Over a dozen people, from San Francisco, the South Bay, East Bay, as well as those within Solano County converged at The Living and Learning Garden this past Saturday to see the progress this food forest had made since it’s installation nearly six months ago in April 2016. There were permaculture students, landscaping professionals, homeowners, and interested people and gardeners all meeting and mingling, under gracious hosts Leslie and Stacy’s care.
Ryan Johnston of Permaculture Skills Training Center started off the morning with a somber, humorous, educational and inspirational talk on how we can make a difference starting with small steps, and how the yield of a permaculture garden is really connections, community, ecology, and sustaining and restorative to the soul and the environment–but that the food that comes from a food forest can be quite delicious too.
The talk then moved outside to point out the greywater installation, ingenious workarounds to use secondary water (such as fitting a pipe perfectly snug in a crack in the driveway), plantings and strategies to create a healthy system that incorporates not only the plants and water, but also edges for people to interact with neighbors. And of course, problem shooting issues brought up by individuals.
“This talk was so great,” said one attendee, “That I’m going to definitely go to the next one too.”
We hope to see you there as well. November 19th, at “Birds, Bees and Beyond,” one of our more established food forests, nearing two years old. The speaker will be permaculture expert John Valenzuela. More information and registration can be found here.
