What is Permaculture?

As a WWOOFer you will be introduced to an exciting practical living theory called Permaculture. I was first introduced to it in Spain where it blew my mind as everything I had already been thinking but never had an explanation for.

I was incredibly excited to take my Permaculture beliefs to the next level and found a great little Permaculture Design Course in Leongatha, outside Melbourne in Australia.

The course was a run by two amazing teachers, Rick and Naomi Coleman, on an idylic patch of land in the sweet Victorian state countryside. This being my first time in anywhere else apart from New South Wales I noted how immidiately I took to the natural surroundings, much more than I did then when I was up in Nimbin.

There were about 15 of us on the course including a couple of trainee teachers. All were locals to the Melbourne area apart from one guy who had come all the way from Tasmania and an Irish dude. We got going the first evening with a brilliant meal by dedicated WWOOFer and his musically talented German girlfriend. And then an introduction by Naomi whilst noting that most of the teaching througout the week would be done by Rick and his trainees.

She asked us to think to ourselves what we wnated from the course. And then the next thing I remember is waking up in my caravan on my last day! It had been two weeks of intense on site seminars which usually had strong practical elements to them, field trips which was inspiring and amazing to see what other people had done to their land and a final presentation of what we had learn't. The week ended with Naomi asking us what we had wanted and to see if we had achieved that. I forget what I wanted - it was probably something to do with a career.

However, I write this, dissapointingly just over a year later from a terraced house on the other side of the world, looking out through the rain onto a small backyard. And there are still the P/C teachings going through my mind as I look to transform that barron space into a productive, efficient growing patch. I'm thinking about zoning, most used pathways, edge effects and there's a herb spiral in there somewhere too.

I have much to explore in my Permaculture journey as I am still yet to find the words to answer the question "So what is Permaculture then?" For more info check out the sites below:

http://www.southerncrosspermaculture.com.au/welcome/

http://www.permaculture.org.uk/