Upcoming Open Houses : Agraria – The Tiny-Village Concept

Posted on July 17, by Megan Krintz

Agraria

Saturday, October 5th
Saturday, November 9th

Agraria?
It’s not suburbia…and it’s not living an isolated life on the farm either.

It is combining the best of neighborly-suburban living with being on the farm. The ‘tiny-home’ concept is grabbing hold in America. It’s time to apply permaculture thinking to the ‘tiny-village’ concept.

Bill Wilson will host this talk and lead a tour of the CSC land.

Open Houses – Saturdays, Oct. 5th and Nov. 9th — 10am – 3:30pm

10:00 am: Orientation to CSC and Tour of Stelle Community

12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm- 3:30pm: Workshop on Agraria with Bill Wilson

A.M. Orientation to CSC and Tour of Stelle Community
In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, solar-powered internet company, rain gardens, a permacultured yard, and more.

Afternoon Workshop on Agraria – with Bill Wilson of Midwest Permaculture
What is it like to live in abundance and security? This will be an introduction to a lifestyle alternative — living close to the land, using natural building supplies and techniques, being mortgage free and having neighbors you cherish. Bill will discuss how this might work and feel for the residents of such a place.

The Permaculture Design for the CSC is an example of an Agrarian Life

Bill Wilson will host the afternoon workshop. He is a co-founder of Midwest Permaculture with his wife and partner Rebecca and has hosted and taught at over 40 Permaculture Design Courses.

He also teaches Advanced Permaculture Training and provides permaculture design services and consulting.

Join Bill as he draws from his 35 years of research and experience in community living and permaculture design centered on working with nature. Bill will discuss how it is possible to live abundantly off the land in a way that builds soil and people. It is certainly possible. It can be as simple as education, research, and the willingness to move toward the beat of a different drum.

Suggested Donation and Registration
We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop. If you are coming for just the afternoon workshop, please arrive before the workshop begins.

Space can be limited, so please call or email to reserve a spot.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (815) 256-2204

Why Plant a Food Forest? Internship Highlights Thinking Long-Term

Posted on May 29, by Megan Krintz

To read what else the internship program staff and interns have been doing, see Midwest Permaculture’s blog update.

We still have a few seats remaining in our upcoming internship sessions.

Hayden and Ernest walk along newly planted berm, where, in 10-15 years, a fruit overstory will shade the same place.

Hayden and Ernest walk along newly planted berm, where, in 10-15 years, a fruit over-story will shade that same spot.

Our spring interns, along with the internship staff of Ernest, Hayden, and Megan, have been busy digging into Permaculture ideas — literally. Over the course of three weeks, we have designed, ordered, prepared, and planted a linear food forest, a multi-story edible patch of groundcovers, shrubs, fruit/nut trees, and companion plants placed along a water-catching swale. As the forest grows, these perennials will be a lasting contribution to our yearly local harvest and provide us with tons of extra raw materials such as firewood for rocket stoves or our own living mulch.

But why plant a food forest, when it won’t truly be a forest until 10-15 years from now? Food forests are the ultimate in slow food; in our fast-paced and mobile culture, this design doesn’t appear to work for us as individuals.

In my (humble) opinion, it isn’t working today simply because we haven’t recently been thinking long-term. Imagine if your parents had planted a few trees for you at birth. By age 20, you’d have raw materials at your disposal. Sure, it’s not a new car, but even if you just chop up the trees for firewood, your effort is minimal. Nature did most of the work.

Besides the estimable value of raw materials growing out of thin air, our interns brainstormed other ways in which food forest planting is useful:

If you are an orchardist whose wish is to maintain a healthy and productive orchard, a food forest design is insurance. Also, with multiple harvest-able products, you aren’t putting “all your eggs in one basket.”
Learning to design and start food forests is a learning experience in itself, and is best learned through doing. You learn not only how to plant a food forest, but how to work with others, and how to imagine how a place can change over time.
In 5-10 years when the forest does start producing, the harvest will be much more meaningful and will less likely go to waste.

Permaculture isn’t about designing something to be unchanging and final–nature doesn’t work like that– but it is about designing something that will be useful through multiple stages of growth, and not only to oneself, but to all beings sharing the same environment. We (the intern staff) hope that this exercise in thinking long-term will, in itself, have a long-term impact.

Click here to read more about our food forest design and why we are using it in our Permaculture Design for CSC’s 8.7 acres.

Come visit our newly-planted food forest (and see other exciting innovations!) here on June 8th.

June Open House: Permaculture Design Tour and Cob Building Intro

Posted on May 20, by Megan Krintz

What’s it like to live, work, and play every day as a permaculturist? See our design updates and learn to make some cob!

This one-day Open House will be on June 8th, 10am-4:00pm.
In the morning, we will take a walking tour of town and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. In the afternoon, we will feature an introductory tour highlighting some of our recent work on the CSC landscape and including a cob-making tutorial. And . . . stay overnight to take Midwest Permaculture’s Rocket Stove workshop on June 9th!

