Rahma Edible Forest Snack Garden 10 Year Environmental Benefits Assessment

JULY 13, 2019 – Day of Service at Rahma

On this training & volunteer day we’ll learn about Rahma’s environmental benefits using free scientific software called i-Tree Tools from the USDA Forest Service. A basic environmental benefits report about Rahma will be shared and discussed, then we’ll measure trees on site to conduct a more detailed analysis using the i-Tree Eco software. We ask that tree ID experts help each forest garden sampling teams – please come if you can, or invite friends to help!

A digital copy of the preliminary report is available here as a PDF.

This Day of Service will be led by volunteer permaculture practitioners Robbie Coville and Frank Cetera. Please consider volunteering or donating to Syracuse’s permaculture mutual aid organization Alchemical Nursery, or even join the board of directors! Interested individuals of any skill level are welcome to get involved. To donate please consider our $1/month campaign at https://www.patreon.com/alchemicalnursery.

McKinley-Brighton Artwork & Student Garden at Rahma Edible Forest Garden

It’s taken quite a few years to figure this out, but we finally created a relationship with McKinley-Brighton school that worked! The kids and teachers did a great job with integrating their artwork into the garden, and we even coordinated a new growing space just for them to have fun and learn in. :>) Check it out when you’re heading down South Salina St! By the way, strawberries are ripening as we sleep and breathe, grab a snack, and take a look at what’s new, what’s old, and what’s in real.

Continue reading →

Permaculture Principle #6: Produce No Waste

Waste not, want not.

What of a tree goes to waste in a tree-based community (a forest)?

Everybody eats, everybody gets eaten. If not for you, what is this food for? Earthworms or entropy itself?

What are you made of? See what you can do!

June 15 and 16 Sessions / How THE ANP PDC Works

Hi PDC learners!  Our next Sessions are this Saturday and Sunday.

On Saturday June 15, at 610 Gifford Garden at 11:00 AM

Come together at the 610 Gifford St Community Garden this Saturday June 15th at 11:30 for a hot dog, and a chance to give your input on where the South Geddes Street Business District Wayfinding Signs should point to, and what should be highlighted in the Near Westside or Skiunk City neighborhood. Find out more about how we are planning this project with https://walkyourcity.org/

Those who arrive at 11:00 AM and participate in the learning discussion will have a chance to earn a Permaculture Design Certificate Badge on the topic of Urban Permaculture. Learn more about our free PDC diploma course at http://alchemicalnursery.org/blog/get-involved/the-anp-pdc-a-slow-local-permaculture-education/  We also hope you might help with some garden weeding, as growing season has kicked in!

On Sunday June 16, at Rahma Forest Garden at 11:00 AM
(3100 South Salina St)

We’ll consider this a session on introduction to Permaculture and Forest Gardening from the perspective of sharing more of the site history and strategic plan, sharing with each other our experiences in the fields, and working on more biomass management, through sheet mulching!  Still need to make an event page so stay tuned, but it’s on the calendar, so please share!

A Learning Session is comprised of a 20-30 minute Lecture/Discussion led by the Instructor (all Instructors must be current PDC diploma holders), plus a 30-40 minute Hands-On Experience.  Learning Sessions are based upon Curriculum Topics from the Permaculture Institute of North America PDC Curriculum at https://pina.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/CoreCurriculum.pdf

Students must complete at least one Learning Session for each Curriculum Topic (26 in total = 26 hours towards completed diploma).  Some topics will require multiple hours of participation, and small group participation, such as Topic 25 – Design Projects and Presentations.
Reference Materials are made available prior to each Learning Session to those registered.  The Reference Materials are what the Instructor draws primary Lecture/Discussion information from for each Learning Session, in addition to Instructor personal knowledge and experience, and site specifics. Students are highly encouraged to read Reference Materials prior to each Learning Session.
One additional hour per topic can be obtained through Self-Directed Continuing Education in which the Instructor assigns a Reading or Viewing after the Learning Session, and then presents one or more queries to the student related to the Reading or Viewing, in which the student is asked to respond with a minimum 250 word answer.
A Total of 72 hours are required for PDC Diploma completion.

A Rap on Monthly Permaculture Principle 5 – Use & value renewable resources & services

Principle 5: Use & value renewable resources & services

Trees. A central part at the heart of every ecosystem supportin’ human habitation. A station for renewal of many a good & service: fiber, fuel, food (for humans), fodder (for animals), farmaceuticals, and all kinds o’ fun. Did I mention they live off the sun? And the soil. And in a few hundred million years, they may be renewed to rock oil. But unlike oil, dead ‘nd deadly indeed, trees can be better than free for what you need. Paying you back in fact and potentially if the way you both act is of mutual benefit, then you’re sending it: succession through time. May the force of the forest be with you!

Monthly Permaculture Principle: 4 – Apply Self-Regulation and Respond to Feedback

This month we’re kicking off our Monthly Permaculture Principle series. Each month we’ll introduce a permaculture principle and highlight examples of it. We encourage folks to join in, seeking out and sharing examples of permaculture design principles in action.

To start with, what are permaculture principles? Briefly, they are design principles, used in the continuous and evolving process of designing one’s landscape and lifestyle.

