Linnaea2012

Wiki is the Hawaian word for quick; appropriate because wikis are the fastest way to get content on the web. Simply hit "edit this Page" type away, then hit "Save" below and voila, you've published to the web.

Here's where you can add your intro. Share any links, photos you'd like about your life/work and permaculture. Here's some questions to consider towards our agenda for the weekend:

i) What skills do you want to share? (We should have lots of opportunities for hands-on skill share stuff.)

ii) What are you interested in learning more about?

iii) What do you want help with? Do you have a specific project that you'd like get some group feedback on ?


 * Oliver Kellhammer**

I am 1/2 of the Linnaea Permaculture instructors' team and the emcee of the non-stop permaculture fun-fest on which we are about to embark.

Hands-on, Skill sharing:

Tapping big leafed maples for maple syrup. Grafting 101, fruit trees, including interspecies grafting to Pacific Crabapple, Hawthorn and Mountain ash Some overlooked yet easily available Asian perennial, permaculture plants and how to propagate and eat them. => yama imo (mountain yam), chee gwo (sagittaria/arrowhead) and wasabi. ) Growing Paulownia and other trees from root cuttings. Paulownia propagation for fun and profit! Map that shit... => GPS mapping 101. How to interface a handheld GPS to Google earth and Google Maps to make sharable, editable, super precise maps for the internets. Desktop aquaponics using parts from broken toilets and abandoned fridges. iPhone solar mapping.

(will think of more later)


 * Jodi Peters**

I am currently working as a project coordinator with the Environmental Youth Alliance  in Vancouver, BC. I coordinate our Skills Link program, where I work with youth who are experiencing barriers to employment. I also assist with our volunteer supported Youth Garden and the Urban Seeds project (seed saving in the city!) I also teach for Gaia College, their  Growing Food in the City  program. And recently, I started working with posAbilities' Can You Dig It  project, assisting them with garden education, soil stuff and greenhouse/seedling program start up. In whatever spare time I have left, I bike around my urban farm, which my husband Jeff and I created over the past 3 years, in 5 backyards around Vancouver (and one in Burnaby). I save seeds and try to source out heritage varities, or newly adapted varieties that actually enjoy growing in our particular Vancouver climate.

i) What skills do you want to share? (We should have lots of opportunities for hands-on skill share stuff.) - Update on Aquaponics as an appropriate technology - stories from the frontlines:)

- Aerated Compost Tea...could make some if we can gather supplies (mostly we need an aquarium air bubbler - Oliver may have one we could borrow)

ii) What are you interested in learning more about? - Soil testing for nutrients, and for toxins - and any research on how it matters

- Mulching pros and cons in the Pacific Northwest climate (aka what about the slugs...)

- Starting orchards on marginal soils

iii) What do you want help with? Do you have a specific project that you'd like get some group feedback on ? - Yes - Copley Community Orchard Project - starting a hybrid community orchard, production/training berry patch on 1 acre of marginal, vacant city land by Nanaimo Skytrain Station in Vancouver. Ideas on improving marginal soils, obtaining perennial fruit yields quickly, soil building over time, drainage solutions for standing water, interesting/unique/appropriate plant varieties...


 * Gregoire Lamoureux**

Kootenay Permaculture

I've been teaching permaculture for many years in many parts of the country.

I'm living on a small farm in the Slocan Valley that I designed using permaculture principles & techniques and it is providing for most of my needs in fruits, veggies, nuts, herbs, medicinal plants and other useful plants (willows, bamboos, etc.). We also teach the permaculture design courses at the farm.

I was at the Linnaea Gathering in 2010 and I'm looking forward to see our permaculture friends & meet other people involved in permaculture on the Coast and learning & sharing more exciting stuff!

**Keira McPhee** I've been hacking around permaculture for years, but with slightly more focus the last 6. I grew up in a suburban edible landscape and have been composting and growing food my whole life. <span style="background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0.918); color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif;">I've started some community projects- gardens, schools etc which live on in interesting forms. I work as a freelancer mostly (also do itinerant gardening for fun and profit). Current project is with the Edible Garden Project doing their annual active evaluation and strategic planning. Career development and intro web storytelling seem to be the other themes people pay me for. I grow food for our family, focusing on berries, 'taters (through a 5 family co-op), greens. Preserving- mostly experimenting with root-cellaring in the city, drying and fermenting. I make medicines- lotsa tea, salve. I brew beer. And drink it. I'll be a bee apprentice this year.

Practical skills: I'm such a generalist; can't think of anything too sexy.

Want to learn more: Mostly I show up without much agenda, ready to hear stories. Always fascinated to hear about what's going on at Linnaea- both land and people.

I really want to hear about and if possible visit the old growth on Cortes, and the climate change forest. Trees- for fruit and nut, forestry... weaving, building. Trees for small spaces. Trees for climate change. Trees for habitat. Trees in the city, country etc. Soil- I'm kind of obsessed with using everything I grow here so the challenges of small-space composting, now that I have lots of prunings and run out of room for another hugelkultur experiment? Is it wrong to lust after a chipper? How to be as 0 input as possible. (I'm not; can tell endless stories of having dumptruck loads of mulch to deal with in the city.) Highly productive food plants for the coast-- cross-cultural stuff. Learning from Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Philipino elders in the neighbourhood.