Janell to present at Asheville Green Drinks this Friday

Come hear how we're going to grow talapia, bass, mussels and prawns in our backyard. Find out what's happening with permaculture in the schools and around town. Learn how you can get involved with WNC's premiere eco-education center, workshops and more.

Friday, September 11th, 6pm at BoBo Gallery 22 Lexington Avenue in downtown Asheville

BEES!!!!! (are cool!) Bee Stewarding update

We're actually right in the middle of the bee-keeping workshop right now. I sneaked away at lunch to post this real quick. More to come later. We spent the morning looking into the hive. Instructor Cailen Campbell is really in tune with the bees and is teaching us a lot about the various methods of keeping and managing bees: "traditional-modern" and his approach, "new paradigm" bee-stewarding. We passed the frames around to see the inner workings of the hives up close. No bees got squished, no one got stung, we made minimal disturbances for the bees. Gotta get back to class now!

Timber Framing ~ Day 2!

Tools! Lots of cool tools to get the job done. Here, Keri drills a peg hole with a hand drill and Aimee keeps her in line.

Lovely flower of shavings.

Above, Aimee uses an old boring tool from the late 1800's. One sits on it and arm 'pedals' the crank to drive the bit. Below, our first completed project - a trestle sawhorse. We cut our practice mortise and tenons on this. Good thing, they were kinda rough :) but we got it down now I think and we were pretty stoked that it actually assembled and is dang sturdy. From left to right: Ian, Bobby, Ira, Aimee and Joe. Steveo demonstrates the sturdiness of the trestle horse. Hand tools feel good to use, they're quiet, you really feel like you're 'doing it' but it is hard and slow. We use a lot of power tools too like the one Aimee is using here with Keri and Garret observing (we check and double check measurements and watch for safety). This tool is a chain saw-circular saw combo.

Timber Framing!

Day one of our three day timber framing workshop! Wow, pretty exciting and we've learned so much already. The day started with a great slide show presentation by Ira of the many projects he's worked on. It really gave us a foundation (shall we say "plinth") to understanding the many types of joinery and ways to timber frame and build. The method to successful joints is all in the layout - measuring! And then sequencing your cuts - doing them in the most efficient order. Today we learned mortise and tenon joinery. Above, Meesh uses the chain mortiser. Below, Steveo shows us where to chisel to make a custom fit. Above, the tenon fits into the mortise and is secured with a peg. Below, Garret shows our work. Looking forward to two more days!

PdC UpdAtE... WaTcH tHe vIdEo

We completed the 2nd weekend of our 6-weekend Permaculture Design Course this month and have organized into 5 design teams. Each team selected a challenging design project to tackle. It's exciting that even though these are student design projects they aren't just hypothetical. The design site hosts are all very actively interested in implementing the designs! We have a nice selection of projects - everything from public to personal and urban to rural. Permaculture design techniques can be applied everywhere and permaculture ethics can be applied to everything. So cool. Design projects include: Randolph Learning Center, a school for middle and highschool aged kids; a model site on AB-Tech campus; a Burton St. community project of Asheville GO; a single mom's Habitat for Humanity home, and a 7-acre horse farm. Here's one of our visionary PDC participants, Asheville City Councilmember Robin Cape, talking about Permaculture.

Wild Food & Fermentation Workshop - Aug 5 & 6

Wild Food & Fermentation Workshop with Sandor Katz and Frank Cook coming to Ashevillage Institute next month. Sign up now 'cuz it's a super popular course that always sells out and ya don't wanna miss this! For information and registration: www.ashevillage.org, info@ashevillage.org, 828.225.8820

** the AVI crew goes on a Permaculture-Hotspots-of-Asheville Tour **

Once upon a time, on a pleasant spring day, the Ashevillage Institute crew and friends went on a tour of permaculture hotspots in Asheville. We visited private residences as well as community gardens and schools to check out what inspiring things our fellow sustainability devotees were up to. Our first stop was the site of Bill Whipple. (Check our earlier post where Bill grafts onto our apple tree)

Here's what Janell had to say about our tour: "I love that Asheville has more and more permaculture hot spots. Thanks to the smarties who are creating their lil' urban paradises and for letting us tour 'em: Monica Williams, Bill & Ely Whipple, Steve Arpin, Sunny Keach, Turtle & the Pearson Garden, Issac Dickson & Vance Elementary Schools and Jim Bixby. (We'll have to do round II to catch all the ones we missed.) I'm particularly inspired by the goomi berries, the bio-methane digester, the Bradford pear tree with 30 varieties of grafts, the grass embanked couch and the hot house full o' figs - yummm!" Ely showed us how he's making fuel out of compost. Hooked one of these tanks up to a camp stove and made us tea. Well, no, not really, we didn't have time for tea but the fuel did fire the stove. Impressive! Then we were off to Hillside Urban Farm where Sunny Keach showed us his abundant gardens where all sorts of delights are cultivated right here in the city on an urban lot 5 minutes from downtown... including figs, tomatoes, a pond, culinary and medicinal herbs, gorgeous poppies and asparagus. Sunny's garden incorporates many permaculture elements like edible landscaping, aquaculture, season extension and rainwater catchment.

Terraced beds make use of sloped terrain and hugelkultur beds make use of debris. Hugelkultur is kind of like planting in a decomposed compost pile and it can be done on any scale. Basically, pile woody yard waste, tree trimmings, brush, etc. in a long row, the base of which is usually more carbon stuffs. Then add your more nitrogen 'wastes' - green stuffs, kitchen scraps, etc. Eventually it all breaks down into a nice rich bed. Soil can be added on top to plant in if the mound isn't completely decomposed.

Isaac Dickson School gets kids into the garden and connects them with where our food comes from. The day we visited they were making pizzas in the cob oven with ingredients from their own garden.

Pearson Garden is the Bountiful Cities Project's model garden. It produces edibles for the community including greens, peas, and tomatoes, to name a few, as well as perennials like the Jerusalem artichoke.

Pearson Garden also has several natural building structues like this lovely cob composting toilet with living roof.

Keri checks out the living roof up close and personal.

Lloyd summed up the day perfectly: "Seeing some of the inspirational permaculture sites around Asheville was food for thought as Ashevillage develops its own site this summer. Having such a kind, caring, and knowledgeable community in Asheville really makes me feel that sustainability here is attainable, with our continued collaborative efforts and exchange of ideas."

2009 Season at AVI underway

Things are ramping up around here. This last week we welcomed our resident permaculturist, Shawn, and his family to the AVI house. Shawn is designing our site master plan which we'll be implementing throughout the summer. We also welcomed Lloyd, an AVI resident, who arrived the same day to round out our core team of sustainability superstars: Steveo, Keri, Ira, Michael, Janell, and Meesh.

Ashevillage Institute core team meeting

Meetings, meetings, meetings are the order of the day. It takes a lot of planning and organizing to run this show and make real and lasting change. AVI core team meeting, website development meeting, strategic planning meeting, volunteer orientation meeting, Permaculture Design Course meeting... phew! Good thing we have a sweet and stellar cast of characters, nourishing wild and fermented lunches and plenty of organic dark chocolate to get us through!

Volunteer meeting with bikes, barrels and burdock under the apple tree