Chickenshack is a housing co-op based in North Wales, we are interested in permaculture, low impact tourism and sustainable living. We run an annual course and much more
And here is the finnished bed. The spuds ahve been covered over with a thick layer of old braken, gatherd from the wetland, and topped off with a layer of comfrey. This will rot down nicely as the spuds grow up through it, and exclue any weeds from getting a look in. When we harvest the spuds later, all the goodness will get dug into the soil. In Mike's scheme of things you would follow on from this with onions and garlic next, which we can plant in the autumn.
The sprouting spuds are planted in the blobs of muck and coverered over with another dollop of the good sftuff
blobs a fairly fresh muck and straw are place at intervals. And I forgot, a sprinkling of muck goes below the card, to attract the worms
Planting spuds with Mike F. Choose a weedy patch of groud and cover with at least three layers of cardboard to exclude all the light and kill all the weeds.
Gardening lecture in the sunshine... ahh this is what we had hoped for, i don't think it will last but a bit of sunshine is greatly appreciated by all
Mike Feingold in flow... another cold and blustery day, but everyone got stuck into the practical - excellent and chickenshack got a new compost heap!
the day finished with a visit to this house. A new build eco house and planned retirement home. Key features being the solar pv roof and heat pump/ underfloor heating system. The houe has had to conform to standard building conventions in terms of materials and outline design, but even with this limitiation the owners have been able to include a great many really energy efficent features.
this monkey puzzle tree seems to like the welsh sea air. a very healthy specimin. of course you have to have a male and femail tree to get the apparelty delicious edible nuts they can produce.
Margaret gaves us wonderful of the veg gardens and here in the forest garden. 2 different old chickenshack members had in a hand in starting this garden 8 or so years ago, so it was great to see it how good it is looking now
woodruff, welsh poppies and a carpet of herbs in the Pentre Bach forest garden
sign at Pentre Bach, the award winning organic B+B in Llwyngwril.
Well the course is in full swing now, fourth day and noone can believe its only been that long, so much seems to have happened. Extreme weather conditions, having to abandon the marrquee in the high drama of gales and the poor old witches hat turning into a sail. We were only suggesting the night before that we should maybe do some co-operative games and stuff maybe to help build a group dynamic. But with extreme weather and high drama we all suddenly fell like we know each other pretty well. Anyway the pic is Mandy of the herbalist www.herbalist.machynleth.biz, a special friend of mine who does a fantiastic workshop on herbs and health and immunity. It all links into nutrition and those issues too. We made plaintain ointment for cuts, bruises and stings and a daisy, or bruiswort compress for poor Dawn's bruised knee.
putting the Witches hat marquee up ready for the course starting tomorrow. Lots of head scratching going on as it is a whole year since we last put up the tent, Jack is busy taking pictures so we can have a little how to do it manual for next time
The 2-week permaculture design course starts tomorrow and with a couple of last minute bookings numbers are looking good! I think we are at 14 people now... of course we knew it would work out all along...(not) but there is a feeling of excitement here with the first two people here already, helping set up, Cecile and Ben, and several more arriving today.
After having a mini panic last week over numbers and having so many things still to do I can report that everything is now feeling much more in place, We have a very interesting group of students lined up and now we have passed our minimum amount we can really concentrate on getting the place ready.
May blossom, Blackthorn in flower - of course its a member of the prunus species, like damson and cherry, its easiest to spot similarites like that when plants are in flower
Tom's floor, made from Sycamore and Ash he felled and seasoned himself, this beautiful floor was made by hand from wood from his own land
Rocks at Tonfannau beach. Taken on the beach about a mile or so from house, this is a great place for exploring rock pools and finding sea creatures. Climbers come here to practice regularly
The new pond at Y Felin. Taken at Tom and Lisa's Brown's smallholding. This one of the places we will be visiting on the permaculutre course in two weeks time
Well it has been a rather nerve racking few days trying to finalise the numbers for the permaculture design course. Basically we've had a lot of interest from various quarters but with just under 3 weeks to go have only got 6 confirmed participants with about a dozen or so more on the short list. So although this isn't enough for us to be able to go ahead and run a full course as yet, its certainly enough that we can do something.... I am determined to go ahead and make the best of what we can. We always knew it would be hard for people to get two whole weeks away at this time of year, however, this is the best time of year really for this kind of thing in Wales and being a remote location means we can't really offer anything other than the intensive two week design course. So we are trying to make the best from the situation. Feedback suggests we could make it more accessible to people by making the core of the course componenet shorter, although this is late in the day to be restructuring it, I shall run the idea past Sarah P. and Mike, the other teachers and see what they think.
I am a teacher, facilitator and project manager interested in sustainable development, natural history and all that stuff. I am not all serious! I am into humour, music and drama as well as gardening. I am also a website editor and marketing consultant and work as part of the Sector39 Sustainable design team. I moved to Wales since 1994, before that i have spent some years abroad mainly east Africa, Zimbabwe, India, Canada and the States. I was born in Wolverhampton, and grew up on a farm in Shropshire.
