An initiative of Foodcare NT,
Lakeside Drive Community Garden
& Top End Transition Towns
“Grow Your Own” Workshop series
A series of one day workshops that will provide hands-on knowledge and techniques about permaculture, organic gardening and sustainable living.
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER GO TO: www.cdu.edu.au/ldcg and head for the Grow Your Own Workshops link.
About the workshops:
· Each workshop will include in-depth theory & discussions with practical demonstrations. The information presented in the workshops is totally top-end centric and climatically appropriate.
· Handouts containing detailed information and illustrations will be provided for each participant.
· The workshops will be held at gardens and houses around Darwin that show living examples of the ideas and provide sites for practical examples. In the near future, once there are facilities in place, the Lakeside Drive Community Garden will be the ideal location for ongoing workshops and trainings.
· Each workshop is separate, and participants can choose which workshop(s) they would like to attend. However the workshops also run as a series and participants can attend as many workshops as they like.
About the organisations:
Foodcare NT is a local organisation that works to promote safe, healthy and sustainable food production and consumption on a local level.
Lakeside Drive Community Garden will be a new community garden at a 2 acre site on Lakeside Drive Alawa, initially started up by a University Student Group at Charles Darwin University, but already including many different community members and groups. Its vision: Lakeside Drive Community Garden is a welcoming space where all members of the community come together to share skills, vegies and smiles. Collectively we will create a thriving, healthy centre for producing food, knowledge and inspiration based on permaculture ethics, principles and design.
Top End Transition Towns is about getting together to work out how, and actually do, a bunch of things to help us live sustainably in Darwin, Palmerston, Katherine, Rural and Remote Area’s. We are connecting local people with ideas, vision and action to move from oil dependency to sustainable communities.
Dates, topics & locations:
The workshops will be run on Saturdays during October and November.
They will run from 9.30am till 4.00pm.
Proposed topics, dates and locations:
Workshop 1 – Introduction to Permaculture: October 10th – Lachlan’s House
Workshop 2 – Introduction to Permaculture: October 17th – Xavier & Jackie’s House
(We are running 2 of these workshops as we are anticipating a lot of interest. Each is 1 day complete)
October 24th is Climate Action Day – we will be participating in this and encourage everyone else to as well.
Workshop 3 – Creating your garden: October 31st – Karen’s House
Workshop 4 – Stocking your garden: November 7th – Alawa School garden
Workshop 5 – Feeding your garden: November 14th – Xavier & Jackie’s House
Workshop 6 – Managing your garden: November 21st – Lachlan’s House
Workshop 7 – Harvesting your garden: November 28th – Alawa School garden
Workshop 8 – Sustainable home retrofitting: December 5th – Xavier & Jackie’s House
Workshop addresses will be given with the confirmation of attendance email or by phone. Scroll below to find more detailed information about each workshop.
About the facilitators:
The workshops will be run by a team of facilitators: Lachlan, Xavier, Michele, Lia, Anne, Dave, Leigh and other guests, who have wide ranging backgrounds and many years of work and experience in tropical permaculture, organic agriculture and workshop facilitation. This includes 6 years working in permaculture in East Timor and Indonesia, tropical sustainable landscape and design, plant nursery and propagation work, organic agriculture, writing permaculture books and training materials, environmental awareness work and local food production promotion. Importantly, all of the facilitators are also keen backyard practitioners, with a wealth of experience through doing it for themselves.
Workshop costs:
Each workshop is $55 for the day.
This covers training, practicals, handouts, beverages, snacks and GST.
If participants sign up for 3 or more workshops the cost is discounted to $45 per workshop.
We are endeavouring to keep the costs as low as possible, whilst still covering basic costs. Any money made over basic costs will be shared by the organizing groups to use for future projects.
Please bring:
Each participant is asked to bring a plate of food for a shared lunch. (This is always fun and tasty and helps a lot to reduce workshop costs.) Also, a good hat, sunscreen, gloves and water bottle is essential and covered shoes are required as there will be practicals in all workshops.
Attendance:
There will be a maximum of 20 participants per workshop to ensure high quality and attention – so get in quick!
· Registration forms will be available from the Lakeside Drive Community Garden website – www.cdu.edu.au/ldcg – follow the link to Grow Your Own workshops.
· Fill in the registration form on the website and send to growyourown@y7mail.com or ring Lachlan McKenzie on 0407 168 200. Please email unless your access to internet is limited.
· You will then receive confirmation of your placement and details of payment options for the workshop.
· Payments will be required immediately after confirmation to enable smooth organisation of workshops.
Once the maximum of 20 participants is reached for a workshop, registrations will close and a note will be added to the information page on the website. Anyone missing out will be added to a list for future workshops. There is a level of flexibility with the topics, where if registrations are very high for some topics but low in others, we may be able to double up on the more popular ones. We need a minimum number of participants per workshop to cover basic costs. If we don’t meet that number for some workshops, the people already registered will be contacted and money refunded.
Workshop topics in Detail:
Workshops 1 & 2 – Introduction to Permaculture
· What is Permaculture
· What topics does Permaculture include
· Ethics and Principles of Permaculture, including examples to illustrate the concepts
· Patterns and Design concepts
· Field walk
· How Permaculture applies to households, streets, communities, towns, regions, nations, the planet
· 1 or 2 specific examples to illustrate
· The next step – courses, books and groups that can provide more info and support
Workshop 3 – Creating your garden
· Garden design (what, where & how) – raised beds, creative garden design, swales & terraces, water management in design, pest prevention in design, path integration, annual crop/small fruit tree areas, animal integration
· Building your garden – garden bed materials, soil composition, creating productive gardens quickly
· Planting patterns – Vegies, herbs, flowers, annual crops and fruit trees
Workshop 4 – Stocking your garden
· Seed saving – seed saving and seed storage steps, creating seed saving groups for swapping seeds and plant materials
· Nurseries and propagation techniques – creating simple nurseries, propagation mixes, protection from pests, growing plants from cuttings & root stock, marcotting
Workshop 5 – Feeding your garden
· Natural fertilizing techniques – compost bays, compost pits, liquid composts, mulching, biodynamic techniques, effective micro-organisms, green manure crops, worm farms, legumes, humanure, local sources of materials for natural fertilizers
Workshop 6 – Managing your garden
· Pests – introduction to Integrated Pest Management, large and small pests identification, natural control techniques for pests
· Weeds – weed prevention techniques, weed removal techniques including alternatives for herbicides
· Water management – mulch, irrigation, grey water, garden design
Workshop 7 – Harvesting your garden
· Picking food
· Cooking food
· Drying food – different types of dryers and drying techniques
· Preserving food – different methods for preserving food
· Storing food – how to store food in the tropics
Workshop 8 – Around the house
· Retrofitting houses – allowing air flow, integration with the garden, natural light, waste water treatment
· Energy efficient living tips
· Using alternative power sources
· Compost toilets
· Waste water – Utilizing and reusing kitchen, bathroom and waste water
