Greetings From the Editor

Hello, and thank you to everyone who helped or contributed to this issue of the Permaculture News!  For the next issue, I want to invite you to write on the subject of how you became interested in permaculture.  I welcome poetry or prose in length from a paragraph to two pages long.  Please submit by January 1 to jenya@efn.org, or mail to POB 99, Eugene, OR, 97440.  Also, in the winter issue we can look forward to some transcriptions from inspiring presentations made at this year’s permaculture gathering.  If you are interested in helping with the transcribing process, please let me know!  The winter issue will also include our once a year Business Directory, which is growing fast!  Please check out the calendar of events soon - we hope to see many of you at our upcoming seed cleaning and winter solstice parties!  

-Jenya Lemeshow

A Weekend of Permaculture:
The Sixth Annual Permaculture Gathering

Reviewed by Devon Bonady

This year a wonderful collection of avid gardeners, Permaculturalists, ecologists, and friends gathered in mid-September at Lost Valley to learn, teach, and share.  Friday evening opened with a fun interactive game about sustainable living, when we discovered who among us has a competitive nature.  A bright and early Saturday kicked off the abundant options for discussions and presentations.  A large crowd converged around Tom Ward to share about local social forestry.  Tom has many ideas for sustainable economics in our Pacific Northwest forests, and participants began to brainstorm numerous beneficial project possibilities.  Emily Dietzman inspired future school gardeners with a film and presentation.  Enthusiastic and entertaining Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds eloquently explained “The Hippie Agricultural Legacy” with information about various projects he is working on.  This included the spread of Andean root crops in this area, which were very successful in the Lost Valley gardens this year.  At the same time, Gregg Marchese dazzled us with a slideshow on the natural beauty of earth and wood building projects throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Lunch on the sun-drenched lawn was a time to barter and share seeds, plants, art, and information, as well as to hand-print permaculture t-shirts.  After relaxing, some of us headed off to build a roundwood bench, led by Tony Willey, while others chose to attend an informative yet frightening panel on Genetically Modified Organisms.  Saturday afternoon Jan Spencer spoke about his suburban renewal projects while a group practiced non-violent communication on the lawn with Tammy Davis.  Before dinner, many of us headed off at the heels of Howie Brounstein to learn a few native and medicinal plants while others got a tour of North American Permaculture sites with Toby Hemenway. After fresh blueberry cobbler settled in our stomachs, we relaxed and danced to some wonderful live music by Butterfly Blue.

Sunday morning, we filled the classroom to hear Mark Lakeman from the City Repair Project emote on the amazing urban community building they are doing in Portland.  Following his presentation, Heather Coburn shared her ideas for community permaculture activism,and Jude Hobbs facilitated a discussion on permaculture for farmers.  After another lunchtime barter event, we split into groups to learn about small farm animals, seed saving, and flower essences.  The beauty of the day and fullness of our minds led us to terminate in a giggle pile on the lawn where we shared our farewells.  Since the event, I have heard from many participants impressed with the diversity and interest of local presenters.  We all had a wonderful weekend and look forward to sharing again next fall. If you have any comments or suggestions for next year, please contact the Eugene Permaculture Guild.

Wildlife in the Home

This article was excerpted from “The Hand-Sculpted House:  A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage,” a new book by Ianto Evans, Michael G. Smith, and Linda Smiley.  The book is available from the Cob Cottage Company, P.O. Box 123, Cottage Grove, OR 97424, (541) 942-2605.

In the villages where I lived in Africa, the boundaries between house and farm and wild places were fairly arbitrary.  My neighbors’ houses always seemed alive with an odd menagerie of humans, farm animals, and wildlife.  The plants that grew in their compounds were often those of the surrounding forest, and sometimes these plants grew inside their houses too.  It wasn’t at all unusual to share a house with pigs, monkeys, songbirds, and bats.  All of them trotted and fluttered and swung in and out at will, as did neighbors and family, so that it was impossible to distinguish what was intentional and what was just tolerated.  In general, the householders seemed to enjoy their interspecies visitors, and after several months I realized that they directly accommodated both the domestic and the wild through the design of their buildings and yards and by daily management.  I want to make a case for encouraging wildlife into your home, and I will suggest some techniques for doing that.

