The Conservancy hosted a Permaculture Design workshop over 2 days in November 2020.
On our first morning, we spent some time understanding the basics of Permaculture. There are 3 ethics involved: to care for the earth, to care for people, and to share the surplus. The rest of the time was outside, learning how to apply some Permaculture principles in planning and planting vegetable gardens.
We made good examples of a swale bed on a contour and a vegetable garden for four. These examples can be copied in terms of design and companion plantings. We created a ‘mother’ bed with the variety of plants that Alex supplied. The idea with this bed is to provide cuttings for our own vegetable gardens.
Many thanks to Konrad Stutterheim and Chesslin Micheals for agreeing to maintain these plants. If you would like to visit the gardens, please liase with Konrad or Chesslin.
We have much to be thankful for, especially:
- Alex for her brilliant facilitation; pitching her knowledge to a very diverse group, keeping things fun and light while also driving us to complete. Alex also supported our initiative financially by charging a reduced rate for the workshop.
- Shelly Kleyn Armistead for kindly and generously funding the project and Margaux Newdigate for sourcing and securing that support and funding.
- Guy Tillim, Konrad Stutterheim and Lawrence Jones for providing the space as our base;
- Ruth Loewenthal for helping with access to the kitchen and crockery.
- Pieter Takkies of Bosheuwel for the manure.
- Chesslin Michaels, Konrad and Guy for allowing us to use their gardens.
- Our delegates. Friday and Saturdays are working days for many and the weather was very challenging. Everyone got stuck in and did what they could to make it a fun and productive two days.
For more info, please contact Rooken at rooken@rookenpodesta.com.
