Although there are still such pockets of productivity left in the developing world, the modern need for more commercial’pushed food-growing beyond the outskirts and into the distant countryside. (B. Mollison)**

The main topics for this class were: Differences between Rural and Urban Farming, Remediation, Nursery, Seed Saving, Animals, Natural Pest Management and Microclimate. Each of the topics spins around the fact that most of the course emphasis is creating a urban space that provide all the necessities to live a healthy life, and some ways in which urban and community self-reliance can be accomplished.

Not only talking about agriculture, horticulture, gardening or any method of production urban permaculture is the meaning of the self-sustained human. Urban Permaculture is the sustainability in a city living environment. The human by condition is a communal organism, from hominoids (early stage of homosapiens) live in groups’ form of two or more families. The Homo sapiens, a well know nomad and gatherer, just moved to regions were gathering was comfortable and living was undemanding. Following the history of the modern human organism great cities were constructed in order to maintain many slaves (workers) and merchandisers, traders and immigrants. The merchandisers many were farmers producing in excess to maintain other families or trade them. Small cities or big cities all permanent settlement, particularly a large urban settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law. Before the 1900 every city contained
farms and orchards within the city. Although there are still such pockets of productivity left in the developing world, the modern need for more commercial’pushed food-growing beyond the outskirts and into the distant countryside.

Some differences between the rural and the urban scenarios are the contamination levels of the environment were air and soil raise a big concern, microclimates created by the built environment characterize by strong winds and a dry-burning-summers; different laws and the negativity of the urban community towards noise animals. In definitive the main difference
is the space and the availability of a space for wild life. Limited space creates a need for consulting a neighbor or a community before implementing anything, this sometimes creates a better bond and a space for interaction’but sometimes creates conflict and a reason to move to another place.

Some ideas for integrating animals is raising small, quiet animals like small birds and mammals. Using every possible space and been creative are keys to success in designing for an urban environment that provides you with all the things you may need: good food, a creative atmosphere, and all the clean air that you can breath. In definitive small is better, but small is not a limitation.

Lead is a poisonous metal that can damage nervous connections (especially in young children) and cause blood and brain disorders; Lead is used in building construction, which means that we are surrounded by lead all around, this raise a big concern in terms raising plants in a soil contaminated by lead. A first step in addressing this contaminant is
knowing is having the soil test and some methods that can be use to remediate contaminated soils are adding compost, and using mushrooms (mycoremediation), planting big trees that allocate the contaminates and or ornamental plants.

‘Seeds are baby plants’, that’s what I always say to the preschoolers I teach gardening. And babies need tons of attention; a nursery is the essential environment for young and fragile plants. Locate in Zone 1 or as part of the house, Zone 0, nursery should be under constant observation. A nursery provides a regulated and control temperature and humidity.

A plant cost around one dollar and packet of seeds with more that 20 future plants cost around three dollars, from one plant is possible to harvest between five to more than a hundred seeds. With just this simple calculation should be more than enough to have all humans collecting seeds. Saving seed helps us preserving specific varieties of plants and making a
statement against big corporations. Seeds can serve as trade currency and a way to make new friends.

Natural Pest management is addressing problems that your plant may experience do to the facts of overgrowth of organisms without harming the environment. There are many products and methods that can be apply and they all depend in the specific problem and space and budget of the gardener. The best way to prevent any possible problem with your plant is having a healthy plant.

The main topics covered in this lesson were Soil and Mushrooms. Our morning began with a really simple and enjoyable activity: everyone had to share one silly thing from their memories; many mentioned their childhood silliness while others pulled from a time more contemporary. The workshop offered an extensive view into the fascinating world of mushrooms; we cover Fungi Basics, Life Cycle, Main Types and Characteristics and Possible Uses. We covered all aspects of soil, soil structure and composition, from how to build an ‘ideal’ soil to how to maintain and integrate the rest of the system to the soil. We covered Soil Characteristics, Soil Testing, Composting, Worm Bins, Compost Tea, Sheet Mulching and Cover cropping.

Mushrooms are a type of fungi; mushrooms are the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus , typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. A fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryoticorganisms that includes micro-organisms such as yeasts and molds,as well as the more familiar mushrooms .

Fungi are classified as a kingdom that is separate from plants, animals and bacteria . Their main role in the natural ecosystem is to be decomposers. It is said that fungi broke down the Earth’s original structure into the World that we have today.