Why would anyone want bats in their bedroom or guinea pigs in the kitchen?  Well, bats eat mosquitoes, in huge quantities;  guinea pigs are living composters, snatching up vegetable scraps on the floor and making meat and

fertilizer.  Additionally, chickens in your house eat ticks that carry fever; snakes eat mice;  and toads gobble up flies, moths, and beetles.  Not to mention the cricket in the hearth, birds singing, the scent of wild herbs, or the reminders of seasonal change that deciduous plants or hibernators bring.  Our own ancestors knew these truths - in medieval England and the colonial United States, the house itself was a balanced ecosystem of many species, each regulating and supporting the others.

In the over-developed nations we have suffered more than a century of being sanitized.  The purveyors of soaps and disinfectants and the giant cleaning industry that sprang up in the 19th century conspired to persuade our grandparents to banish all signs of life from their homes.  We still carry residues of their attitude;  a house is a tightly controlled territory where all visitors, human and otherwise, must be carefully selected.  We feel that Nature and houses are mutually incompatible, that the perils of wildness must at all cost be kept at bay...The cottage I live in is an example of my own changing attitudes.  Slowly coming to terms with the animals in my house, I learned to like them all for who they are, while struggling through a personal need for control.  Now I open my house and heart, and enjoy them as valued neighbors who were here before me, whose tribe hunted the nooks and crannies of the earth long before humans ran upright.  They close the circle of life and death, remind me of my own mortatliy, and by comparison reinforce my humanity. Soon it will be evening.  The bats who live in my roof will remind me that it’s summer by squeezing out of the eave cracks and hunting down mosquitoes.  They’re tame, and if I whisttle in a high monotone, they come to make sure it’s really me, tumbling within a foot of my face, saying bat greetings I can’t hear.  The open door invites them in, and most nights a furry presence flutters in, flitting around the room so fast I can hardly follow, and is gone.  Mosquito patrol done for the night. We have no fly screens.  Not that there aren’t flies; there are plenty, but the spiders get them.  Nature is at once profligate and precisely economical, siting her flytraps with exquisite care just where they will be most effective.  Daily I watch the struggles of hornets, yellow jackets, and houseflies, as a spider rolls and tucks, gift-wrapping her catches for eating at her future leisure.  Every night when I leave the door open, a skunk comes by.  He’s a wily little fellow with spots and beady eyes, and he knocks the floor as he searches methodically about the room.  Tap-tap.  Over the years we’ve learned to hide eggs or he’ll eat them up, so now he comes to check on what else we have.  Next comes a house mouse, good, with sounds of careful chewing, then of cleaning up the floor, crumbs, seeds, anything left around.  There’s a gopher snake who comes in sometimes, sliding silently over my bare foot as I sit at the open door.  He’s very thorough, working his systematic way around the corners of the room, looking for an opening.  Here’s a knothole;  in he goes, all four feet of him inching into the wall cavity.  He’ll be in there for hours, checking for mouse nests, termites, mud-wasps, anything to swallow....

...There are more profound reasons for associating ourselves with non-human life.  As co-travelers we all evolved together, we co-depended for our existence on many levels, some quite unexpected...Without sanctimony, I would label our need to co-associate as a spiritual need:  the undefinable satisfaction we get from petting a cat, watching a spider spinning a web, throwing out seeds on the kitchen windowsill, or hearing the first songbird in spring.



Urban CSAs:  A Call for Inspiration!

By Jenya Lemeshow

Envision:  A front yard popping with raspberries.  Figs.  Grapes.  Blueberries.  Different foods at different times of the year.  Flowers for bouquets – Strawflowers, cosmos, marigolds.  Sunflowers for seed.  Kale and collards all winter long.  The neighborhood children running next door to gather tomatoes for their pizza.  Canning parties in the autumn.  Seed saving gatherings.  Winter teach-ins.  Nettles and kale and basil in your teeth.  Purple sprouting broccoli ‘til it sprouts no more.  Brussels sprouts as your front lawn ornaments.  Billows of nasturtiums where once there was but grass.

The majority of people living in Eugene, Oregon and her vicinity have a front and back lawn.  Many of us water and feed our lawns on a regular basis in the dry summer months.  I would venture to say that many of us also eat vegetables on a semi-regular basis.  Afew of us may even belong to a CSA, or buy our veggies locally at the weekly farmer’s market.  I know that the vision you are about to read is shared in part by many folks in this area, based on the number of “Food Not Lawns” bumper stickers I’ve seen (thanks to Joanie Dawning) as well as all the gardens and gardening activism!

