Kia ora all!

Here are upcoming dates for some online events on our TapRoot membership we'd like to hold.

First up this coming Sunday the 27th we'd like to hold a Group Call. A place to connect, share what projects we have going on and a time to give feedback as a group and ask us any questions in person you may have. This is a new offering we are wanting to put out there as we are hearing that community is whats needed in these times and we'd like to make that happen for you.

Then on the 10th August we will be hosting our bi-monthly deep dive webinar - for this one we'll be sharing our experience, and perspectives on integrating Animals in Syntropy. This will then open up to a group discussion and Q&A.

Both start at 7pm NZT

We hope to see you on both events! Your participation means the world to us.

If you are unable to attend, the sessions will be recorded to watch later. And if you're not on our TapRoot plan but would like to attend, you can easily upgrade (and later downgrade again if you wish) by going to your account settings (get in touch if you face any issues with this. )

See you then!

Join us on our upcoming live webinar!

Kia ora all!

As asked from our members, this next webinar will focus on how to design syntropic guilds!

A Syntropic Guild is a community of plants carefully selected and positioned according to their specific needs and the conditions of the site. The goal of a guild is to achieve optimal yields within a vertical space while fostering a community of plants that work together to enhance soil fertility. These individual guilds can be arranged in long rows or kept separate, depending on the scale of your design.

We’ll start the session with a breakdown of the key design principles and the fundamentals of site assessment to help determine the core nature of your design. The remainder of the webinar will be dedicated to discussing the plants and site conditions you're planning to work with, offering our guidance on how to get started.

This webinar is designed for all levels, so whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned practitioner, there will be valuable insights for everyone.

These bimonthly webinars are held on on our TapRoot Membership. Please upgrade to our TapRoot Plan before the 6th of April to receive the Zoom link and attend this presentation. All webinar recordings can also be accessed on the TapRoot plan.

Thank you for being part of our community, we look forward to seeing you all this coming Sunday!

Designing Syntropic Guilds
Sunday 6th April
@7pm NZT

How to meet your main dietary needs

from perennial plants no matter your climate.

We talk a lot about how to plant, where to plant and how to manage plants...but we haven't covered much on how we can cook and process our harvests we're telling everyone to grow!

So we're going to hold a webinar on just this!
Covering:

• The main dietary components.

• What food source caters for each component.

• Which plants provide that food source in different climates.

• How to process/cook foods for increased storage capacity and/or nutrition.

• Importance of dietary diversity to avoid toxicity build up.
  
  
  After covering this content we will open the floor for questions or contributions from anyone who would like to share.
  
  This will be held on our TapRoot plan as a zoom call. Please make sure you're a Tap Root member before the 2nd of June as I will send out an email with the zoom like the day before.
  
  See you then!

  
  
  
  TapRoot Membership Plan
  Sunday 02 June at 9am NZT

Kia ora all!

We have a few courses running before winter we thought we'd share on here for those of you in Aotearoa that may be interested.

Syntropic Agroforestry Course

13th-14th May
Come and learn how to read landscapes, transform soil, produce food, nurture wildlife and be a part of this growing community for on going support and exchange!
This course is focused on establishing a sound foundation in the principles, practices of Syntropic Agroforestry.

Natural Building Course

10th June

A fun and hands on course featuring innovation and traditional techniques in natural building. It offers affordable alternatives to the  industrial waste created in conventional building. You will learn how to build from scratch and retrofit existing structures. 

For more information and to book in for either of these, simply click on the links above or visit our Course page in the top navigation menu on our website.

We wish you all a lovely season as you head into either Winter or Summer.

Much gratitude to you all!

xx Frida

Hi everyone.

A quick message from a nearby hill as our nearest point of phone services. With the  cyclone passing over us the least few days we have been cut off from power and internet until at least Sunday. 

We are sorry for not being able to edit and upload this weeks video, we will make up for it with more content next week. 

Also for those on our TapRoot community, this months Live Q&A will be on Sunday the 26th at 8pm NZT.  I will set up the link and send it to you all as soon as we get power and service again. 

