A Nine-Day Forest Garden Design Intensive with Dave Jacke and Friends!

Forest ecosystems exhibit many beneficial properties we humans would be wise to emulate in our culture, agriculture and horticulture: they maintain, renew, fertilize and propagate themselves without human inputs; they build, store, and conserve clean air, clean water, nutrients, soil quality, and biodiversity; and they exhibit stability, resilience, and adaptability.  These qualities emerge from the dynamics of the forest as a whole system, not from any one or more of the elements that comprise the forest alone.  To design productive edible ecosystems that express these same qualities, we must understand forest structures, functions, patterns, and processes and use this knowledge wisely.

In this nine-day intensive course, you will dive deeply into the vision, theory, and practice of designing wholesome, dynamic, and resilient edible ecosystems using temperate deciduous forests as models.  Dave Jacke and his Pennsylvania-based teaching team will offer lectures, site walks, and experiential exercises to help you understand how the architecture, social structure, underground economics, and successional processes of natural forests apply in the design of edible ecosystems of all kinds.  You'll learn a variety of ecological design processes while designing a range of food-producing ecologies at our host farm.  We'll also engage with issues of garden management, economics, and the deep paradigmatic shifts required to succeed at cocreating "humanatural" landscapes and cultures.  You will leave inspired and empowered to design food forests at home for yourself, and your friends, neighbors and clients.

Bios of Instructors

Dave Jacke has been a student of ecology and design since the 1970s, and has run his own ecological design firm—Dynamics Ecological Design—since 1984. Dave is an engaging and passionate teacher of ecological design and permaculture, and a meticulous designer. He has consulted on, designed, built, and planted landscapes, homes, farms, and communities in the many parts of the United States, as well as overseas, but mainly in the Northeast. A cofounder of Land Trust at Gap Mountain in Jaffrey, NH, he homesteaded there for a number of years. He holds a B.A. in Environmental Studies from Simon's Rock College (1980) and a M.A. in Landscape Design from the Conway School of Landscape Design (1984).

Joel Cahalan is a certified permaculture teacher and aspiring biointensive gardener whose mentors include Dave Jacke and John Jeavons.  He manages the production aspects of Wild Meadows Farm and in a former life co-founded and helped manage a successful worker cooperative (thehubbikecoop.org).  He dreams of a future in which all species are respected and valued and humans live in harmony with their home planet.  Other interests include all things related to bicycles, anarchism and nature.

Sam Dunlap has farmed, taught, and studied permaculture for several years in many places, from Washington State to East Africa. He recentely returned from Tanzania, where he worked on a community-based permaculture project with an organization called the Global Resource Alliance. He now lives in his native Cincinnati, bringing his permaculture background and learning back home through teaching and practice. This will be his second year working with Dave Jacke on the Forest Garden Design Intensive courses.

Juliette Jones is a former classroom teacher who is excited about gardening! She enjoys sharing her love for planting and growing food with kids of all ages. She ha s lead after school gardening clubs for young kids and works with Pittsburgh Permaculture to facilitate workshops for adults. Recently, Juliette worked with Phipps Conservatory to design demonstration gardens and was instrumental in developing their permaculture program.  Her love for food has led her to plant Pittsburgh’s first food forest in her neighborhood in Hazelwood. There, she is learning about the rewards and challenges of urban fruit growing.

Elizabeth Lynch has a B.S. degree in Wildlife Science and started out as a field researcher. She has cared for a variety of animals on her own and at the Pittsburgh Zoo, including goats and chickens, porcupines and owls, and kinkajous and macaws. She has also been an educator of many topics over the past 10 years, such as wildlife and plant conservation, sustainability, green job readiness, community building, civic engagement, and mental health counseling. She currently works as an educator at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, where she has been teaching introductory permaculture courses. Elizabeth earned her permaculture design certificate in 2009 and her permaculture teacher training in 2010, and she is the founder of the Western Pennsylvania Permaculture Guild. She enjoys being outside, gardening, wild foraging, and deepening her connection with life.

Kim Walsh has worked in the field of human righs education and on economic justice issues for the past 10 years. She received her permaculture design course certificate in 2008 and co-founded  Wild Meadows Farm business in 2009 with Joel Cahalan. The farm is certified by Pennsylvania Certified Organic and practices biointensive and permaculture principles. Kim also serves as the Executive Director of Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society (CHEARS), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Greenbelt, Maryland and assists with the numerous volunteer driven projects that integrate the arts, education, and research in their environmental stewardship within the Chesapeake Watershed. She is also working on her Masters' Degree with Gaia University focused on Integrated Ecological and Social Design for Sustainable Agriculture.

(2 volume set) Special Offer

A comprehensive exploration of vision, theory, design and practice by Dave Jacke, with Eric Toensmeier.

Each confirmed registrant will be allowed to buy **one set**for the discounted price of $111 includes shipping. Must order by March 31, for delivery before the course. Otherwise books will be delivered to you at the course. Write a check for $111 to "Dave Jacke" and mail to:

Dave Jacke
Dynamics Ecological Design
308 Main St. Suite 2C
Greenfield, MA 01301

Attach a note regarding your registration to the Forest Garden Design Intensive course at Wild Meadows Farm with your mailing address.