My vision is to establish one urban CSA in one neighborhood in Eugene that works successfully and inspires other people to do the same.  This is what it could look like:  At least 4 houses on one square block, preferably only a few houses away from each other, share food from their gardens.  The CSA has a coordinator.  This could be a rotating position within the group.  One or two crops for the CSA are grown per yard.  It doesn’t need to fill up a very large space, depending on the crop and number of people involved.  The choice of crop is tailored to the yard depending on access to sun, water, soil type, etc.  The group may share a common composting site, whether it is a hot pile, worm bin, or enclosed bin.  The group may decide to hire somebody (this person could be from outside the CSA group) by the hour to tend to the gardens.  Using work-parties as well as time-efficient methods, this would not add up to many hours.  Rather, it would ensure that people would get food year round from their yards even in the case that they became very busy or had to go away on a trip.  Every week or two, the group could gather together to exchange the bounty.  This may happen as a potluck, or a group of brimming harvest baskets in somebody’s front yard.  Perhaps it is a group of children strolling around the neighborhood  collecting produce in their sacks.

I see many reasons for this project.  The first is personal - it is to fulfill my desire to be a dreamer and organizer.  I have been drawn to gardens and gardening for a long time, which is primarily due to my interest in nutrition and love of good healthy food.  It is also because I see a wrenching need for more people in this country to not only understand how their food grows and where it comes from, but to actually slow down enough to watch their food grow.  And for anyone who ever desired to learn how to garden be allowed to do so, easily.  I’m no gardening missionary – home-grown is not for everyone, but I do believe that the more accessible gardening becomes, the more people will step out and do it.  Another good reason for urban CSAs is to provide work for the poor and plentiful gardeners of this city.  Many Eugenians actually moved here from somewhere else because the climate here is so perfect for year-round gardens!  Also, urban CSAs can provide fun project sites for the permaculture guild, master gardeners, school groups of all ages, etc.  Furthermore, nutritional research has proven that the fresher the better when it comes to fruits and veggies.  When it grows a few steps outside your door, that’s the freshest it gets, plus you can moniter the health of the soil, which is so important for the mineral content of our foods, and consequently, in our bodies.  Urban CSAs would also reduce our need for middlemen, transporting our veggies huge distances with large amounts of fossil fuels and packaging materials, and all that energy for refridgeration!.  Even if a house is a rental, landlords could pay gardeners to maintain their properties, while providing the neighborhood with food at the same time!  People water their lawns anyway.  Why not put forth a little extra energy and eat from the same ground?  Leave some grass for sitting back and relaxing in, while growing a salad around the edges!  Urban CSAs will help to build more top-soil, as well as community!  Wouldn’t it be nice to meet your neighbor over a succulent strawberry?

The idea of an urban CSA another way to fully express community agriculture.  It can be designed to include all kinds of people and to meet different needs.  This idea is by no means intended to take business away from pre-existing CSAs, which serve a very important function in our community.  Rather, it is to promote urban gardens and more gardeners where before there were none or few.  Furthermore, thanks to those folks who already turn their yards into gardens, we know that front yard gardens are beautiful and can make the streets seem less gray.

Of course, this vision may take many hours of work to realize, but with winter upon us, we have a perfect time to plan!  If this has inspired you and you have an interest in helping it to happen in your neighborhood, I’d love to hear your ideas and reactions.  Call, or e-mail me at 684-0066 or jenya@efn.org.



The Permaculture Design Course CD: VERY Appropriate Technology

Review by Devon Bonady

I must admit that using a computer is often one of the least favorite parts of my week.  However, when I heard about a computer compact disk encompassing an entire twenty-one week Permaculture Design Course I had to check it out!  I am an avid Permaculture student and teacher.  Most of the education I am involved with is hands-on, in the garden and forest. To me, Permaculture is a lifestyle and a design process, as well as ongoing education in creative skills for self-reliant living. 

At first it was hard to imagine a Permaculture course on computer, since I often have trouble teaching my courses indoors.  But one evening, as I explored the Permaculture Design Course CD- ROM packed with information, I discovered that it is a guide for independent study, supplementing and encouraging hands-on design work.  Students learn in their own home and work on individual design projects that are later critiqued over the internet by the instructor, Dan Hemenway.  At the end of the course they receive a Design Certificate.  The course is a great alternative to the usual two-week intensive courses, one of which is held each year at Lost Valley Educational Center.

