This weekend, at Kemps en Co in Eindhoven, Holland -- we held a workshop in which we covered: the basics of permaculture, guild planting, soil-building, plant propagation and home garden design. Throughout my first few days in Holland, I have been particularly impressed by "Dutch Design" in the context of efficient use of space, fantastic bicycle infrastructure and an overall concern for the environmental impact of economic activity. I made sure to include these as central themes in the lecture (especially the stacking of functions in of food production elements with limited space)...
The turnout was good and the room was filled with an enthusiastic group of individuals, mostly from Eindhoven's Transition Town Movement. I am impressed at how much activity there is here and the potential for community integration and involvment in transition movements is grand. People gathered from a variety of skill and knowledge bases -- we welcomed beginner gardeners and had them collaborate with PDC-graduates, which offered the kind of diversity I was seeking for a weekend workshop such as this.
Picture
The classic design challenge involved students in brainstorming a schematic for four different types of human habitats: 
-- a suburban home garden
-- a 2-BR apartment with a south-facing balcony
-- a developped community

-- a rural cottage *
*a site which my hosts Markus and Varvara of Rahovitza Slow Tech Campus -- have been developping for the past ten years.

Picture
Presentations were particularly impressive, considering the limited amount of time participants were given to come up with their concepts. It was a great start to an enlightening journey for them all. I hope everyone will find ways to implement some of these principles in their day-to-day lives. All the designs highlighted the concept of the edge effect in permaculture, keeping planted gardens dense and productive, while also placing special consideration on how the people were  to interact within the system.

Even the venue (a fair trade goods shop) employed a touch of "perma-thinking" -- they offered catering which included local, sustainably produced cakes; which were a delicious treat during the coffee breaks. Overall, I hoped that this workshop also served as a networking opportunity for participants to meet like-minded individuals in their area. Most importantly, WE HAD FUN!

And now... onto Rotterdam... :)
rob willemsen
12/10/2011 11:36:33 pm

mihail,
thank YOU for an inspiring meeting, definitely also on behalf of my neighbour gerald who was also there.
hope to see you again some time, and for sure we will be better permaculturers by then :-)
rob

Reply
7/12/2012 09:35:56 pm

Nice description about the Food Production Workshop for the students. I think people should like it . I like this information too and also i am waiting for some new updates.

Reply
Tom Meelker
12/12/2011 03:40:44 am

It was a pleasure to participate in your workshop and it brought me some great new ideas that I want to get start with next year.
This ½ day was actually not enough because we can learn so much more from you :)

Tom

Reply
5/9/2012 03:41:08 pm

This is very nice site. I love to read blog in your site. I hope you will blogging such a interesting blogs. thank you very much.

Reply
1/4/2013 09:50:19 pm

Good post. I am also going to write a blog post about this…I enjoyed reading your post and I like your take on the issue. Thanks
www.thecheaphoildays.com

Reply
6/22/2012 04:57:15 pm

A little off-topic but just wanted to say I liked the layout of the site

Reply
7/15/2012 09:09:44 pm

I surely did not realize that. Learnt some thing new these days! Thanks for that.

Reply
7/17/2012 01:12:55 pm

I feel this is among the most significant info for me. And i�m glad reading your write-up. But want to remark on some general issues, The internet site style is perfect, the articles is truly great : D. Great job, cheers

Reply
7/26/2012 09:15:11 pm

Many thanks for the exciting blog posting! I really enjoyed reading it, you are a brilliant writer. I actually added your blog to my favorites and will look forward for more updates. Great Job, Keep it up.

Reply
9/9/2012 01:57:02 pm

kudos! A trustworthy blog, thanks for putting an effort to publish this information. very informative and does exactly what it sets out to do. thumbs up! :)

Joseph Aidan
www.arielmed.com

Reply
9/12/2012 09:33:51 pm

I haven’t any word to appreciate this post.... i think this is really a great thing about the fashion.
Really I am impressed from this post. I am very happy to read this article. Thanks for giving us nice info. Fantastic walk-through.
I appreciate this post.

Reply
9/14/2012 04:40:36 pm

Hi,
This one is great and is really a good post. I think it will help me a lot in the related stuff and is very much useful for me. Very well written I appreciate & must say good job.

Reply
9/17/2012 09:11:29 pm

We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community. Your blog provided us valuable information to work on. You have done a marvellous job!

Reply
10/2/2012 01:28:56 pm

I am really impressed from this post! The person who created this post is a generous and knows how to keep the readers connected. Thanks for sharing this with us, i found it informative and interesting. Looking forward for more updates.

<a href="http://www.guyfix.com">progtech</a>
www.guyfix.com

Reply

"I always like to read a quality content having accurate information regarding the subject and the same thing I found in this post. Nice work."

Reply
3/31/2013 12:45:17 am

Hi, Neat post. There's a problem with your website in internet explorer, would check this� IE nonetheless is the marketplace chief and a huge portion of other people will pass over your excellent writing because of this problem.

Reply
7/18/2013 04:25:10 am

With the increasing number of people suffering from life-threatening diseases due to inactive lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits, diverse types of diet programs have been developed to improve the eating practice of many people. One diet program that has fast become a household name in the internet world is the paleo diet which is based on the idea of eating fresh and natural foods to achieve good health and lose weight the natural way. With this diet program emerged various types of paleo diet recipes ranging from simple to sophisticated ones that picky eaters may certainly be pleased about.

Reply
9/5/2013 03:33:47 pm

Was just looking for a site like this, thanks

Reply
9/22/2013 10:19:27 pm

Nice article as for me on topic Food Production Workshop in Eindhoven -- Dec 2011. It would be great to read something more concerning this theme. The only thing it would also be great to see on this blog is some pics of some gadgets.

Reply



Leave a Reply.