Glacial Lakes Permaculture

The First All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course begins in South Dakota

April 12, 2010

Students from around the Dakotas gathered in Brookings, SD, on Saturday, April 10, to begin a year-long All-Seasons Permaculture Design Course.  The course is offered through Glacial Lakes Permaculture, in collaboration with Project Sustainability @ SDSU and members of the SDSU Cooperative Extension Service.  Apprentice teachers include Elaine Zarzana from Marshall, MN, and Becky Schnabel from Bismarck, ND.  The lead teacher and convener is Karl Schmidt, Estelline, SD.

Students getting to know each other at the first meeting of the All-Seasons PDC

Karl Schmidt to teach Food Forest Design Workshop at Plain Green 10 in Sioux Falls

March 28, 2010

Karl Schmidt will teach a full-day pre-conference workshop on designing a home-scale food forest at Plain Green 10 in Sioux Falls, SD, on Wednesday, April 28.

Designing a Home-Scale Food Forest will provide an introduction to permaculture, a design system for ecological and sustainable living, as well as the steps needed to design, create and maintain a home-scale food forest in the northern plains.  Participants are encouraged to bring details of their own properties for help in determining what the possibilities might be for their own food forest design.

A food forest, also known as a forest or woodland garden, is an edible, multi-layered woodland landscape, based on fruit- and nut-producing trees and shrubs, as well as perennial and annual vegetables and flowers.  While its main purpose is to provide for human food needs, a food forest also serves as a wildlife habitat, forage for bees and butterflies, as a carbon sink, and as a source of beauty and natural inspiration.  Food forests can be the size of an urban backyard, a suburban lot, or even larger.

The workshop costs $65 and includes learning materials.

For more information, and to register: http://plaingreen.org/workshops/

Glacial Lakes Permaculture receives grant from Permaculture Activist magazine to develop coppice woodland project

January 25, 2010

Glacial Lakes Permaculture has received a small grant from Permaculture Activist magazine to support the development of a one-acre mixed coppice woodland demonstration project for the northern plains.  The purpose of the project is to show how land could be devoted to coppice woodland, providing a sustainable source of firewood, polewood, basket willow, and other valuable materials (including food), as well as acting as a source of additional farm income and wildlife habitat. 

Although the initial demonstration site will be relatively small, the idea will be to show that it can be scaled to any size, allowing for the creation of farm-scale coppice woodland.  The project will use commonly available trees obtained through the local conservation district.  The design includes 10 different tree species and 6 different shrub species native to South Dakota, including False Indigo (Amorpha fruticosa), a nitrogen-fixer, which will serve as a fast-growing nurse shrub.  Coppice tree species were selected on the basis of their suitability as firewood, as well as their ability to withstand both drought and short-term flooding from seasonal snowmelt.  Consideration was also given to their suitability for wildlife habitat, including bee forage.

Work on the project will commence in spring 2010.  More than 325 trees and 250 shrubs will be planted as part of the overall design.

Permaculture Activist magazine, based in Bloomington, Indiana, is the leading permaculture publication in North America and has been publishing the best in permaculture design and thought for 25 years.  For each issue mailed to subscribers, 25 cents is placed in a Tree Tax fund to support reforestation and forest preservation projects.  The grant GLP received is derived from those funds.

Permaculturist Toby Hemenway to speak in Twin Cities

November 2, 2009 

Well-known Permaculturist Toby Hemenway will give a public lecture and two workshops in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, 7-9 January 2010.  Hemenway has more than 20 years of Permaculture experience, including teaching and design.  He is the author of Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (2nd ed., 2009).  The events are hosted by the Permaculture Research Institute--Cold Climate.

More information on the public lecture and workshop registration details.

Learning Permaculture in Brazil

August 13, 2009

Karl Schmidt just returned from a three-week Permaculture Design Course in Brazil, sponsored by Living Routes, and hosted and taught by Lucy Legan and André Soares of IPEC (Instituto de Permacultura e Ecovilas do Cerrado).  The PDC covered the standard permaculture design curriculum, but with the added advantage of students being able to live on-site at a functioning ecovillage, laid out according to the best in permaculture design.  There were many hands-on practicals incorporated into the course, including compost-making, laying out contour lines with A-frame and dumpy level, and the implementation of a children's permaculture garden design at a local school.

Planting out an herb spiral in Pirenópolis, Brazil