The Barking Frogs Permaculture Center in Sparr, Florida, with the help of Tim Packer, developed the Permaculture Design Course CD to be used in their six month online design course.  It is also available to other individuals for self-study.  The amount of information on this single CD is astounding.  It is an organized file cabinet of Permaculture resources.  In addition to the course materials and information, it also has general information on the Barking Frogs Permaculture Center and the TRIP directory they developed with  “networking information for individuals and groups working for sustainable, healing, and joyous habitation of Earth.”  The heart of the course is the weekly posts which are twenty-one individual folders with letters and assignments.  The posts are extensive lecture notes on e-mail to accompany the readings, also on the CD.  Reading the friendly lecture notes, I felt as if the instructor was speaking directly to me.  Many of the lectures contain web resources and updates, as well as personal comments intertwined.  The CD is truly a plethora of information!  In addition to the weekly posts, the CD contains fifteen design course papers and pamphlets from Bill Mollison, the Australian who coined the term “Permaculture,” and other skilled Permaculturalists, alone totaling 155 pages.  Several articles on Permaculture, a client survey, and a course folder with reading lists provide yet more materials for perusal and study.  This first version of the CD also has the beginning of a list of teachers and sample designs with potential to be expanded.  I understand that the Barking Frogs Permaculture Center intends to add at least one complete sample Permaculture design to the course CD by mid-October, as well as the entire text for Pat Howden’s book, How to Live: Free at Last, part of the course reading material.  The CD is available now for $250. 

To purchase a copy, or learn more about the online course or Barking Frogs Permaculture Center, contact them at BarkingFrogsPC@aol.com, P.O. Box 52, Sparr FL 32192.  If you are willing to make the investment, I think it is a great tool for independent study.



A Week in Berkeley
By Jan Spencer

I spent an educational week in Berkeley and Oakland this October.  One of my primary goals was to visit permaculture and urban gardens sites.  Gardening and permaculture opportunities take a different shape in the East Bay.  The area is not so hard-core urban with many high-rise residential locations, but the yards are smaller.  Overall, the urban arrangement is more compact than Eugene.  Still, there are many examples of greening. I saw several vacant lots that have transformed into community gardens.  Some of them are in rough

neighborhoods but my friend Christopher told me the gardens are well received.  Local permaculture/gardening advocates seem to make a name for themselves doing volunteer projects in hopes of developing a reputation and receiving grant money to be paid for that work.  My friend Christopher had done much volunteer work and has received several grants.

Schools are the best opportunity for larger gardens.  Asphalt is all too expansive.  Many gardens are raised beds on top of asphalt.  The school gardens I visited ranged from a couple semi-neglected raised beds to extensive beds with greenhouses, chickens and lush native plantings along 100 feet of busy street. One school close to Huey Newton's home in Oakland has three greenings on its nearly entirely paved property.  One part is a street corner that has been converted from compacted bare dirt to nicely mulched natives.  Elsewhere, a large part of the asphalt was taken out by teachers, volunteers, and students with little help from the school district.  It is now a ball field.   Still another place has a nice trellis with a half dozen raised beds.  Santa Fe Elementary School has plans for more such transformations.  The teachers I spoke with are very proud of these green enhancements. Other community gardens offer spaces and classes to area residents.  One is organized by a Catholic Church and has a garden for the homeless.  Another is leased from BART and is above the tracks where the commuter train surfaces.  Another is owned by a non profit and held in trust.  My sense is that the community gardens were not organized by the cities, but rather were personal and non-profit initiatives.  None of the gardens are anywhere near the size of those in Eugene.  Personal plots to rent are scarcely larger than a double bed, some are smaller. I was impressed by many private front yards.  Some are food-producing, others are native.  All are a

refreshing contrast to too much grass or too much concrete.  The up side of up-scaling the neighborhoods is that greening is often part of the process.  Rents are close to twice those of Eugene.

Hard-core permaculture was difficult to come by.  I did see one gray water system and I did see several private gardens large enough for more extensive plantings.  Several housing co-ops I visited have more ambitious gardens and plans.  One, where members are buying three two-story contiguous houses together, they have already taken out nearly one-thousand square feet of concrete with plans to remove much more for gardens. I saw two institutional demonstration/educational gardens.  One was at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden

 [very much worth a visit] and the other on Lake Merrit in Oakland, part of a larger botanical/park complex.  Both are well maintained, including graphic/informative explanations and focusing on organic food production.

I have seen slide shows of national permaculture showcases and have thought, "OK, that's nice but hardly

relevant to living in town."  Nearly the same could be said of  East Bay permies who might see images from Eugene.  I did present slides one evening and those present were envious of what they saw of Eugene.  Several people from San Francisco were, likewise, envious of the green of the East Bay.  A matter of scale and perspective.  Final impressions of the visit?  Greening a terribly over-paved urban landscape, designed for automobiles, is a titanic challenge.  There are green activists in the Bay Area and they have the same vision and enthusiasm as we do here and are working on that urgently needed urban conversion.  Their challenge, as is ours, is to be creative and make the best of where they are.  Be grateful for as much space as we have here and make use of it wisely.