Schedule:

10:00 am: INTRODUCTION

11:00 am: WALKING TOUR OF THE TOWN

12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm- 4:00pm: PERAMCULTURE DESIGN TOUR AND COB INTRO
WITH MARY-KATE CARTER & HAYDEN WILSON

(meet at the Stelle community center)

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop. If you are coming for just the afternoon workshop, please arrive before the workshop begins.

Space can be limited, so please call or email to reserve a spot. For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

Aerial-Master-CSC-Land-Midwest-Permaculture-Design

————-

Afternoon Workshop:
What’s it like to live, work, and play every day as a Permaculturist?
Our introductory tour and cob building intro will give you a glimpse into this world.

Mary-Kate Carter is a current intern who has been working to implement features of the permaculture design on the CSC property. She will share our progress in the garden, pond, and chicken production, as well as her perspective in the continuing journey of building permaculture systems in the Midwest. Mary-Kate is using her design skills from Austin Permaculture Guild (as well as Midwest Permaculture) in creating everything from chicken coops to food forests.

Midwest Permaculture’s resident intern Hayden Wilson will join us for the afternoon; Hayden has worked extensively in permaculture design and holds a Permaculture Teaching Certificate (more about Hayden can be found here).

Get an insider’s perspective on our internship and survey the giant leaps we’ve made in making our design a reality.

We will tour CSC’s 8.7-acre landscape that adjoins Stelle, focusing on our new developments, including our newly-planted linear food forest, water harvesting via a solar pump, new mobile chicken tractor, and more! We will also have a hands-on cob-making tutorial to show how we made our earthen oven from the ground beneath our feet!

Stay updated on what our interns are designing & building via our blog.

Integrated Gardening Techniques and the Garden Co-op

Posted on April 8, by Megan Krintz

This growing season marks the beginning of stepping-up our integrated techniques in the community garden on the CSC property, just west of Stelle. It is part of our Permaculture Land Design.

Some quick background: The community garden is a celebrated part of CSC’s history. Each year, residents of Stelle (and the nearby neighborhood) can choose to become part of CSC’s Community Garden Co-op. It works differently than most community gardens; rather than renting plots, the garden is planned and managed by a Garden Manager.

A past year’s garden planning meeting, where the “what to plant” and “who will be planting” is decided.

The Garden Manager holds a yearly garden planning meeting to get interested members’ input on what to grow and how much time they have to work in the garden. Members spend time throughout the season helping to mulch, plant, weed, water, and harvest. The general rule for the co-op harvest has been: work a little, take a little; work a lot, take a lot.

It has worked well for some years; however, it is still a lot of work, and plenty of members fizzle out in their volunteer hours when it starts to get scorching hot outside. What happens? The un-watered, un-weeded garden starts to give diminishing returns.

—–

Enter: Integrated Gardening Techniques! Some dedicated gentlemen (Ernest and Hayden) have begun to rethink how to get the garden watered and weeded, to apply Permaculture principles to the garden and make it even easier than before to grow more food than before. We like to call it lazy persons’ gardening. What, exactly, are they doing? Continue reading →

April Open House: Applied Permaculture Demo

Posted on March 15, by Megan Krintz

165486_10151414058102851_1770827148_n Take an in-depth look at how to build resiliency, one neighborhood at a time. We will explore both cases of applying permaculture to the landscape–backyard examples as well as community endeavors here in Stelle. We will demonstrate scaling-up:

from individual rain gardens to linear food forests
from backyard gardening plots to garden co-operatives
from backyard hens to pastured chicken production
and more!

In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. After lunch, we will tour CSC’s 8.7-acre property that adjoins Stelle, focusing on its current community use and future design aims, and will also touch upon how to design self-directed work enterprises and foster social permaculture.

Peaches2

This presentation will be a joint program by Rebecca Wilson, co-founder of Midwest Permaculture (shown right), and Ernest Rando, CSC member and permaculturist in Stelle.

Schedule:
10:00 am: INTRODUCTION TO STELLE & CSC
11:00 am: WALKING TOUR
12:30 pm: LUNCH

1:30 pm: APPLIED PERMACULTURE WORKSHOP

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop.

Join us! For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

March Open House: Chicken Basics and Ethically Raising Them

Posted on March 15, by Megan Krintz

That Spring Chicken Thing

March Open House Features “Ethics: The Basics of Raising Chickens Workshop”

It’s almost springtime, when chicks will arrive here and in many first-time chicken owner families throughout the country. Join us and discover why keeping chickens is becoming so popular.

