In this summer update to our Fruit Tree Care series, we’re covering some important best practices for summertime in the orchard: summer pruning, weeding around fruit trees, and effective strategies for designing and planting understory plant communities, or guilds. By this point in the summer, hopefully you’ve already thinned your fruit trees and have been
This is the second article in a series about how to start a permaculture guild in your community based on what we’ve been doing to start one in Santa Cruz, CA. In the first article, we explore what a Permaculture Guild is and how to host your first meeting using the World Cafe process. In
Grab your Felcos, folks, it’s winter fruit tree pruning season! We’re happy to share thirteen reputable winter fruit tree pruning and training resources so you can give your tree the love and support it needs to produce really delicious, sweet fruit season after season. If you don’t know what “Felcos” are, they are a brand
Looking for a place to share a meal and good conversation with other folks in your community who care about permaculture? A permaculture guild might be just what you need! “Ask your doctor if permaculture is right for you.” The Santa Cruz Permaculture Guild, which has existed in various iterations over the decades, is back
Linda Kincaid Foothill College Environmental Horticulture and Design Each January, the Ecological Farming Association hosts the largest gathering of progressive farmers, policy makers, activists, and educators in the western United States. For four days at Asilomar on California’s central coast, farmers and scientists discussed farming practices and their impact on the environment. The conference mission
Guest Post by Julia Herring, current Santa Cruz Permaculture Design Certificate Course Participant My journey with permaculture started in an unexpected way. In August of last year my sister and I packed up her Subaru Outback to set off for Prineville, to watch the total solar eclipse at the Oregon Eclipse festival. 12 hours of
In part one of this series, we explored many questions to consider when selecting deciduous bare root fruit trees for your garden or orchard. In this post, we’ll discuss how to assess your landscape to find the ideal place for your new tree to thrive. Where will your tree grow best in your landscape? In
Do you dream of harvesting sweet plums, apples, pears, or other delicious fruits from trees in your own backyard? You can begin growing your food forest right now because winter is the time to plant deciduous bare root fruit trees! In this how-to guide, we’ll focus on deciduous bare root fruit tree selection in part
What is Permaculture? David Shaw explored the answers to this question during a talk hosted by Sustainable Solano in August 2017, in Fairfield, CA. David is Santa Cruz Permaculture’s Director & Lead Designer. The video and slides from his talk are available below, as well as on our Youtube Channel. To receive updates when we
Among the many resolutions and commitments being made this week, here is one of many visions that is possible for this coming year: In 2018, more people will become conscious and awakened to the realities of the pain in our world. Rather than turning away to the many distractions of our time, they will find
