Organic Gardening

From the 1st to the 14th of May Sunseed hosted a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with George and Wallace from Circle Permaculture, and we’re preparing a new one in September. If you want to know how it was, here Margriet and Lesha share their stories:

“George’s song could be heard at least 10 times a day during the Permaculture Design Course (PDC). Day one was one of introduction: we got to know the group and our lovely teachers George and Wallace of Circle Permaculture. After a slow start, we really got up to full speed from the second day on and got an enormous amount of information about soil and social structures, from compost to rain harvesting systems, etc. In combination with the old school classes on the chalkboard, we had the opportunity to approach and process the information that was given in an active way. The group went out to play ‘permaculture charades’ in a cave. We had workshops with the Sunseed staff: hot compost and mapping with Jon, sociocracy with Armelle, we made preserves and had an edible plant walk with Lizzy and last but not least we had a great fun cob building/mud wrestling with Lucas. Even in the evenings, seminars were held by Sunseeders and there were some outdoor screenings of documentaries.

During the second week of the PDC, we started working in teams to make a design for ‘the Mediterranean garden’, a patch of land where the dome, our classroom, is constructed. With all our new permaculture tools that George and Wally handed us, client interviews to fully understand what was expected from our design and a lot of enthusiasm, my team, the spice garden girls, started designing a:

‘Beautiful multi-functional space tucked away from the heart of Sunseed, with an emphasis on education, providing a study/working/relaxation space for Sunseeders’.

On Saturday, the final day all the design work that was done through permaculture principles were presented to the overexcited Sunseed family, who wanted to implement everything, asap! To conclude an inspiring, motivating course, that put us all on edge, there was the best show in the world: The No Talent Show!
Looking back on these two packed weeks of PDC at Sunseed, I am very tired and foremost happy with all the information we got and I feel the thirst to learn more about Permaculture!”