Images from the East Bay will be online soon at www.efn.org/spencerj/.   Call 686 6761 for more information



The Catnap Patch
By Jewel

It was a lovely “spring” day (for February, that is) here in the always moist and verdant Willamette Valley of western Oregon, where gardening year-round is possible, if not mandatory, for someone with compost in her soul.  I was out in the garden, noticing the abundance of weeds that were coming up in all of my lovingly tended raised beds, an event both important and appreciated because a lot of those “weeds” grace my early spring salads... the annoyingly persistant chickweed which grows EVERYWHERE, the new tender and delicate dandelion leaves, the sticky and clingy cleavers vines... all the wonderful spring tonics that invigorate the body, stimulate the mind and wipe away the foggy remnants of a long winter’s rest!  But, I digress...  There I was, tickling the garlic shoots I had set out last fall, checking to see if the peas and radishes I  planted a week ago were up yet, and reverently pulling those weeds that I didn’t really want to eat, just minding my own bees-wax.  The sky was blue with fluffy wisps of clouds, the birds were chirping and singing, a gentle breeze was rustling the dried tops of last year’s garlic chives, a few early suicidal bees were buzzing lazily around... all in all, quite the magical day.

As I slowly cruised on my knees through the herb bed at the foot of the tall wooden privacy fence,  gently tilling the soil with my fingers, I glanced slightly to my left.  There in the catnip patch lay Sid, my long-haired black cat... sprawled on his back with his head upside-down and his feet to the four directions, lips flopped open, exposed fangs glinting in the sunlight, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth with a piece of catnip leaf stuck to it.  Sound asleep.  Dead to the world.  The birds chirping.  The bees  humming.  A gentle breeze... well, I’m sure you’ve got the picture.

Sid had come to me several years previously, a friendly street-wise young cat who was milking a friend of mine’s whole neighborhood for food, attention and places to sleep.  Somewhere along the line he had been neutered; however, his macho attitude was still very much intact.  The one thing Sid wanted, yet couldn’t seem to achieve, was for someone to invite him INTO their house, as it was late October and starting to be cold and wet on a daily basis.  So with the blessings of those neighbors, (and I think I heard a few sighs of relief), I brought this charming feline home to  live with me.  He immediately proceeded to “work” this new neighborhood with his tomcat ways, alternately endearing and offending one and all without prejudice, and it soon became clear that he considered himself to be king of his own personal urban jungle.

While in the house, Sid allowed himself the luxury of sound sleep and usually felt no need to stay alert,  responding to my occasional touch with a soft mewling of recognition, then going right back to sleep.  However, when napping out of doors in a deceptively relaxed state, apparently his inner-radar is ALWAYS connected, ready for any emergency, the guards fully armed and in the towers, so to speak.  So on this fine and magical afternoon you’d think that I’d instinctively know better than to mindlessly follow my urges.  But no... I, in my springtime euphoria, slowly reached out a soft hand, with the love of the buddha in my heart and sweetness in my soul, and lightly touched him on his soft fuzzy exposed belly. The explosion was immediate, and as I best recall,in fantastic slow motion.  Sid shot up into the air, a twisting spiral funnel, his toenails instantly converting to tiny flashing razor blades, emmiting a sound like a cross between a deflating balloon and an outboard motor.  After regaining my stunned senses, I looked up and there he was, on top of the six-foot fence, looking like an electrified porcupine with all his hairs standing out, back arched, eyes bulging like neon golf balls, glaring down the fence at  his momma, who feeds and loves him.  We held each other’s eyes for a long moment, then I said, "uh, sorry...".  At that, he issued an explosive combination  hiss/spit/yowl,  shot down the length of the fence-top and sailed into the bamboo patch, leaving me wondering why my hands and arms were suddenly on fire.  By the time I got back to the garden wearing half the contents of the bandaid box, Sid came strolling through the celery patch, yawned, and rubbed against my legs, all forgiveness and love. The lessons of that lovely early-spring afternoon are many, some obvious and others deep and obscure.  And I know I will never again see this beloved kitty in quite the same pastel light.  But I guess if there is any REAL moral to this story, it would be to remember NEVER to touch a stoned-out sound-asleep cat just after you’ve finally begun to heal from ripping out that blackberry patch last month. 



