Readers are probably aware from recent articles, and emails on the local mailing list, that Manchester Permaculture Network has been going through the process of becoming a constituted community organisation. On Monday night (May 13th), we held an open meeting, attended by 18 people, in which the new constitution was formally adopted, and signed.

The Network has been in existence in different forms, for probably 15 years in Manchester, but this is the first time that it has become formally constituted. Now that we are a 'proper' organisation, it means that we can apply more easily for funding, and we are working towards obtaining a grant, in order to do some interesting stuff with the Network in the future. Read more »

Come to FeedingManchester #13 on Saturday 13th July and help create a Sustainable Food City.  In the summer of 2010 we collectively developed a response to Manchester’s climate change strategy called ‘Visioning Manchester's Sustainable Food Sector in 2020’. Twenty inspiring food advocates: from businesses like Unicorn Grocery to Glebelands City Growers to charitable organisations like Hulme Community Garden Centre came together to vision a healthy, fair & sustainable food system for our city.

Three years on, we want to look both at the progress being made, but also to create a meaningful and detailed action plan for the whole of Greater Manchester. Read more »

The Conservation Volunteers are well underway with their strawbale classroom at thier allotment site in Wigan. Following a very successful Straw Works course in January to install the car tyre foundations, the Conservation Volunteers have prepared the carpentry and are now ready to move onto the next stage – building the straw bale
walls!

This next straw bale course will give you the basic practical skills you need to work with straw. You will learn how to build a high quality, air-tight and durable straw building from base plate to wall plate. We will be covering everything from dressing the bales to compression. Read more »

Join us at the Worsley Hall allotments for this free 2 day course on building a cob oven.  You will get hands on experience on how to build an oven from the base up. 

The 1st day will be looking at foundations, different types of ovens and what different materials can be used and getting started on the first layer of the oven.  Read more »

The Northern School of Permaculture  will run a full permaculture design coure in Chorley during 2013. The course covers the full international syllabus over 12 Saturdays, roughly one per month., starting 11th May 2013. We have a town centre venue that is convenient for public transport (good rail links to Manchester stations) and with its own free parking spaces.

The course is open to all, no previous experience (or courses) are required. It will be useful to those wishing to apply permaculture in urban and sub-urban settings. In addition, the tutors and the expected participants should prove to be a useful resource for people who wish to apply permaculture design within their business or career, and also those involved in community-based projects of all kinds. The course will be led by Angus Soutar with support from visiting teachers. Angus has experience of permaculture design in commercial situations, and he is keen to share the lessons from this during the course. Read more »

We are are part of Prestwich Incredible Edible group and our project is to create a permaculture edible forest garden.

The setting is within an existing 2 acre wooded area at the top of Prestwich Clough (next to the South Clough allotments). It is Council owned land and we have been given permission to create the garden. It is an ideal location, being a south facing sloping site with good soil and some existing fruit trees and bushes (the land was part of the allotments many years ago). Read more »

Fat Hen, in association with the Northern School of Permaculture presents a weekend introduction to permaculture design, at Hulme Community Garden Centre, Manchester.

The  course will aim to be interactive and bring an awareness of the relevance of permaculture design to people and urban contexts as well as land projects, plus provide students with:

·       an understanding of the core ethics and principles at the heart of permaculture design
·       a deeper understanding of some of the useful templates observable within nature
·       an opportunity look at your own life, livelihood and surroundings and assess where energy is efficiently used and waste
·       a group of likeminded contacts starting out in permaculture design
·       inspiration to enrol on a full permaculture design course, and/or a bunch of new ideas for immediate ways to get growing in your life and projects. Read more »