What: Year-Round Food: Backyard Bioshelter Greenhouse Workshop
Where: Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA
When: September 1, 2012
Featuring Scotty Kellogg, author of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, and Director of The Radix Ecological Sustainabilty Center in Albany, NY.
During the October 2011 snowstorm, a tree fell on our greenhouse. Instead of mourning the loss, we realized an opportunity to build a bigger better bioshelter!
Bioshelters are a cold-climate permaculture strategy — insulated greenhouses that are managed as year-round food-producing ecosystems. Well insulated from the cold, they grow subtropical plants like guavas, figs and citrus. A thousand gallons of water supports thriving aquaponics systems with fish, shrimp, clams, aquatic plants and vegetables. Hardy greens sweeten up during the winter months to supplement an early spring diet.
Come learn and install aquaponics, subtropical fruits and perennial vegetables, solar electric, worm bins and soldier fly systems.
September 1st, 9am to 3pm, Holyoke Edible Forest Garden, 145/147 Brown Ave., Holyoke, MA, USA.
Cost: $95 (does not include meals or accommodation)
Registration:
Sign up below, and please send your payment to:
Food Forest Farm
147 Brown Ave.
Holyoke, MA 01040
To register by check fill out this online form.
By credit card:
Use our online Google Checkout form
to register, click here.
Or contact jonathan (at) permaculturenursery.com
Tel.: (413) 437-0101
Holyoke Edible Forest Garden is an internationally recognized urban food paradise, designed by author Eric Toensmeier, of PerennialSolutions.org, and nurseryman Jonathan Bates, of PermacultureNursery.com. The garden is a highlighed case study in the award winning two-volume book set, Edible Forest Gardens. Eric and Jonathan and their families have been living and eating in this garden for nine years and currently own and operate profitable eco-businesses from their home and garden.
Scott Kellogg is the co-author of the book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do-it-Ourselves Guide (South End Press) and the primary teacher of R.U.S.T. – The Radical Urban Sustainability Training, an intensive weekend workshop in urban ecological survival skills.
Currently, Scott is developing a new organization in Albany, New York named the Radix Ecological Sustainability Center. It is a demonstration of environmental technologies and sustainable micro industries applicable in today’s urban environment.
He has extensive experience designing and building numerous sustainable systems and has taught numerous workshops and multi-part sustainability courses in locations as diverse as Mexico, East Timor, Canada, and inner city America.
Scott is an experienced teacher, activist, ecological designer, and father. He presently lives in the Albany Free School Community in Albany, New York. He is currently earning a Masters in Environmental Science from Johns Hopkins University.
would love to know what is the feedstock for the fish you are using in the aquaculture set up. you mentioned shrimp – have you created a closed loop feeding system where you actually produce the food for the fish?
This looks AWESOME…..
Feedstock: omnivorous fish will be eating garden weeds and produce, worms, silkworms, and soldier fly larvae.
I should also note that that beautiful photo is from Rocky Mountain permaculture, ours is much smaller.
thanks eric – what type of fish are you farming?
Vietnamese catfish (swai or tra), though we are still getting the tanks set up. We like swai because it is omnivorous and low on the food chain like tilapia but a bit less dependent on high temperatures. Regardless they will only be in there for nine months as it will get too cold from tropical fish even in our insulated bioshelter.
i saw a cooking show featuring them recently – supposed to be delicious – thanks for the replies mate and all the best