Opening panel of the North American Permaculture Convergence, August 29, 2014

Penny Livingston-Stark, moderator

Scott Pittman, PRI USA and founder of Permaculture Credit Union: Bill Mollison took to the road teaching permaculture while Holmgren stayed put and did research. Mollison's first visit to the US was 1980-81. Pittman took every opportunity to learn from Mollison before his retirement. Mollison ended all classes by telling students they could now go teach and design, but this was not always a good idea and may be his biggest mistake.

Wes Roe, founding chair, Permaculture Credit Union

[notes from a workshop session at the North American Permaculture Convergence, August 30, 2014]

[Historical note: Less than a month later, PCU merged with Sandia Credit Union. There was no warning at the time that such a deal was in the works.]

Keynote address by Toby Hemenway, August 29, 2014 at North American Permaculture Convergence

Urban permaculture: transformations on the edge of chaos (soon to be a book)

[class taught August 26-28, 2014 at Harmony Park, Clark's Grove, MN]

[Originally published at Permaculture News -- visit that site to see the comments.]

I've been asked to give six 20-minute talks to middle-school students tomorrow on the topic of "Sustainability."  I decided not to pull any punches!  See the presentation here: https://prezi.com/onnnfjxpltdv/sustainability/

Comfrey (Symphytum spp.) has a great reputation as a "dynamic accumulator" of soil nutrients, but there's precious little published evidence of this fact.  I decided to do my part to change that, with the help of some before-and-after soil tests.

Read the whole story with comments at Permaculture News, or just the article and my updates below.

(I originally wrote this article as a submission to PermacultureNews.org, but decided it would be better as a blog.)

I don't know about you, but I was really shaken by Peter Harper's insightful critique of permaculture last summer, “Permaculture: The Big Rock Candy Mountain.” It has caused me to rethink the way I approach my urban farm, at least for the coming year. Let me explain.

Back in September, I attended a class in Kansas City on Designing Edible Forest Gardens, and while there I was interviewed by Craig Lubow for EcoRadio KC.  (The instructors of the class not unavailable to interview.)  You can listen to it here -- the interview begins at 38:43 and ends at 58:20.

Slides from a class given October 26, 2013 at Flint Hills Technical College: