Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

Title: Re: [Livingontheland] those $1,000 permaculture certificat

bobby g asked,

>i was wondering what a decent set of readings would be
>that would you know, approximate the learning you'd

>get in one of those certificate courses?

Here are a couple web sites to start

http://www.foodnotlawns.com/

http://www.patternliteracy.com/

In any worthwhile course, what you get is determined by what you put in (as well as, to a lesser extent, who the instructors are), and I'd assume the best of the courses are experiential (hands-on). What permaculture has to offer (besides a one-word search term for lots of different things) is a systems approach. So basically, like gardening, it's a lifelong apprenticeship. Read a couple pc books to get the point of view of permaculture, which at its best is about life design as well as garden-->community-->region design.

I didn't pay $1K for a certificate, but I did take a one-semester permaculture course at the local community college (very cheap) in Oakland, Calif.!! Since I already had horticulture experience, what the course offered was mostly networking -- info on what was going on locally.