Announcements

A new service, Tutoring Plus is available from Maggie Springer. Maggie tutors 4th graders and older in history/social studies and English/language arts, including help with study skills, organization, term papers, and exams, and enrichment for home schoolers.  Maggie can also give you a hand with writing, editing, and research projects (want to look something up on the Internet but don't have time?).  Last but not least, she's a creative coach in drawing, painting, and creative writing.  You can express yourself!  Contact Maggie at 242-1099 or mspringer@mindspring.com for her low rates (1/2 off first session).

Land Steward Intern position opening!  Lost Valley Educational Center (www.lostvalley.org) has a couple positions open for Land Steward Interns with the possibility of a future job after the intern training period.  General responsibilities:  Coordinate sound management of natural resources on LVEC land using principles of sustainable use, permaculture, and the current LVEC Land Stewardship Plan. Support and develop respectful relationship with the land by the community and conference center. Looking for someone with 2 years experience as a land steward or land manager. Educated in Biology/Botany, resource management, and permaculture.  Lost Valley is a consensus-based intentional community and non-profit educational center. For more info and application contact Tammy Davis at garden@lostvalley.org, 541-937-3351 ext. 119 or write to her at 81868 Lost Valley Lane, Dexter, OR 97431.

The Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts, MECCA, has opened its doors and now hosts Eugene's first materials warehouse. Local ecologically minded businesses and individuals donate their waste materials such as vinyl, tubes, cardboard, matte board, fabrics, nature items, metal pieces, caps and film cannisters-and more!-to MECCA to sort and distribute at low cost to the community.  Our Grand Opening was on August 29th from 11-6 and we had over a hundred visitors giving us their well wishes. Local television stations KVAL and KEZI came and broadcast our event.  Our warehouse is located at 1235 Railroad Blvd between Grand and Polk in Eugene and our hours of operation as of October 1st are Tu/Thur 10-2 and Wednesday from 12-6.  We hope to expand our hours to Saturdays and more late afternoons as funding and volunteer membership grow.  Coming this fall we will open our gallery and studio space at 449 Blair Blvd., about 10 blocks from the Materials Exchange. We will offer classes, workshops, open studio time, and more at this newly renovated site.  If you would like to volunteer we have many opportunities for you.  Perhaps you'd like to help staff the materials exchange, or create art projects with recycled materials, or volunteer to help staff a booth at local events and festivals, if so, please contact Jennifer Fogerty-Gibson, MECCA's new Executive Director at 302-1810.  Thanks!

Jennifer Fogerty-Gibson * Executive Director, MECCA * mecca@efn.org, www.materials-exchange.org, 302-1810 Message line, 344-6790 Office

I would like to let people know about an opportunity to perhaps live on, and manage 5 or more acres planted in table grapes, ginseng, and kiwi.  Farm near Noti has about 25 acres and needs maintenance work.  Please write or call if interested.  Charlie Larson,  PO 51082 Eugene, 97405  (541) 345-9384, E-mail:  larsrios@yahoo.com



Calendar of Events

Wednesday, November 20, 7-9 pm. Seed Cleaning Party:  EPG November Event.  Northwest Youth Corps Gymnasium (2621 Augusta).  Celebrating the life within the death of this past growing season we will share seed cleaning techniques and get our hands in the process.  Please bring seeds you have to clean as well as any tools or materials you have found useful such as  screens, sheets, fans, buckets, etc.  Or, Just bring your curious self.  Questions?  Call Leslie at 689-6545

November 2002 Happenings at MECCA
Tuesdays: Free collage kit with any purchase of $5 or more,
Wednesdays: Free Craft Hour with Sarah Grimm 4:30-5:30,
Thursdays: Parent and Toddler art! Free art making for you and your toddler, 10:30-11:30

Hours of operation: Tu/Th/Sat:10-2, Weds:12-6. 
1235 Railroad Boulevard Between N Grand &N Polk

Directions:  Take 6th Ave/99 North. Turn Right on Chambers, Turn Right on Railroad Blvd. We are about a mile down on the left, under the mosaic sign!  Call 302-1810 for further information. During open hours you can reach the warehouse at 344-6790.   *The Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts, MECCA, is a not-for-profit organization that provides low-cost art materials and educational programs to children and youth, teachers, artists and the public.  REDUCE, REUSE,  RECYCLE! Sarah Grimm, education coordinator BRING Recycling 541-746-3023. sarahg@bringrecycling.org

