Category Archives: Permaculture

Plan your Veg Garden


Date: Saturday 27 April; 1000 – 1600
Cost: £45 each (£35 students/unwaged)
Booking: fill out the form here (you have to book in advance for this workshop)


Would you like to kickstart your veg growing efforts this year?

Come to the farm for the day and we will help you plan it all:

  • plants – what to grow, when to sow your seeds, when to plant out seedlings.
  • beds – where to put them, what size, the ‘no dig’ method
  • compost – how to start/improve home composting
  • weeding and watering – strategies for looking after your plants
  • pest control – making sure you get to eat your veggies

This workshop is suitable for absolute beginners, or those just wanting to plan and prepare better than in previous years.

During the day we will teach you permaculture principles that help you design your garden. You will choose what to grow; learn how to prepare your beds and set up your compost system. We will show you how to start off seedlings and give advice on planting them out.

You will leave the day with a plan of action for growing your own veg at home this year.

Lunch will be provided – hot soup and cake made by our very own Pam.

Advance booking is required – fill out the form here.

WORKSHOP: Intro to Permaculture


Next course is Saturday 9 December.
Thinking of coming?
Please fill out our online form to reserve a space.

Permaculture is a powerful set of ideas that we have used to help us establish the farm. Would you like to know more about it? Come and find out in our introductory workshop that sets a foundation for your ongoing learning and application of permaculture principles.

The workshop will be led by Richard Pitt, Farm Manager. Using the farm itself as a story-book I will mix story-telling with activities designed to allow participants to relate the Aldermoor story to their own.

I will be explaining how permaculture principles have informed our practices. I include consideration of our regrets – the things along the way we wish we’d done (or not done!). 

I will offer suggestions for answers to the following:

  • What is permaculture?
  • How can it be useful in my garden?
  • How can it be useful in my life?

I will highlight some favourite aspects of permaculture and share knowledge that we have found helpful at Aldermoor. I will also make a bit of time for attendees to reflect on what to take away and put into practice.

After the workshop you are invited to stay for a bring and share lunch, allowing time for further conversations.

Event details

Venue: Aldermoor Community Farm, Aldermoor Road, Southampton, SO16 5NN
[we will be in our compost-heated polytunnel!!]
Date: Saturday 9 December 2023
Time: 09:30 – 12:30
Speaker: Richard Pitt (Farm Manager)
Capacity: 10 people. Please fill out our online form to reserve a space.
Cost: It is £15 per person. Payable on the day by cash or card.

Agenda

0930 – 1000 Welcome and refreshments
1000 – 1115 Session 1
1115 – 1130 Break
1130 – 1230 Session 2
1230 – 1400 [optional] Bring and share lunch

Feedback from previous workshops

We had a great time at the permaculture course and felt inspired when we left so thank you again.

Thank you so much for running the permaculture workshop I really enjoyed it. It was lovely to spend that time with you and learning about the farm and your own journey, very informative and great to get some reference material too. 

I love what you and your community have done with Aldermoor it is inspiring, and sharing how you achieved it is very generous and helping achieve a better view on the way I use my garden.

About the farm

Aldermoor Community Farm was started in 2014 by Richard Pitt and friends, who set up a cooperative to begin restoring an overgrown acre of land into a sustainable and productive small holding. Over the years since then the farm has become an example of how to grow veg without harmful chemicals, with other features like chickens, ducks, compost making and off-grid toilets. Now a project of Southampton charity Alder Trust, the farm is well established with a community of volunteers working the land and a community of customers frequenting the farm shop which sells a range of produce and homewares.

Urban Permaculture Design Taster

UPDATE MONDAY 10TH APRIL: THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. If you would like to be added to the waiting list in case of cancellations, or be contacted with details of similar future events, please complete the Register Interest Form and we will email you before Saturday 15th April to let you know if you have a space. If you don’t hear from us beforehand, please assume you don’t have a place this time

We are working with Wildhive Collective to host a design workshop on Saturday 15 April 2023.

