Hello SLO Permaculture Guild,
Rain, our precious resource, rain. One of permaculture tenets is that everything is a resource.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if we turned our water scarcity along the Central Coast into water abundance!
Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, calls it “planting the rain.”
In the book he explains how your on-site resources (rainwater, greywater, topsoil, sun, plants, and more), give you a diverse array of strategies to maximize their potential, and empower you with guiding principles to create an integrated, multi-functional resource-harvesting and -enhancing landscape plan specific to your site and needs. When you do this, you can do “A Bun Dance.”
Here is a link to his book: https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/
Here are some other local resources for rainwater harvesting:
Potter’s Plumbing & Central Coast Conservation Solutions: https://potterplumbing.net/
Wild Bloom Landscaping: https://wildbloomlandscapes.com/services/rainwater-harvesting/
Carmichael Environmental: http://www.carmichaelenvironmental.com/
Purlieu Landscape Design: https://www.purlieulandscapes.com/blog/water
Loomis Tank: https://www.loomistank.com/index.shtml
Grey Hub Irrigation Greywater: https://www.loomistank.com/index.shtml
Blue Barrel Rainwater Catchment Systems: https://www.bluebarrelsystems.com/
Sweetwater Collaborative in Santa Barbara: https://www.sweetwatercollaborative.org/
And now for some local resources of organizations doing abundant things in our community:
Food & Farming:
City Farm SLO: http://centralcoastgrown.org/ - On February 5, City Farm SLO signed an agreement with the local company SLO Circuit Electrical to install an array of Solar Panels along our southern margin and freeway frontage.
Our Global Family Farm at City Farm: https://www.ourglobalfamilyfarm.com/ - On March 9th we will be finishing the walls for the cob playhouse for children to learn about natural building. Then the local Carpenters Union will be installing the roof. We could still use some financial support to finish this project. Please give generously this month of February - https://www.gofundme.com/mud-hut-cob-building-project
At Our Global Family Village, we’re promoting global unity and permaculture design principles by growing food crops from the four corners of the globe through regenerative agriculture techniques. With seasonal community farm celebrations and volunteer projects, we welcome you to join our endeavors aimed at bringing indigenous food cultures into the lives of local families.
Contact Teresa Tree Lees treelees@charter.net for more information.
FARMGIRLS Summer Camp – June 25-28, 2019 at Our Global Family Village at City Farm
FARMGIRLS Summer Camp is Girl Power for our Future Food System! FARMGIRLS Summer Camp is held at Our Global Family Farm, a permaculture demonstration site located at City Farm SLO. It features food crops and indigenous food cropping systems from the four corners of the globe. FARMGIRLS Summer Camp will include farming, cooking, eating, making crafts, singing and nature hikes. The FARMGILRS summer camp is a place where women and girls of all ages can learn about how to grow food in an ecological approach that follows the ethics of permaculture: care for the earth, care for one another, and share the abundance. Together we can create a food system that is Regenerative, Healthy, Local, and Resilient. Save the date on your calendar and share!
SLO County Food System Coalition: Mission: Promote a sustainable food system that is equitable, profitable, resilient, and health-promoting in the County of San Luis Obispo. Monday, February 11, 2019 9:00 – 10:30 am Copeland Health Pavilion, 3rd floor Auditorium French Hospital 1911 Johnson Ave, SLO, Christina Lefevre Latner will present The ACTION Committee’s Food System Folio.
Cal Poly CAFES Center for Sustainability - Please visit our February Announcements page to start exploring the many great events and opportunities that are coming up soon: www.cfs.calpoly.edu/announcements_february.html
Seedsaver’s Exchange of SLO: February 21 at 2pm at the Nipomo Library, 918 W. Tefft St., Nipomo. Cindy Jelinek will lead a discussion on plants used for dyeing fabric.
February 28 at 6:30pm at the Los Osos Library, 2075 Palisades Ave, Los Osos. Elizabeth Johnson will continue our “Seed Stories” discussion. Our recent November 30 session was wholly devoted to seed cleaning White Sage!
CA Rare Fruit Growers – Scion Exchange on February 16th at Cal Poly http://www.crfg-central.org/scionExchange.html
Rain does NOT cancel this event! At the scion exchange you will find rows of tables laden with bags of scion wood from a wide variety of trees. At 1:30 pm the doors open and people enter to peruse the tables for scion wood they want to graft to their own fruit trees.
