Permaculture Roots 2 – Food Forest Design

Chapel Hill, NC (first half of day) and Hillsborough, NC (second half of day)

For information on the whole Permaculture Roots workshop series, please see this page.

We are grateful to be putting on this workshop in collaboration with Living Arts Collective and in the lovingly tended space of Jubilee Healing Farm.

Each workshop in this series will include opportunities to connect with nature and our senses, learn Permaculture design, answer your questions, and meet other amazing humans interested in Permaculture.

This Workshop:

Our second workshop on June 21 is focused on designing a Food Forest!

First, we’ll begin by touring Liane Salgado’s 15-year old Food Forest / Forest Garden in Chapel Hill, NC. This is the most abundant and mature example of a food forest I know of in the entire Piedmont! This workshop gives a rare opportunity to learn from an established, local food forest.

Then, in the second half of the workshop, we’ll apply what we learned to co-design a Food Forest for Jubilee Healing Farm in Hillsborough, NC which will be planted this Fall!

Main topics:

• Touring a Successful Food Forest
• All About Food Forests / Forest Gardens
• Applying Permaculture Design Techniques
• Weaving Beauty and Places for Life
• Laying Out a Food Forest Design From Pattern to Detail
• Selecting the Right Plants
• Some Favorite Edible Trees and Shrubs!
• 50+ Food Forest Plant List
• Your Food Forest / Forest Garden Questions

… and in October, we’ll have a workshop on the same site where we’ll install the Food Forest!

Venue and Workshop Details:

The first half of this workshop will be held in a 2-acre mature Food Forest in Chapel Hill. The second half will be at Jubilee Healing Farm, a beautifully tended small farm located on 10 acres in Hillsborough, NC that supports volunteer and community-building activities and workshops for people seeking healing.

We’ll have the workshop part inside and part outside unless the weather disagrees!  Please wear comfortable clothing for the day. If it’s going to rain a little, bring rain gear. A little rain is very helpful for Permaculture design!

We’ll likely do a little forest walking.  Good to wear compatible footwear.  If you’re concerned about ticks or other itchy expressions of the local ecology, please bring non-toxic insect deterrent.

What to Bring:

• Journal and pen – while digital is OK, we strongly suggest using paper!
• Your own lunch and any snacks you need (kitchen available to heat up food)
• Water bottle
• Seeds or plants to swap if you’ve got ’em!  Also fine just to receive.

Also:

• Openness to new (and ancient) ways of seeing and living
• Kindness towards the plants, animals, soil, water, and other people here
• Inclusivity and welcoming spirit towards the people in the workshop
• Willingness to put your phones away and tune into your senses
• Curiosity about life and what each other and the land has to say

Sign-Up

We offer our tickets at a rate that allows us to continue doing this work. Thank you for supporting it.

For this workshop, we are offering a limited number of tickets to the first half of the day at the Food Forest in Chapel Hill. If you can only make it to the first half (9:30am to 12:30pm), sign-up for the half day ticket below.

If you have any questions, please reach out to workshops@silverbranchpermaculture.org.

About the Facilitator

Matthew “Watersong” Tracy started practicing Permaculture in 2011 and received his design certificate from Wild Abundance in 2015. He has been consulting and teaching as a Permaculture Designer since 2018.

Along the way, he learned from numerous Permaculture teachers, tended land with minimal inputs, worked with around 50 clients on their land, lived off-grid for nearly a decade, and made (… and still makes!) a whole lot of humbling and valuable mistakes on his way back to life in harmony with the earth. 

With all that experience, Matt is ever a beginner and student of the land. Nature is infinite. What can we do but listen and try?

Matt is honored to be a Permaculture guide to anyone interested in coming a little closer to the earth. Becoming a father in 2023 has made passing down these teachings that always consider future generations more important than ever.

Read the rest of Matt’s bio here.