Join us for the 2-day H.O.P.E. Permaculture Tour to discover unique ways of applying permaculture design to your immediate environment, from the small backyard to the large operating farm!
2014 Tour Sites:
- John's Garden (http://www.johnsgarden.ca)
- Foggy River South (www.foggyriverfarm.com)
- Foggy River North (www.foggyriverfarm.com)
- Tycoed Eco Village (www.facebook.com/tycoedrestorativefarm)
- The Realign Ranch (http://rawllygood.blogspot.ca)
- Cavaleiro Farm (http://cavaleirofarm.wildapricot.org)
We hope this tour will inspire you to consider how you are living now and what potential changes you could make to help create a better ecosystem for the earth and all living creatures. Through this 6-farm tour you will see and learn about the way a group of homesteaders in the York-Durham region are using permaculture principles to make their changes. At the conclusion of a great weekend, you will have practical ideas that you can apply to whatever your situation for a small change or a large change. In either case, you can make a significant difference for your life and the life of your community.
A bus and shuttle services will be provided throughout the tour. Camping will be available at Foggy River Farm and there are also B&B's available in the area. Quality prepared organic food will be available for purchase or you can bring your own.
Tour Stop Descriptions
John's Garden
This stop will begin the tour with a panel discussion on what 'permaculture' means. John will give a tour of his gardens and property - a unique garden centre set in a pine forest!
Foggy River South
This 10 Acre site is home to Foggy River’s Market Gardens, Greenhouse, Mother Orchard and a budding 5 Acre Food Forest. This property showcases passive ecological design with very minimal earthworks or grading, alteration to soil structure or disturbance in general. During our tour of this site we will learn how to identify several of our native Ontario trees during a lesson about ecological observation and analysis.
Foggy River North
Foggy River’s North property is home to our design studio homestead and serves as our research farm. Learn about advanced permaculture techniques and see how we are using them to create a temperate chinampa system, or as we like to call it, ‘The Rainbow Serpent’ Learn about: advanced earthworks and grading, hugelkultur, micro-climate creation, terracing, advanced soil repair and planting design. At the end of the tour and lesson we will light a bon fire and enjoy the sounds of nature beside the pond.
Tycoed Eco-Village:
Ecovillage and Community Living: Benefit from the Value of Community
The workshop starts with highlights of the history and current status of the Ecovillage and intentional community movements across the Earth and more locally. The functions of permaculture and sustainability in these communities are analyzed along with the growth in the movement and the diversity of approaches to community. June and Lee will share their experience of living in a family community at Tycoed Restorative Farm. In groups, participants will take part in an exercise to explore the benefits and challenges of living in community. The result will be a take away that can be used to stimulate further enhancement of the concept and to direct the participants’ development of “community” as they choose it in their own lives.
Bioregionalism: Ties that Bind
This workshop looks at rooting our politics in geopolitical boundaries that connect us to the Earth. Using the Lake Simcoe Watershed, we will compare maps that illustrate the sub-watershed boundaries that comprise the Lake Simcoe Watershed with the arbitrary geopolitical boundaries that currently serve us. The benefits of creating The Bioregional Municipality of Lake Simcoe will be explored along with strategies to educate/motivate/activate the People of Lake Simcoe to initiate this shift.
Cavaleiro Farm
This tour stop introduces holistic farm design from the perspective of environmental, social and business development. Ecological farms offer much more than just food growing opportunities but at its core, we need to produce lots of food sustainably if we want to reduce our reliance on the global food system. Participants in this workshop will be introduced to the holistic farm design process while taking a tour of Cavaleiro Farm's unique design room and mix of pasture, ponds and forests. Activities will reinforce various principles of holistic farm design with materials that participants can take home with them to begin thinking about food projects in a holistic framework.
Realign Ranch
The Mandala Garden at the Realign Ranch is an edible sanctuary, a sacred place designed to serve as a place of healing, a place of communion with nature, and a place of refuge.
The tour of the Mandala Garden and pond orchard and explore the meaning, principles, purpose and benefits of these designs. We will explore the power of energy flow in our landscape as a tool for enhancement of the life-force within our edibles and ultimately within ourselves. We will also discuss the importance of rooting to rise, permaculture and sacred geometry principles and how they complement each other, as well as the power of creating intentions for our outer landscape to be a place of multidimensional nourishment of our inner landscape, beyond the edible beauty & sustainability it provides us.
FAQs
Q: How long will each tour stop be?
A: Each tour stop will be approximately 2 hours.
Q: What is Permaculture?
A: Click here to read about the history and application permaculture. In short:
"Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system."
-Bill Mollison (Founder of Permaculture)
Q: What does the cost of a ticket include?
A: Your ticket includes admission to all six tour destinations, a shuttle service to each stop, light snacks, educational materials, and free camping at Foggy River Farm on Saturday evening.
Early Bird Pricing Until Sept 27th!
Early Bird 2-day Ticket: $125
Regular 2-Day Admission: $150