Eat SLO Blog: Flipping the Table: Honest Conversations About Food, Farming and the Future https://eatslo.net/2019/01/29/flipping-the-table/
Central Coast Veg Fest: February 23rd https://vegfund.org/event/2019-central-coast-vegfest/ - 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. United Methodist Church
1515 Fredericks St., San Luis Obispo, CA 93405 United States
California’s Central Coast 2019 VegFest is an all-day, free celebration of veganism with expert speakers, cooking demos, food booths, free samples, vendors, and education! Family friendly with free parking, too. All are welcome.
Environmental Justice:
SLO Climate Coalition - http://carbonfreeslo.org/ In December 2018, San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay became the first cities in San Luis Obispo County to join Monterey Bay Community Power (MBCP), a regional public agency providing competitively priced carbon-free electricity to residents and businesses on the Central Coast via PG&E transmission lines.
The next public Climate Coalition meeting is Thursday, February 21st 6:30pm at the Ludwick Community Center
We invite you to attend our meeting to see what we're up to and what you might be able to do to help SLO become carbon free by 2035: the most ambitious goal of any city in the United States!
SLO Clean Water - https://slocleanwateraction.org/
Coalition to Protect SLO County - (from oil trains and oil spills) http://protectslo.nationbuilder.com/success
EcoSLO - https://ecoslo.org/ - The Hub Eco-Network is an online resource available to you anytime through ECOSLO's website. Take a look at this directory of 75+ organizations in SLO County all doing work related to caring for and protecting the natural environment of SLO County! Updates are made annually - enjoy and feel free to share.
Save the date for the next Green Drinks coming Wednesday, March 13! Green Drinks is a quarterly, friendly networking event for environmentalists - all are welcome.
Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary - https://chumashsanctuary.com/ Surfrider - https://www.surfrider.org/about
Racial Justice:
Race Matters - https://www.racemattersslo.org/welcome/
Raise Up - raiseupslo@gmail.com
SLO Latino Outreach Council - https://www.facebook.com/LatinoOutreachSLO/
Allies for Immigration Justice, SLO County - alliesslocounty@gmail.com
NAACP SLO County - http://naacpslocty.org/
Bend the Arc Jewish Action SLO - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1886796181567653/
Economic Justice:
Santa Cruz Permaculture Guild: February 23-24 with Marco Vangelisti "Essential Knowledge for Transition: Understanding the economy, money and investing and how to transform them for a regenerative world." It's the second in a series of four workshops in our new Systems Change & the Next Economy Course.
RVs for Vets - https://www.commongroundworldwide.org/current-projects
We connect homeless veterans with locals who wish to offer a used motorhome or travel trailer to someone in need.
Animal Husbandry & Homesteading:
North County Homestead Collaborative Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/201311880305054/
Beginning Beekeeping Presentation: https://www.facebook.com/events/242585523316851/
Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 10 AM – 12 PM - Atascadero Public Library-Polin Community Room
Central Coast Beekeepers: 2019 kick-off meeting will be held Monday, Februay 18th at 6 pm.
New Location: the Animal Care Clinic in San Luis Obispo, 162 Cross St, just off Tank Farm Rd, one block east of lower Higuera St. The meeting room is at the rear entrance of the building, follow signs.
Chicken Keeping Class Basics: https://www.facebook.com/events/359701804615303/ - Saturday, February 23, 2019 at 11 AM – 12:30 PM
Foss Farm - 3300 traffic way, Atascadero, California 93422
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network: Winter 2019: (stay tuned for more details)
Online Permaculture Resources:
FREE Online Class: Introduction to Permaculture: https://invite.permaculturewomen.com/pdcsampleclass
FREE: Read Online Food Not Lawns book - https://www.permaculturewomen.com/foodnotlawns
In anticipation of the new revised edition, we've decided to make the entire original text and illustrations of the 2006 version of Food Not Lawns, How To Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community available to our newsletter subscribers, for free!
Permaculture Masterclass from Geoff Lawton
New documentary-style film: There is talk everywhere of a “Green New Deal.” But what this looks like and how we get there needs to be hammered out. Our just-released documentary-style film called Green is the New Silver: Crisis, Hope, and Permaculture, is our permaculture-inspired contribution to this discussion.
4-part video series called Permaculture Masterclass: https://www.discoverpermaculture.com/video-1-pdc-2019
Be Abundant My Friends,
Teresa Tree Lees – SLO Permaculture Guild