“Continuous and evolving” is a key phrase for this month’s permaculture principle:

4 – Apply self-regulation and respond to feedback

A go-to location for permaculture principle explanations and examples is PermaculturePrinciples.com:

We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.

The icon of the whole earth is the largest scale example we have of a self regulating ‘organism’ which is subject to feedback controls, like global warming. The proverb “the sins of the fathers are visited unto the children of the seventh generation” reminds us that negative feedback is often slow to emerge.

via https://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_4/

And a thoughtful bit about reflecting backward and forward in self-regulating:

I always thought the Native American idea “think of seven generations” meant to think ahead seven generations into the future. But I have been shown that it also means thinking back to our own great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and ourselves, as well as forward to our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.In a garden, it means behaving as though we are part of a continuum, starting with an appreciation of the harvest of the land stewards of the previous generations, and planting perennials and enriching the soil so that years later our future grandchildren can continue to enjoy and reap the harvest of our labors. Responding to feedback can also mean remediating our own mistakes or those of our predecessors. This may mean replanting unproductive areas of the garden, or improving soil that has been impoverished.

via https://www.timberpress.com/blog/2013/02/12-principles-of-permaculture/

What examples of self-regulation and responding to feedback have you found in your own or your peers’ work designing landscapes, lifestyles, and other systems? Please share in the comments, and pass this principle on to others!

Syracuse Grows Member Garden Meeting: March 19 Notes

The resource drive will take place on April 27th. We need 2 or more people and shovels on site to unload compost and woody debris/mulch. Also, Syracuse Grows is looking for pickup truck drivers to help move material around and will pay for cleanup costs. The HQ for the Resource Drive will be on the corner of Colvin & Salina St.

Spring seedlings partnership with the Brady Farm was announced: member gardens will get a $20 credit to pickup seedlings at Brady Farm. The images below link to the available seedlings list passed out at the meeting (front and back). Most items will be available starting May 6th (farm is open Monday-Friday 9am-3:30pm and Saturday 9am-1pm). Spring greens/brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, collards, mustards, pac choi) are only available the week of April 22 – 27th, 9am-3pm.

Seedling List – Back

Seedling List – Front

Syracuse Grows Mini-Grant Program for member gardens is available this year. Applications are short and just call for receipts and status updates if awarded. Awards are reimbursement-based with a maximum of $400 per garden. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis at the 2nd Tuesday of each month.

Other funding opportunities were discussed: the Parks Conservancy offers up to $2,000 grants and Syracuse community gardens within the city are eligible. The Gifford Foundation’s What If grant is another potential funding source, with rolling applications and a history of awards to community gardens.

We announced the upcoming Plant Sale & Swap hosted by Alchemical Nursery & Bread and Roses.

Spring 2019 Plant Sale and Swap

PLANT SWAP & SALE, natives and edible perennials
SATURDAY, MAY 4, 11:30 AM-2:30 PM
@ BREAD & ROSES COLLECTIVE, 405 Westcott Street, Syracuse
Berry bushes, shrubs, rain garden plants, woodland flowers, ferns, perennial vegetables and more! Informal garden tours also available.  With plants available from both Bread and Roses and the Alchemical Nursery.

Sign up as a supporting patron for this year – https://www.patreon.com/alchemicalnursery –  and get $10 credit at the sale to put towards the purchase of anything from the Alchemical Nursery stock!

Wedge Grafting Techniques & The Politics of Graft

Saturday March 16th from 11 AM – 12 PM

Rahma Edible Forest Snack Garden
3100 S Salina St, Syracuse, New York 13205
https://www.facebook.com/events/320190132037459/

Margaretha Haughwout hails from San Francisco where she worked with the Guerrilla Grafters art/ activist group, and Hayes Valley Farm, a 2.5 acre interim-use permaculture farm built on top of a former freeway, ruined from the Loma Prieta earthquake. For this workshop, she will introduce the wedge grafting techniques and give a brief talk based on her recent essay “The Politics of the Graft.”

Learn more about Margaretha at http://beforebefore.net/words/

Ecological Hero Highlight: Masanobu Fukuoka

Fukuoka, a farmer leading landscapes and lifestyles toward smoother paths. Daoism emphasizes the importance of relaxation to let the natural way flow within your mind, speech, actions, and beyond. Fukuoka cultivates peace of people and of places, finding paths of least resistance to move well with the Way.

Masanobu Fukuoka (Japanese: 福岡 正信 Hepburn: Fukuoka Masanobu, 2 February 1913 – 16 August 2008) was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures,[1] from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly referred to as “natural farming” or “do-nothing farming”.[2][3][4]

Fukuoka was the author of several Japanese books, scientific papers and other publications, and was featured in television documentaries and interviews from the 1970s onwards.[5] His influences went beyond farming to inspire individuals within the natural food and lifestyle movements. He was an outspoken advocate of the value of observing nature’s principles.[6]

via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masanobu_Fukuoka

To learn more about Fukuoka and natural farming methods from him, check out www.permaculture.com/node/140

 

August 6 is a day to celebrate this person – perhaps a ‘saint’ for the green spiritually inclined – though acknowledgement, knowledgement, and embodiment any day is the way to The Way!