Arriving thirty strong, equipped with cameras, notebooks and perspectives
freshly shuffled by a week of holistic earth care instruction, OAEC's
permaculture class toured the Energy Farm. They came a little after ten and over
the next two hours engaged in a participatory dance throughout the small
suburban site. President Julian Darley addressed the students as they
surrounded the front "yard", now in full bloom with broccoli, millet,
basil, peppers, and many other beneficial plants.

He spoke about the philosophy guiding the Energy Farm Network and the urgent
need to relocalize our food and fuel production. Darley challenged the students
with problems about bio fuels produced using industrial agriculture citing the
huge amount of land and oil that it takes to grow and process these crops. In
his brief fifteen minute intro he gave the students some context related to
peak oil and the adaptation process we face in this lifetime, calling this time
the "great transition."

Brought by Brock Dolman, permaculture elder and master instructor, this tour
was special because it was a large group, very well informed and keen to learn
about and address the deeper challenges of such an ambitious project. After
Julian finished, we divided the group. Half went on tour of the grounds and the
other half engaged in mini design charrettes. After forty minutes the groups switched.

We created four design charrettes aimed helping the students practice their
site analysis and design skills. Each charrette focused on a zone of the
property. The four charrettes were called the Fukuoka forage forest, zone one
patio, sixteen square foot garden bed, and water.

The “Fukuoka Forage Forest”, named after Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, focused
on the back part of the lot under the apple trees and adjacent to the fence.
The students came up with several good ideas to implement in the zone furthest
from the house: cob benches for seating in the gazebo, an outdoor kitchen to
process food, a cob oven, an outdoor shower, more worm bins, incorporating
bees, temporary fencing for chicken forage, mushroom cultivation, introduction of
ducks to the system, a possible pond under the largest apple tree, birdhouses,
creation of roof structure over the chicken coop for roof catchment and shelter
for birds.

The zone one patio refers to the area closest to the house in the back.
Currently, hot and inhospitable with crushed rock and concrete, the area is
relatively neglected considering the proximity to the house. The students focusing
on this area envisioned; an arbor on the porch, a trellis of kiwi and grapes,
planting a fast growing shade tree, breaking up all the concrete except under
the patio and doors, using broken concrete for pavers to make paths, using the
fence to grow vines on, cultivate bamboo, sandbox in corner with cob walls with
planter pockets, planning a soft ground cover, hanging pots from the eves,
building a culinary herb bed.

The charrettes that focused on water produced an assessment of the incoming
water and cited some of the future tasks for addressing the issue further. They
mentioned: municipal water input, runoff from street and driveway, conservation
techniques, the need to get an accurate square footage of the every roof on
property to calculate water catchment capacity, a need to find the highest
elevation on roof for downspout, a need to find a place for storage tanks, how
to handle wastewater, and they looked at ways to “slow it, spread it, and sink
it.”

We currently have six pocket gardens that are four feet by four feet. We
challenged the students to create planting plans that focused on a theme. One
group chose to create a plan with a medicinal focus, and the other focused on
companion planting with a 60 % calorie, 30 % carbon, and 10% vitamin ratio. The
group that keyed in on medicinal plants decided to sow in a spiral pattern with
echinacea in the center followed by chamomile, lavender, jewelweed, nettles,
mullein, ginseng, purslane, plantain, yarrow, selfheal, valerian, comfrey,
ginger, garlic, and dandelion. The 60/30/10 group decided to plant in a symmetrically
opposing pattern of strawberries, spinach and lettuce, calendula, pumpkin,
amaranth, and scarlet runner beans on trellises.

The hour and forty five minutes was extremely productive as it exposed the
students to the desire to create an energy farm network and it also provided
some key input as to future improvements of the land here in Sebastopol.
Everyone seemed to leave energized and motivated and it was great preparation
for the community tours on Friday the 28^th and Sunday the 30^th.
In closing, Julian reminded the group that in order to adjust to the coming
changes we need to “reduce consumption and produce locally” and that these two
things are inevitably intertwined because as we begin to produce locally we
will reduce our consumption and as we reduce our consumption because of peak
oil we will have to produce locally. May our net work guide the way.