Come and brush up your permaculture design skills/ideas as we discuss how to transform a small area of concrete into a garden.

This is an ideal opportunity for anyone interested in re-imagining and discovering how to design more sustainable, biodiverse and wildly abundant home and neighbourhood growing spaces, based on permaculture design principles.

If you aren’t already familiar with permaculture, then this practical design afternoon offers an ideal taster of how to grow with nature and for nature (including ourselves). As a follow on you may want to get involved in the design implementation sometime this spring!

Booking: https://forms.gle/b7PacCZK3g58h15u5
Event Timing: 1:00pm-5:00pm (flexible end times), Saturday 15th April, 2023
Event Address: Aldermoor Community Farm, Aldermoor Road, Southampton SO16 5NN
Suitable for: Adults (suggested minimum age for any participating, and accompanied, children aged 11+)
Cost: suggested minimum donation of £10 per participant is welcome
(Maximum of 20 participants)

Contact us: info@aldermoorfarm.org.uk or 023 8218 2716

Donations will go to supporting Aldermoor Community Farm’s (The Alder Trust’s) charitable aims and Wild Hive Ecological Education Collective’s outreach initiatives, including their ‘Growing to School’ pilot project and term-time Local Grow Packs & Kits, which Aldermoor are helping to trial this year).

Wild Hive Collective CIC is a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee (registered number 14508634). As a not-for-profit organisation, all of our profits are reinvested into our organisational mission.

We are funded by money we raise in the shop and from people supporting us. If you can make a donation that would be much appreciated. Especially during the winter and spring, when our produce sales are much lower than in the summer.

Donations can be made as follows:

  • The most efficient way to donate is by bank transfer.
  • Tax payers can use our online gift aid declaration to add 25p for every £1 donated. 
  • You can make an online donation through our page on Give as You Live.
  • If you prefer PayPal you can use our PayPal account: 

Permaculture Southampton 2018-05-19

In February and March we visited Liz Batten and had a really good time sharing our permaculture ideas and doing some practical work in her back garden.

This was a simple but effective way of exploring permaculture together and we are keen to try it in another context. Do you have a project we can visit and follow the same kind of pattern? We think it is good to meet twice, to give time to think about the project and then do what we can the following visit.

In the mean time, on Saturday May 19 we are meeting to swap excess plants (and maybe also seeds). It often happens that gardeners have a few spare plants that they have grown and would be willing to swap with others for something different.

Don’t worry if you don’t have any plants – come and join the conversation over lunch, when we will share our interests and expand our knowledge around permaculture. Bring your questions, ideas, inquiries, projects and problems that can be explored by the group using permaculture ethics and principles.

The plan is to arrive at 11am for the swap and we will talk permaculture over a shared lunch. There will also be some plants and perennials on sale from the farm.

Permaculture Southampton 2018-03-17

In February and March we visited Liz Batten and had a really good time sharing our permaculture ideas and doing some practical work in her back garden.

This is the background to the work we did with Liz:

At the first meeting of the Permaculture group at Aldermoor Community Farm last year, my theme for myself emerged as “coming home”. My life is spent mostly looking outwards, running campaigns, and not much time spent with “me”. I wanted to remedy this imbalance by using Permaculture principles. So, I battled with my reluctance to ask for something for me, and asked if members of the group could meet at my house, to help me think about the design of my garden and (I later realised) help me get unstuck, help me “come home” to my garden, which is laid out as a fruit orchard.
[Read more about the February session at Liz’s here]

Here is the final installment from Liz:

Thank you so much for braving the weather and helping clear the old wood out of my garden last Saturday. We accomplished a lot in a short time and now I feel ready to greet the Spring.

During the time between the two sessions I was observing what the bees were enjoying and have identified two plants which will fill the “hungry gap” for the bees. These are hellebores (Lenten Rose) and pulmonaria (common lungwort). Bees love them. I am also going to add Daphne Bohlua (very fragrant).

