][url=https://www.facebook.com/events/1723455021736467/]Facebook

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network presents

Creating Local Resilience with Regenerative Design:
Solar Powered Homes, Communities & Gardens

With special guest Leif Skogberg
 of Appreculture Design

Wed, August 7, 2024, 6-8 pm, Free
CEC Environmental Hub,
1219 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101

Leif Skogberg is a holistic sustainability educator, consultant, builder and designer, who shares how we can partner with both Nature and modern technology to create more beauty, abundance and resilience for our local communities.

A twenty-year veteran of resilient & regenerative design, including permaculture, working with hundreds of large and small residential & commercial property owners, he is the founder of Appreculture Design Institute and TurnKi Sustainability, providing integrated land use design and solar energy system consulting around the country.  Formerly a resident of Santa Barbara, while a student at SBCC he is remembered for initiating several groundbreaking organizations, including the Students for Sustainability Coalition, the SBCC Center for Sustainability, and more, later working for the City of Santa Barbara Environmental Services Division, and later the Ojai Foundation.  At home now in Wayne, New Jersey, he chairs the local Environmental Commission, and serves on the Wayne Master Plan Steering Committee.  Website: www.leifskogberg.com

A Community Event Hosted by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
Cosponsored by the Community Environmental Council (CEC)
More info: www.sbpermaculture.org; margie@sbpermaculture.org

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network participates in
2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival
Come & Be Inspired!

Memorial Day Weekend: May 25 – 27
Free,  10am-6pm

Location: Old Mission Santa Barbara, 2201 Laguna St, SB, CA 93105


Join Santa Barbara Permaculture Network for our sponsored art square at the 38th Annual I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival that takes place every Memorial Day weekend at the Old Mission Santa Barbara.  Sponsored by the Children’s Creative Project, Santa Barbara Permaculture Network began participating in 2020 with Nature inspired art squares, with themes that included beaver & wetlands; the amazing world of fungi; coastal kelp forests; & the biologically alive soils beneath our feet.

Our 2024 theme shares the work of ecological design pioneer John Todd and his “Living Machines” that work with nature using only sunlight, plants, & microorganisms to clean & restore waterways & oceans from toxic waste created by human activity. In 2023 John Todd was honored with the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network Eco Hero Award.  

The I Madonnari Festival is special as it gives the public an opportunity to watch the artists in action, sometimes with a chance to talk with them.  For the second year, local artist Kristen Sell will be the Santa Barbara Permaculture Network featured artist.

The festival also has music, food, and visitors from around the world attending, a chance meet new friends at the tables provided on the Mission lawn.

Our art square is usually located below the Old Mission steps, on the right side as you face the Mission.  Hope to see you there!







Learn More:



FACEBOOK EVENT PAGE

https://www.facebook.com/events/816877973649398



RESOURCES:

2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival

https://ccp.sbceo.org/about-the-festival

3rd Echo Hero Award John and Nancy Todd

https://www.sbpermaculture.org/events.html#event65

John and Nancy Todd

Ecological Design - John Todd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8IRbYerwxM

Ocean Arts

https://www.oceanarksint.org/

Kristin Sell Chalk Mural Artist

https://www.instagram.com/kriimadstensellsart

Soil Web Magic Mural MOVIE  2023 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival

ttps://vimeo.com/836723101

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network

www.sbpermaculture.org ,https://www.facebook.com/sbpermaculture

[vimeo]ttps://vimeo.com/836723101[/vimeo] 2024 I Madonnari Chalk Art Festival