In the morning, we will take a walking tour of Stelle and show you some of the neighborhood’s examples of sustainable living–our wind turbine, rain gardens, and more. After lunch, CSC member and permaculturalist Ernest Rando (pictured above) will present strategies for raising chickens ethically in both urban and suburban environments. We will spend time handling 50 broiler chicks and three hens that live in a sustainable backyard paddock system. If you are considering keeping chickens for the first time, this workshop is for you!

Schedule:
10:00 am: INTRODUCTION TO STELLE & CSC
11:00 am: WALKING TOUR
12:30 pm: LUNCH
1:30 pm: CHICKEN HANDS-ON WORKSHOP

We appreciate your contributions of $10 for the morning tour and lunch and $15 for the afternoon workshop.

Join us! For more information on how to sign up, please click here.

November Open House: Sustainable Home Tour

Posted on November 1, by Megan Krintz

Handmade Thermal Mass Rocket Stove – Finished Concrete Floors

CSC Open House: November 18th,
Sustainable Home Tour at the Malchows’

Come take an in-depth tour of Wayne and Bev Malchows’ property! They have implemented numerous sustainable features into their house and yard. Wayne is a permaculture design course graduate and used his training to improve his home. Learn how.

We’ll explore:

a thermal mass rocket stove (more about these),
their garage made of strawbales,
an earthen plastered wall over Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (AAC) blocks in the house,
stained and finished concrete floors,
and a permaculture planted yar

A 2 Year Old Willow Hedge – Free from Pond Over-growth

Making Cob for the Rocket Heate

1200 sq/ft. Home, AAC Walls, Weather proof exterior plaster, Earthen plaster on inside

Cultivating Community: A Celebration in Stelle!

Posted on May 1, by Megan Krintz

Workshop: CSC Land Tour

Posted on July 1, by Megan Krintz

CSC Land Tour

August 1, 1P.M. – 4:30 P.M.

Offered by:
Ed Homeier on the Chicken Cooperative,
Argena Marie on the Orchard, and
George Blackman on the Garden.
Location: CSC, Stelle, IL

Tour Highlights
The CSC recently formed a Land Committee to act as caretakers of its 7- acre property adjacent to Stelle. One of the objectives adopted by the Land Committee is to demonstrate the sustainable production of healthy food while decreasing outside inputs. The land tour offers an opportunity to observe progress toward that goal. Components of the tour are: one half hour at the Chicken Cooperative, one hour at the Orchard and two hours at the Garden.

The Chicken Cooperative Tour
Ten Stelle families established the Chicken Co-op four years ago on the CSC property by written agreement with CSC. The objective was to illustrate the production of chickens for meat and eggs at cost. During the first two years of operation, the co-op raised and harvested two 100-member Rock-Cross rooster flocks, which were fed certified-organic grain blends and grazed, using home-made chicken tractors. Currently, seven families manage a mixed-breed laying flock of 30 hens (Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds) and four roosters. Eggs are shared at cost among co-op families who sell regularly to families in Stelle at a slightly higher cost. Ed will describe the co-op’s experiences, with attention to the features of the current flock and the coop, which is fitted with solar lights, rain water catchments, and AC power.

Topics on the Chicken Cooperative Tour:

How the co-op works: members, duties, finances, etc
Breed selections
Feeding options
Seasonal care
Medical Care of the flock

The Orchard Tour
The CSC orchard contains over 100 mature fruit trees. Argena is a member of an orchard co-operative established by written agreement with the CSC to use a variety of organic techniques to restore this 35-plus year old orchard. Argena has also worked with children, passing on her knowledge to the next generation. Two goals of the Orchard Co-op are to improve the tree-health, creating high quality fruit, and to develop a park-like environment. Tour participants will be invited to take home some of the ripe apples and pears from this year’s crop.

Topics on the Orchard Tour

The Orchard Co-operative and how it works
The Junior Orchard club and how it works
Results of different pruning techniques
Pests and preventive options
Seasonal care for the trees
Mowing and mulching

The Garden Tour
The tour will conclude with an overview of the CSC gardens, describing what has been planted this year. Different growing methods will be identified, along with the features of our composting systems. George will then focus on the Bio-intensive growing method which affords more vegetables on less land using less water than other methods. He will demonstrate one of the features of this time-tested method, “double-digging” cultivation, which he is using to create a new garden bed for a fall crop. Participants will receive handouts and references for further study.

Topics on the Garden Tour:

Double- digging: tools needed, preparing the bed, how to dig, benefits of the method and planting in the new bed.
Creating a living mulch in the bed
Companion planting
Pests and organic solutions
Growing various vegetables
Seed saving

Registration for this event
The cost of the 3½ hour Land Tour is $35.

An optional free Open House Tour of the Stelle Community will begin at 10:30 and, at an additional cost of $10, you are also invited to share a lunch featuring locally grown and organic foods in the Stelle Community Center. The lunch will begin at noon followed by the workshop at 1:00. We hope you can join us!

School Field Trips and Large-Group Tours

CSC Land Tour