Book Here:

http://permaculturedesign.com.au/events/earthworks-course-6th-and-7th-june-2015/

Venue – Brogo Permaculture Gardens – 397 Hawkshead Rd, Brogo. NSW.

Trainers – John Champagne, Todd Cleary, Aaron Sorensen.

Cost – $250….. Includes all catering & free camping on site.

Bring – Good footwear, hats, musical instruments for partying around the cob-pizza oven Saturday night.

Accommodation– participants are welcome to camp on site , though sites are limited, please advise us on your booking form if you would like a tent site.

Hands –on Activities

Establishing a hugelkulture garden bed
Contour pegging and hand digging a ware diversion drain
Swale construction
earth stabilising using tyres
Setting up the earthworks.
Setting up the earthworks

Description

Todd and the machinery shaping the ground.
Todd and the machinery shaping the ground.
Some theory but mostly practical, this weekend workshop will cover permaculture techniques associated with earthworks that are applicable to urban backyards through to properties on acres.

Learn simple water harvesting and soil stabilising designs using everyday tools with a small excavator operating on site. Mark out contours with a professional electronic dumpy level to easy to make water hose levels and an A Frame.

Hugelkultur garden
Hugelkultur garden

We’ll make a hugelkultur bed that has become a popular method of placing carbon into the soil quickly and letting the fungi do the rest.

Using old car tyres creatively is a great way to reuse a wasted resource but important to do well that we’ll demonstrate.

About the Trainers

John Champagne

JohnSince completing his Permaculture Design Certificate Course in 1992, John has been active in many areas of Permaculture activity. For 20 years he has designed and developed the family property on the Far South Coast of NSW, Brogo Permaculture Gardens into a demonstration site for cool temperate regions that is regularly open to the public. It’s here that John and his partner Sharon maintains a self-reliant lifestyle and brings up 5 wonderful children. John has been President of the Sapphire Coast Producers Association for 15 years which nurtured a variety of niche agribusiness in a co-operative framework. John began teaching Permaculture in 2004 and also works as a consultant to clients seeking to establish self-reliant lifestyles. John has been involved in numerous projects requiring earthworks from Eco-Villages, small acreages to urban backyards.

Todd Cleary

ToddTodd has been an earthworker for over 20 years. He had an early passion for the land, spending school holidays on his grand parents’ farm. As a tradesman he worked for civil contractors for a further ten years on earthmoving projects. Having started his own earthmoving business in 2004 with a bobcat and excavator and having grown much of his own food, Todd realised the need for good compost, and began making it from the stables in his local area. He completed a PDC with Geoff Lawton in 2006 and later completed a compost tea brewing workshop with Geoff Lawton and Paul Taylor. Over the last five years, with Daniel Dieghton and Aaron Sorensen, Todd has built living classrooms projects in six schools and currently is working with Wollongong Council to develop a food waste composting program with local restaurant and council events, eliminating landfill and producing valuable humus. He has a workcover ticket to operate a bob cat, excavator and crane.

Aaron Sorensen

AaronAaron completed his PDC with John Champagne at the Mumbulla Steiner School in 2005 and has been active as a permaculture practioner ever since. Aaron currently works as a Permaculture designer and trainer in the Illawarra on the innovative ‘Living Classroom’ projects at Warrawong High School, St Patricks Primary School, Cringila, Port Kembla, Nowra East and Coledale Public Schools. He happily co-facilitates on PDCs with his business partner Dan Deighton for Brogo Permaculture Gardens and Permaculture Sydney Institute and thrives on gardening at ‘The Garden’, a Community Garden he established in 2001 with other talented green thumbs. Aaron has a wealth of experience with earthworks design and implementation from a large scale Eco-Village design in Bali to school kitchen gardens.