Finally, as I now have a ready-made seating area, exposed by removing the wood pile, I have decided to make it more private by planting a screen of runner beans. So I have, with the help of the group, achieved what I wanted for my garden.

Thank you very much, and I hope to get an opportunity to help with someone else’s garden.

Warmest wishes,
Liz Batten

Permaculture Southampton 2018-02-17

This month we went on a field trip!

For our February meet up, Liz Batten invited us to visit her garden which she is keen to develop for more fruit and food.

Liz Batten - after our permaculture meet up

This is Liz and her garden after our work

Working with Richard Parker and Suzanne Baker, Liz provided some facilitation to help assess the site, looking at things like orientation of the plot, prevailing wind, watershed/water sources. Then we let our imaginations run free with how to build on what’s already there, to enhance the fruit production and biodiversity.

In return for all this thinking, Liz made a splendid lunch and we managed quite a transformation.

This is what happened in Liz’s own words:

At the first meeting of the Permaculture group at Aldermoor Community Farm last year, my theme for myself emerged as “coming home”. My life is spent mostly looking outwards, running campaigns, and not much time spent with “me”. I wanted to remedy this imbalance by using Permaculture principles. So, I battled with my reluctance to ask for something for me, and asked if members of the group could meet at my house, to help me think about the design of my garden and (I later realised) help me get unstuck, help me “come home” to my garden, which is laid out as a fruit orchard.

What actually happened on the day felt quite magical to me – a group of like-minded people discussed Permaculture and its meaning for us, ate a hearty lunch together, discussed my garden and its attributes (and problems) and then went outside and worked together – on my garden! This was a personal challenge which transformed into a wonderful sense of relief – the places where my garden needed attention were worked on, we planted an apple tree and a pear tree, we took down a broken fence and used it to finish off a compost bin, a small bed was cleared for some newly-arrived strawberry plants, copious quantities of manure were spread over the fruit beds. To top it off, I was able to have a conversation with my neighbour about how the broken fence might be replaced, and we arrived at a friendly solution together.

Now, the garden feels like it flows again – it feels great to be in it now. The following day, I spent some time scattering seeds that I had been given by neighbours, pruning and just admiring how a group of caring people have – in one afternoon – helped me take my first steps on my path to coming home.

Grateful thanks to those who came and to Richard and Suzanne for co-hosting.

Liz Batten

 

Permaculture Southampton 2017-09-16

3. Obtain a yield.

[Please book in further down the page]

Last time we looked at catching and storing energy to rebuild nature’s capital. This month we are looking at the more immediate issue of designing our systems to give us a reward in the short term.

Put simply, it’s no good planting a food forest for our grandchildren but in the mean time not having enough to eat ourselves!

We will look at what kind of yields are important, and how we obtain a yield without betraying our ethical principles or the second principle to catch and store energy.

  • [optional] 1000 Volunteering: Come and do some work on the farm to immerse yourself in what we have been learning about permaculture.
  • [optional] 1230 Bring-and-share lunch
  • 1330-1700 Obtain a yield: We are working through the 12 principles of permaculture as defined by David Holmgren. The hosts will introduce the topic and help us as a group consider how the principle applies to us here in Southampton.

Please book in here:

Permaculture Southampton 2017-06-17

2. Collect and Store Energy
This is the second principle of permaculture. We thought about this on 17 June 2017.

We live in a culture where energy is consumed in all sorts of forms and often without a thought to where it comes from and where it goes, or what effect we are having on future generations.

As we delved into what we mean by energy – what it does for us. We went beyond the physics of the fuels and energy sources that underpin our lifestyles to also consider the energy that is needed to get things done in a wide range of contexts. We looked at issues of wealth and waste.

We considered where energy is wasted and could instead be stored in all areas of our lives.

Here are some outputs from our time:

Links

Previous Meeting – where we looked at the first principle: Observe and Interact
Permaculture Southampton – the home page for our meetings.

