Warren Brush Tells Inspiring Tales of “Peace in Permaculture”

Posted on February 21, 2022 by ernest

For students studying culture, we have found many articles on permaculture, you can buy literary analysis essay and get a detailed analysis of each period of this culture.

Midwest Permaculture and some of us CSC folks went up to Chicago to listen to Warren Brush of Quail Springs Permaculture talk about “Peace in Permaculture”. The MA Center of Chicago was our host at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum at University of Illinois Chicago.

It was exciting to meet some new permaculture folks from the Chicagoland Permaculture Meetup Group and it was equally exciting to see some friends that took some PDC courses here in Stelle. While the number of Permaculture folks are growing every year, the fact remains we are pretty spread out, and so it’s kind of strange to spot permaculturalists you know in public. Continue reading →

January 24th Orchard Pruning Permablitz

Posted on January 15, 2022 by ernest

This January the 24th, the Center for Sustainable Community will be hosting its monthly permablitz. We will be pruning and collecting scions in our community’s three-acre orchard. We will begin by reviewing some of the main principals of orcharding at 9 a.m., then begin pruning trees throughout the orchard. We will also demonstrate how to harvest scions and perform various grafting techniques. We will, of course, allow anyone who desires to harvest scions to take them back to their own communities for propagation. Continue reading →

Orchard Pruning, December Perma-Blitz

Posted on December 5, 2022 by ernest

This is an online instruction on orchard pruning. We will be watching a few selected basic orchard pruning videos. We will also look at some of the photos of the Center for Sustainable Community orchard and we will discuss what could be done with the trees. This will be an online Google hangout event and we hope to have a guest expert from the Midwest Fruit Explorers group to hangout with us and answer questions.

We are gaining knowledge and experience in orchard pruning and the use of Google Hangout. This event is will hopefully provide pre-site educational support for the upcoming Dec 22nd, Orchard Pruning Perma-Blitz, but all enthusiasts are welcome, please invite your friends even if you just want to learn about Google + Hangout!

You can sign up for the event via Google + or Facebook

Center for Sustainable Community November Perma-Blitz

Posted on December 3, 2022 by ernest

(See this Perma-Blitz’s description and invitation in this former post.)

The Center for Sustainable Community November Perma-Blitz went well for our first Perma-Blitz. Our aim is to create a no-cost skill-building Permaculture Event (Perma-Blitz) each month. We also hope to be able to support some local permaculture Meetup groups around the state once a month. The organizers of the November Perma-Blitz were Hayden Wilson, Ernest Rando, and Megan Krintz. Our participants were Steven, Ruth, Wayne, Drew, Bill Wilson, and Jodi from the Suburban Chicago Permaculture Guild.

We set out to build a Hugelkultur Keyhole garden bed with the Hugelkultur beds dug into the ground. The details are in the photos, but we used a space about 18′ x 23′. At the highest spot we placed a large compost pile ring (in the center of the garden bed), but then slightly sloped the soil away from the compost pile and then leveled it out so that the water settles into the body of the Hugelkultur beds. The wood in the beds will then soak up all the water like a sponge. We hope to grow all the compost that is needed and soak up and store all the water that we need within the keyhole garden bed area. Next year, we are going to measure and pay more attention to the garden resources and yields, and we hope our only input is seed! We also had time to double dig one of the beds in an experimentation plot as well. Enjoy the photos.

Continue reading →

CSC Swale Building Perma-Blitz

Posted on November 9, 2022 by ernest

Our community garden as it stands now (above) takes more effort to water than a passive irrigation design would. We’re building swales to create the optimal low-energy water retention.

November 18th through 20th Hayden, Ernest, & Megan will be hosting their first Perma-Blitz. if you would like to get experience in building swales & creating a passive irrigation system for medium-sized gardens, then this is the Perma-Blitz for you!!

This seems like the last break of warm weather we are going to have for the year, so here is the agenda:

Have a cozy dinner Sunday night with Hayden, Megan, & Ernest and relax with a game of Taboo or your favorite Permaculture book.
After breakfast, go over basic design and begin with the Perma-Blitz
Come in for lunch and enjoy salad and potato soup made from scratch with CSC garden veggies.
back to Perma-Blitzing (we gotta get these swales level, folks!)
Enjoy the sunset and work of a hard day and stay for Monday Night Dinner and spend some time with folks that you may have met during one of the past Midwest Permaculture Courses (suggested $5 donation)
Everyone is welcome to stay for one more evening and do it all again on Tuesday, that is why it is called a Perma-Blitz!! Continue reading →