Something that I find really fascinating is that the mushrooms Kingdom is genetically closest to animals, a good example of this is the material that composed their flesh is similar to the material in animals flesh. Out of the more than 1 million species humans consume and use less than 100. A few examples of this species are the classic Saprophytic Fruiting Fungus, like the Shiitake and the Oyster. The Saprophytic are really good in breaking down hydrocarbon-based material, and sometimes you can even find them in your compost, especially compost high in leaves and woody parts. Another Fruiting fungus use in the organic agricultural sector and an important component of soil life and soil chemistry is Mycorrhyzal, it creates a symbiotic (generally mutualistic, but occasionally weakly pathogenic) association between a fungus and the roots of a plant. In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plants’ roots. A few tasty examples of Mycorrhyzal are the Chantrelles and Boletes, and the famous Amanita a potent psycoactiv and use for the psychedelic powers. The other two Fruiting funguses are Endophytic and Parasitic. Mushrooms could be use in reforestation (restoring natural cycles in nature), Filtration (cleaning or catching contaminants, like pollutants in water), and as pesticides (to control agricultural and house common pest with out the need of chemicals.

With the concepts of Permaculture always in mind we define the soil as a living organizing, the human contact with the soil most be made in harmony. Soil is the foundation of our planet and our home; in many ancestral cultural traditions the soil plays an important role. In the Chinese tradition of Wu Xing or Five Movements, the Soil represents one of the five
elements: metal, fire, water, wood and soil; the tradition refers to the Fire as the creator of Soil and the Soil plays the role of bearing Metal. In the Japanese concept of the five elements or the five great, heavily influenced by Buddhism, the soil represents the hard solid objects of the world.

Soil composition is mainly minerals and water (45% and 30%), and the rest is air and organic matter (20% and 5%). But organic matter is essential in the development of a healthy plant. To add more organic matter in our soil we can reuse all our food scraps or anything that has lived to make a rich in nutrients dark soil call compost. Simple’s ways to determing the structure of your soil is a jar test and a rope test.

In this third session of the PDC course we cover the topics of Needs & Function Products Analysis, Zone Planning, Sector Planning, Patterns, and Edge. We start the day talking about symbols, words and meaning; and why is so important to understand concepts. We listen to an Audio Clip that speaks about the imperative of thinking in the meaning a word, before using it. John Trudell, the speaker, talk about respect and freedom, two key terms in permaculture design ethics. John is a pro-native American rights activist, a poet and a musician. After the discussion surrounding Trudell speech we were instructed to share our personal definition of permaculture in small groups of two or three individuals each. My partner for this activity was Renna. Renna definition establish that Permaculture is a set of principals, and I add to that: ‘it involves prolong observation before impact.

NFP= Needs, Function Product Analysis look at how the inputs of one element match up with the outputs and function of the other elements. One way to put this into practical terms is listing the inputs, outputs, functions and characteristics of each product. For example my group had a Duck as the product, and our list of inputs included things like the food, is needed to feed our farm duck; the water, for drinking and for swimming (or temperature control); a fence, protection from predators; and other supplementary things. In our Duck outputs the group include all the possible things that you could get out of our product like: eggs, meat, more ducks, manure, pest control in gardens, feathers, heat and others. We also compare the inputs and outputs of our product with other products like: greens (veggies), a green house, a pig and an aquaculture pond.

Zone Planning= we need to place elements according to use, amount and how often we need to service them. We take into consideration the areas that we need to visit in our day-to-day, and then we divide areas into zones. The Zoning responds to the frequency of visits to each group of items and our own common sense as guides. In Zone 0 is the Centre of Activity, usually is a house. In Zone 1 we put the most controlled and intensively used area, in our case we had an herb garden, rain catcher, a toilet, firewood, some veggies, a compost bin/pile and cloth line. Zone 2 are things that are intensively maintained and less frequently visited, in our case we had a pond, an orchard, windbreak trees, poultry, dairy animals and a garden. In Zone 3 are less intensively and with little maintenance needed; large pastures, main crop, large animals, swales and other structures. Zone 4 is a semi-wild,
semi-managed area were we decide to grow our woodlot, some wild fruit orchard and other semi-wild edibles. In Zone 5 we really don’t need to do a thing, is an area for wild system to manifest, here we are visitors not managers; we observe and learn.

Sector Planning- deals with flows of energy and with wild energies coming from the outside system. Is like the zoning map but it is arranged in a sector diagram, with wedges radiating out from centre of activity. Taking into consideration things like flood and other possible exposures, wind currents, water flow, sunlight and others.

A pattern is language nature speaks, and in other to work with nature and not against we need to learn the language of pattern and work with the recurring patterns in Nature. Is like leaning another language, I remember English for me was years ago was full of enigmas, but with practice I been learning to unfold and use all the patterns and relationships, and now
meaning and understanding emerge from noise and separate words. We discuss patterns in the garden like ants and spiders on the garden are a pattern that soil high in Carbon usually shows. We look for more patterns in an individual journey around the garden. I found mosquitoes making spirals, bees making circles and zigzags, blooming flowers in some plants and dead flowers in others, wile either were already giving seeds like the dandelion, ect.

