climate change

Permaculture Womens Guild

There are plenty of good reasons to develop a skill set for growing food in small spaces. By Heather Jo Flores There are plenty of good reasons to develop a skill set for growing food in small spaces. Maybe you only have a tiny balcony with sun for half the day? Or a hot, paved driveway but no other yard? Perhaps you’re in student housing? Or maybe it’s more of a time constraint: You’d like to have an expansive garden but you really only want to work on it for an hour a week. Or perhaps you just don’t really eat…

Permaculture Womens Guild

A baker’s dozen of easy to grow and disease-resistant perennial hedge plants. By Heather Jo Flores No garden is complete without a yummy patch of edible, perennial shrubbery! Even a small garden can squeeze in a few brambles, berries or ‘chokes. To create a low-maintenance food forest with a year-round harvest and multiple layers of plants, a mid-sized perennial understory is an essential piece of the design. Shrubs connect the canopy to the ground and create habitats for birds and insects. The shrub layer also shelters smaller plants and creates boundaries and microclimates. ​I picked a baker’s dozen of the best…

Permaculture Womens Guild

10 steps to becoming a qualified permaculture teacher, and recommended teacher training programs, from the PWG Faculty.

Permaculture Womens Guild

group plants together for specific reasons, encourage them to spread into permanent, self-managing landscapes

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Heather Jo Flores It’s always a good day for mulching your garden! Mulch builds humus. The word “human” comes from the same roots as humus, meaning earth, and in fact our bodies do contain many of the same elements and microorganisms as fertile organic soil. Soil health is linked to our own health, and soil communities bear remarkable resemblance to the flora and fauna in our own guts. A diverse, thriving intestinal community keeps us humans healthy, and the same goes for the soil ecosystem. The Benefits of Mulch ​A layer of mulch, whether up around perennials and fruit trees or…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Gudrun Cartwright As always, I was fascinated by what happened in Davos this year. If not necessarily encouraged. Donald Trump criticised climate ’prophets of doom’, pronouncing the amazingness of the USA and promoting their fracked gas as a safe solution to energy security. On the same stage, Greta Thunberg gave all the adults in the room a good talking to about the rapid action needed to tackle climate and ecological breakdown to provide her generation with a future that they can thrive in. HRH The Prince of Wales told us that we have just ten years to get our…

Permaculture Womens Guild

Some hard truths about growing food and medicine.