Permaculture Southampton 2017-05-20

1. Observe and Interact
This is the first principle of permaculture. It is the foundation of design.

These are some notes (taken by Leesa).

We have a rough recording of the main session, which you can download here or play here:

Observation is collecting information, usually directly. Our culture is filled with opportunities to let others collect information for us – indeed others may now apparently report to us “alternative facts”.

Interaction in this context means to make some kind of change to what we are observing in order to influence it towards the outcome that we want. This process is at the heart of gardening, but can be applied in any context.

Design thinking guidelines

  • all observations are relative
  • top-down thinking, bottom-up action
  • the landscape is the text book
  • failure is useful if we learn
  • elegant solutions are best – simple or invisible
  • make the smallest intervention necessary
  • avoid too much of a good thing
  • the problem is the solution
  • recognise and break out of design cul-de-sacs

What next?

This is an idea for digging into this principle.

  1. Choose a topic to focus on – something you are interested, a problem or a new thing to do
  2. Summarize your observations about it
    1. what patterns do you recognise?
    2. what details can you appreciate?
    3. where are the boundaries of this system?
    4. what other systems influence it?
  3. Let the design thinking guidelines help you analyse what has already been done and suggest actions for the future.

Links

Previous Meeting – where we looked at the ethical principles of permaculture.
Permaculture Southampton – the home page for our meetings.

Permaculture Southampton 2017-04-08

Saturday 8th April – the first meeting of Permaculture Southampton.

About 25 people attended.

We spent some time sharing our personal contexts for permaculture and then considered the 3 permaculture ethical principles.

Ethical principles

Permaculture has foundation of values expressed in these ethical principles. The principles guide us towards good and right outcomes and away from bad and wrong outcomes.

  • Care for the earth – rebuild nature’s capital
  • Care for people – self, kin and community
  • Fair share – set limits; redistribute surplus

Our natural inclination is act in our own interest. These principles help us remember that we are part of something bigger, something more long-term that our immediate self-interest.

These principles acknowledge the ecological reality of our needs – we depend on the earth for our very survival. Yet in our culture we are generally disconnected from the living earth.

These principles are unashamedly human-centred and do not neglect our personal responsibility. Yet as I take care of myself I am actually reducing my dependence on a global economy, which is a good thing. I am growing up through self-reliance.

These principles tackle both abundance and scarcity. If you apply permaculture principles you will learn the word abundance and will create a surplus of resources! We have it is an ethical principle to redistribute that surplus. We also acknowledge the ecological reality or our existence and set limits to our consumption of resources. This is quite counter-cultural!!

Feedback and Comments

If you would like to add your feedback from the session, please feel free to contact us with it.

* Just wanted to share with you how much I enjoyed meeting you all today, how much it means to me to find like-minded individuals in the city where I live. Sometimes it seems everyone is all (kept) so busy it’s impossible to make that level of contact these days. So, thank you for the opportunity, and it was great to reflect about what we it means to us and what we would like to achieve.

* Thank you for setting up the project, it will be interesting to see how it develops. I’m with the person who said they’d like to see practical examples of the principles in action. Possibly each of us could take on one aspect on our sites but the farm is the obvious candidate as we will continue to congregate there over the next 12 months. A great deal to think on but how about 10-1 working on the land and then 1.30- 3.30 on the theoretical side?

* Thanks for a most enjoyable session at the farm on Saturday. The session provided exactly what I needed: relaxed atmosphere in delightful surroundings; getting to know a range of people who all seemed to share similar values – wonderful; a slow pace of introduction – listening carefully to everyone; a small group activity which got me closer to three other people and helped us share deeper insights; a plan of action – using the chapters in the book as a focus each month; a close up look at the ethical underpinning of permaculture – I’ve already used those in a discussion during lunch on the Walk the Waterfront walk on Sunday! For me, the session was sufficient entirely and of itself and very good for me. For the people who hadn’t been to the farm before, I picked up some curiosity about wanting to know more about what you’re doing there. Very much looking forward to the next session.