Other Visual (Physical) Patterns that we discuss in class were spirals (sunflowers seed head, DNA), Von Karmen Spirals (water flow past bridge post, repeat it self), Eckman Spirals (wind patterns), Sphere (planets, dandelion seed heads), Branching (Lightning, lung formation, trees)*, *Net (insects eyes, skin wrinkles), Core (mushrooms, trees & roots), and others forms like Lobes, Cloud, Waves, and Scatters.

Edge is the surface or interface to either media or systems. Like air, water, fire, earth, but also hot cold acid salty, etc. Is a place forevents to locate, a space for things to exchange. Like Nature we need to learn how to maximize edge, we can help create this niches for events to happen.

This second session of the PDC course was very dynamic and every one of the more than 13 apprentices had the chance of verbalize their ideas and points of view. The dynamic start with a brief checking of last week remarkable moments, my partners talk about the pros of permaculture and they like the fact activities that involve answering questions. The next activities involve the connection of peoples thoughts in a floorboard, were we found that every term and symbol connected and non-were alone. From definitions around the ‘What is permaculture?’ to spirals and flowers. In definitive permaculture is a set of principles and practices to design sustainable human settlements. The ethics of this way to look how we interact with life
‘provide a sense of place in the larger scheme of things, and serve as a guidepost to right livelihood in concert with the global community and the environment, rather than individualism and indifference’ (*Diver, 1995)*. Taking responsibility for our own existence and actions, and that our actions need o reflect: care for the Earth (this giving mother this Pachamama this one place), care for the People and *setting limits to Population & Consumption* * *(this global justice and balance).

We broke into pairs of two and each group took the three of the permaculture ethics and principles as outlined by Sandra (PDC instructor) and then we thought of some practical applications and we debate and share peoples experiences. Olga was my partner and she share some of the similarities in kids mentalities with common sense for her kids had a really broad concept of what is and not fair, and then all shared.

By taking time to engage with nature we discuss the concepts of observation and interaction. We went to a close by natural area at the intersection of Oxford St. & Center St.. We can design solutions that suit our particular situation base on observation. We need to observe patterns visible and invisible; cultural and legal observations and many observations require a good amount of time investment in order to be accurate.

The permaculture designs tries to work with the elements and not by forcing them. Respond to needs, diet, and creativity; make that everything been really use. We broke into four groups and design an ideal farm base on the group choice in application permaculture multiuse of objects and then we all shared with the rest of the group. My group had a mix of practices that involve a grey water system and rain catchers throw the farm, an aquaponic, a greenhouse that serve as the house natural heater, a life fence of redwoods, and a wide space for the wild life. Basically a design that recognizes the intrinsic worth of every living thing, for example a mosquito has value in itself and how everything is part of the web of life.

Some introductory concepts and basic terms of permaculture that we cover in the first class were really general and easy to understand and I found my self really familiar with them. We learned and discussed the how’s and why’s of or present environmental disaster stage (situation) and some steps that we need to make to start a remediation process. One big step is changing the mentality that brought us in this position.

We are all in this together; if we start living the life we live as one of sharing and understanding that we are all part of the same world and that we are all affected by the same problems; I am sure that the world could be a better place.

One world filled with one kind of people = humans. We humans need to change our present point of view from synthetic technology to a more sustainable one, from wasting energy to investing time in re-thinking. In my opinion a big part of the reason that we are in this present situation (Economic meltdown, climate change, wars, pollution, ect) is that we step out from
natures cycle. This separation from natural cycles has been the agenda of many of the world’s leaders for the last few centuries. We need to acknowledge that we are part of the animal kingdom, that before anything we share more things with an ant that with a computer.

Indeed, the world is one and everyone and everything are connected. From: the rock, the oil, the platypus, the water, the hurricane, from the Russians to the Brazilians, all is connected to this that we call life. The world is home of many living organisms and we are just one piece of the puzzle. If we understand this could help us value more our surroundings, and ourselves. We are all connected and a big part of connecting is community, small circles that form part of bigger circles

Many of the exercises that we practiced helped me reflect in myself and the impact of my actions. We discussed patterns and how we can recognize patterns. During the workshop, I had the opportunity to share from my own experiences and expose my journey to other workshop participants. Through the process of sharing with others I learned more about myself. I found that many individuals share similar experiences.

I left the workshop with a good feeling. I felt empowered to continue with my work. The workshop is full of many special and important individuals, and I’m really glad to be sharing the same space and time with all of them.