December 1 to 14, 2002, 12th Annual Permaculture Design Certification Course at Lost Valley Educational Center 1/2 hour East of Eugene.  This 14 day intensive program provides an in-depth look at the theory and application of permaculture design principles leadsing to certification by the Cascadia Permaculture Institute.  Taught by Toby Hemenway, Jude Hobbs and Rick Valley, three of this bio-region's more prominent permaculturalists, the course is held at an intentional community and permaculture design site on 87 acres in the Willamette Valley.  Class size limited.  For more information see www.lostvalley.org e-mail russ@lostvalley.org, or call Russ at 541-937-3351 ext. 118 Sunday, December 15, 6:30 pm.  Winter Solstice Potluck.  Bring food and a permaculture or plant show-and-tell.  At Heiko's house, 631 W. 12th.  485-7245.

January 8 to 14, 2003, 2nd Annual Permaculture Design Teacher's Course at Lost Valley Educational Center 1/2 hour East of Eugene.  This six day courseprovides an advanced look at permaculture with an emphasis on preparing participants to teach others the principles and application of permaculture design.  Taught by Jude Hobbs and Tom Ward, and leading to teacher's certification by the Cascadia Permaculture Design Institute, this course is held at an intentional community and permaculture design site on 87 acres in the Willamette Valley.  Class size limited.  For more information see www.lostvalley.org e-mail russ@lostvalley.org, or call Russ at 541-937-3351 ext. 118.

March 7-9, 2003:  An Introduction to Permaculture: A Design Workshop for Women at Lost Valley Educational Center.  The purpose of this workshop is to create a comfortable, supportive environment for women to learn Permaculture principles, strategies, and basic techniques. By considering the ‘whole picture' the workshop will concentrate on practical examples of how to evolve efficient, bountiful and beautiful environments.  Instructor:  Jude Hobbs Cost: Sliding scale: $200-$250 Contact:  Jude Hobbs  1161 Lincoln St.  Eugene, Or. 97401   541-342-1160  hobbsj@efn.org



Green Friends
By Pat Patterson, Lane Co.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

One of the world’s most loved and reviled plants, the dandelion is known throughout the world.  It is a true cosmopolitan.  Children love the Dandy Lion and puff its mane gleefully into the air.  Herbalists rate it as one of the top ten medicinal herbs, and it has been so used since the 4^th century in Egypt.

Our common name comes from the French Dent de lion or Lion’s tooth, Latin Dens leonis.  Other common names refer to its effectiveness as a diuretic, such as pissenlit.  This plant may have more common names in English than any other weed:  fortune teller, piss-the-bed, blowball, doonheadclock, yellow gowan and priest’s crown among them.  The Latin species name officinale refers to its place in the official Pharmacopoeia for centuries.  It traveled to the Americas with the earliest travelers who brought it deliberately as a food and a medicine and accidentally as ballast.

All parts of the plant may be used from the flower, symbolic of the sun’s force, to the tenacious root.  It has a long list of culinary uses.  Dandelion beer, wine, coffee and tea grace a menu of dandelion soup, omelette with dandelion petals or buds, dandelion salad, stir-fried or steamed dandelion leaf or root.  The petals are a beautiful color point in a mixed salad as well.  The bitterness of the mature plant is mild in the very young or blanched plant.  When using buds or petals, remove any sepals or green parts unless you like strong bitters.  My rabbits stand up and beg for their dandelion treats.

Nutritionally the dandelion is a powerhouse.  Naturally high in vitamins A and C, the plant is very good at assimilating minerals, particularly iron and copper.  It is a rich source of pollen and nectar for bees and if blooming in an orchard will draw the bees away from the tree flowers.  93 insects have been observed visiting the flowers.  It is not a good neighbor to other low plants, however.  Its big leaves flatten out to smother competition, it depletes soil of elements and exhales ethylene to stunt neighboring plants.  When composted or made into a tea it is a topnotch fertilizer-tonic for other plants.

Commercial dandelion farms are big business in the US and the cultivated dandelion is a common garden vegetable in many countries.  On “fat” soil a dandelion can really thrive and become very succulent.  There are also special varieties of dandelion cultivars.  Extracts of the plants and roots are used commercially to flavor ice cream, candy, baked goods and soft drinks.  The flowers release a yellow dye, the roots a magenta one.

Here are just a few bits of dandelion folklore.  To dream of dandelions means ill fortune.  If the fluff blows off when there is no wind, it is a sure sign of rain.  To blow the seeds of the dandelion into the wind is to carry one’s thoughts to a loved one.  In England children believed the floating seeds were fairies and to catch one brought good luck.

