permaculture

[Neil Bertrando <neilbertrando@gmail.com>]

Hello,

I'm working with Urban Roots Garden Classrooms to implement local food
system education and development programs.  These programs are designed to
empower people to take action to strengthen the resilience of our
community, local food system, and bioregion.  Some of the focus topics
include Water Harvesting, Erosion Control, Locally appropriate specialty
crops (focusing on perennials and natives), Ecosystem based resource
production, Holistic Management, Holistic Planned Grazing, Rangeland Health
Assessments, Appropriate technologies, and more.

If these or other local food system topics are of interest to you and your
organization, please let us know.  We always welcome suggestions for topics
and teachers for future workshops.

In the spirit of building community through cooperation and collaboration,
if you or someone you know would like to teach a workshop with us, please
contact us.

Below is a description of our upcoming workshop this weekend with Craig
Sponholtz of Dryland Solutions, Inc.  Please pass it on to your members or
anyone you think would be interested.

You can see descriptions of other upcoming classes at Urban Roots
Website<http://www.urgc.org/#%21permaculture/c4fw>
.

Please let us know if you have suggestions for ways we can improve our
efforts to engage with the public and with people and organizations
dedicated to improving our role as ecosystem stewards of bio-regions.

Thank you very much for the great work you do in our bio-region,
Neil Bertrando
RT Permaculture and Loping Coyote Farms
neilbertrando@gmail.com
775-830-8822
www.rtpermaculture.com
www.urgc.org Contact: Jeff Bryant, Director jeff@urgc.org


*Water Harvesting & Erosion Control: Home, Farm & Ranch*
* February 8 - 9, 2014*

Instructor:  Craig Sponholtz
Date: February 8 - 9, 2014
Course Fee:  $200
Please bring a sack lunch.  Coffee & Refreshments will be provided.
Location:  3001 West 4th Street, Reno, NV 89523 with field trips to local
farms
For more information:  Call (775) 636-5105 To Register click
here<https://payableform.appspot.com/forms/1nlu5>

*Course Description*

Day 1 will focus on presentations and discussions to cover the fundamentals
of the course topics

Day 2 will focus on outdoor group activities to apply the information
covered to real-world situations

Course Topics will include

   - Reading the landscape: what does the land tell us about the movements
   of water and sediment, historic disturbances, and opportunities for
   regenerative actions
   - Erosion control and water harvesting with natural process: How can we
   use natural materials and processes to design and build earthworks that
   passively harvest water and sediment while improving both native and
   agro-ecosystems
   - Recognize opportunities for routing water through landscape for
   regenerative actions: Where are the 'sweet spots' on a site and how can we
   best use these areas while encouraging them to expand
   - Passive water harvesting for dryland farming: How do we use passive
   water harvesting techniques to cultivate climate appropriate crops
   - Wind and snow harvesting: What are agro-ecology strategies for
   managing wind and snow to harvest water, sediment, and nutrients while
   mitigating evaporation

Craig Sponholtz founded Dryland Solutions,
Inc.<http://drylandsolutions.com/dryland.php?i=3>in 2003 after earning
a Masters Degree in Agro-Ecological Restoration from
Prescott College and a Permaculture Designer's Certificate at the
Permaculture Research institute in Australia.  Craig teaches watershed
restoration, passive water harvesting, and erosion control techniques
internationally and strives to foster beneficial relationships between
people and the watersheds they live in.  Craig has used two decates of
hands-on experience and numerous collaborations with masters in the field
to develop must-know principals that ensure water-related projects are
practical, economically viable and harmonious with natural processes.

Attachment: PDCfeb8-9,2013.jpg
Description: JPEG image