And now for all of you who pluck rather than poison your dandelions, a recipe:

Dandelion Soup

2/3 colander of dandelion leaves              
2 Tbs butter
1 small onion                                                   
1 medium potato
3 ¼ cups chicken stock                          
salt & pepper to taste

Gather the leaves in early spring or summer.  Tear the leaves from the bitter mid-rib, wash well and drain.  Melt butter in saucepan and add finely sliced or chopped onion.  Peel and dice potato and add to onion.  Cover and cook over low heat for 5 min.  Add the dandelion leaves and cook covered for 5 min. more.  Stir in the stock, season and cook gently 15 min.  Serve hot with crusty French bread.



Weeds as Soil Indicators

By Pat Patterson, MG

Found in most soils: Lamb’s quarters, chickweed, and Shepherd’s purse.

Found in alkaline areas (not here as a rule): saltgrass and goosefoot (Halogeton glomeratus)

Suggesting poor drainage: sedges, dwarf St. John’s Wort, horsetail, silverweed (Potentilla anserina), creeping buttercup, mosses, sumac, curly dock, sorrel, hedge nettle (Stachys palustris), mayapple, thyme-leaved speedwell, American hellebore, white avens (Geum album).

Sweet soil preferred (pH 7+): some mustards, true chamomile, campanula, salad burnet, scarlet pimpernel, blueweed (Echium vulgare), gromwell (Lithospermium officinale), field peppergrass (Lepidium campestre), and bladder campion (Silene latifolia).

Acid soil preferred: bracken fern, hawkweed (very acid), spurry, corn marigold, sow thistle, English daisy, sorrel, plantain, prostrate knotweed, lady’s thumb (Polygonum persicaria), knapweed (very acid), rough cinquefoil, silvery cinquefoil (very acid), wild strawberry, field clover (Trifolium arvense), horsetail and dock.

Like heavy soil: coltsfoot, creeping buttercup, dandelion (but not very fussy), plantain, English daisy, broadleaf dock.

Like light soil: spurry, corn marigold, sheep’s sorrel, cornflower (esp. if flowers are pink), nettle (Urtica urens), shepherd’s purse, white campion, Maltese thistle (Centaurea melitensis).

Hard, crusted soil: all the chamomiles, mustards, morning glory, quackgrass, Chenopodium).

Salt-tolerant: Russian thistle, sea aster, asparagus, beet, shepherd’s purse and mustards.

Quotes:

“My whole life has been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s presence. The kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap. I love compost and I believe that composting can save not the entire world, but a good portion of it. –Bette Midler

"The nice thing about gardening is that if you put it off long enough, it is eventually too late!"

"If you don’t grow vegetables, it helps to praise your neighbor’s garden."

"Sustainability includes looking out for the generations that will be here tomorrow by attending to the relationships we have today."



What is Permaculture?

By Devon Bonady

                             Mud stains on my overalls

                                             tank top

                                             tennis shoes

                                          yes, even my pajamas

                             Bike grease on my handkerchief

                                               hand pruners

                                               bulging calves

                                               lecture notes

                            Straw in my hair                                             

                                              sleeping bag

 

                             Slugs in my garden bed

                                         salad bowl

                                         pillow case

                                   nibbling my cheeks at night

              Lying in my forest bedroom

                    happily aching from yesterday's rock harvest

                            calmed by light drizzle

                                       entwined in usnea

                                               drifting off into green paradise

 

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The Eugene Permaculture Guild seeks to educate both our members and the community about the principles of sustainable living, and to create examples of permaculture in the Eugene area.  To support EPG with a one year membership, send $10.00 to EPG, c/o Leslie Davis, 1695 Elkay Drive, Eugene, OR, 97404.  (You will receive newsletters, discounts for some events, and a good feeling!) 

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The Permaculture News is the newsletter of the Eugene Permaculture Guild.  It is mailed to members of the Eugene Permaculture Guild, and is available at general meetings of the Guild to any one else for $1.00.  The Permaculture News is made possible by  its readers – you!  We welcome any articles, calendar dates, announcements, resource exchange items, artwork, poetry, reviews of speaker/events, etc  We are now including business card ads for a $5.00 fee.

Send all correspondence to:  Jenya Lemeshow, POB 99, OR 97440 or jlemeshow@yahoo.com.  684-0066.

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Eugene Permaculture Guild
The Permaculture News
POB 99
Eugene, OR  97440