Until then, hope everyone in Northland NZ is safe and havnt suffered too much damage. 

Be in touch soon,

Frida 

Celebrating the arrival of our new whānau (family) member, Tūānuku !

Born on the 6th of December after a smooth home birth in a cabin in the food forest.
8.14 pounds, a full head of hair and very dexterous hands - so sure to be seen swinging away with a machete soon!   

Tū-ā-nuku : Standing, grounded firmly on and of the earth.

Sean and I are so proud and so very happy! We're both taking some time to ourselves to be present with Tūānuku for this tender time, but look forward to engaging with you all when we do, and getting back into the full swing of things again after summer. In the mean time the rest of the PermaDynamics whānau are here for you all, continuing to make this space the vibrant hub of connection and learning that it is!

Wishing you happy holidays and sending love and newborn cuddles to you all !

Love,
Sean, Frida and Tūānuku

Welcome All ! 

Thank you for joining us on this exciting new platform! 

Dig in and have fun !
Introduce yourself in our Introductions topic, post some updates of your projects this season in our Open Platform topic, share any events or working bees you're hosting in our Events topic, comment on the videos we have posted already and enjoy the community network growing across the globe!

Our hope for this platform is that it evolves with us as a whole group, co-creating and expanding into this space together. So if there are topics, or suggestions you have, give us a message, and we'll see what we can do to make that happen.  

If you have any trouble navigating your way around, or want to change/cancel your membership, edit your profile info, or have any other orientation queries, check out our Trouble Shooting topic, where we've put a bunch of useful links in already, and of course welcome to post any questions on there as other people may be in the same boat! 

Now that we have this new site up and running, we will begin to work towards constructing structured online courses on this platform! These will be on Sytropic Agroforestry, Earth Building, Food Preservation, Organic Market Gardening, Mushroom Growing and others we get inspiration to create upon observing the flow of interest on here. 

If you're seeking more one on one guidance check out our services page our website (access through the above  navigation bar) where we offer a range of options from food forest design, installation, online and onsite consultancy. 

We thank you again for joining us on this new adventure and very much look forward to engaging with you throughout your stay! 

Much love, 
Our whole PermaDynamics Family! 

Welcome all! 

On signing up to either our Grass Roots or Tap Root community tiers you will have access to our range of topics (some are limited to those wanting to learn it all on our Tap Root membership). There are core topics on either membership you will automatically be following, and others you have the option to follow or unfollow as you please. 
Some topics are restricted so only us at PermaDynamics are able to post on there, while others are created as open sharing topics for any of you to share your projects, experiments, trials, and endeavours. On commenting on any post you also have the option of uploading supporting photos. So if someone shares their experiment with putting their greenhouse over a pond, you can share your out the box trials too on the same thread.
As a diverse team of 6 we will all be engaging on this platform, answering questions and contributing our ideas.  We encourage you to make the most of posting and commenting to deepen your learning experience and contribute to the collective knowledge of the group.

We also see a huge benefit of networking and connecting with those in your area, for this we have the open access Introductions, Plant Share and Project Callout topics to connect with others in your area or exchange skills/resources with.

You will also be able to construct a simple profile for yourselves to introduce where you are located and what you're interested in to what ever degree you want to share. Other members will be able to see what topics you're following and what posts you have shared.

We want to keep this as relevant to you as we can and co-create this space together. So please don't hesitate to contact us through here of email (permadynamics.nz@gmail.com) for any feedback, topics you'd like to see or any issues you have.

Code of conduct:

All activity on this platform must be inline with the permaculture values;
Earth Care - Respectful to the earth in what we share and advise. 
People Care - Considerate and kind to one another in our exchange. 
Fair Share - Consciously co-creating together. 

Disrespect to the above values will unfortunately lead to dismissal from the platform if prior warning is not heeded. 

Our vision for this evolving space is to foster a vibrant community for collective exchange. To come together in all our respective strengths. This growing desire for a sense of connection and positive participation on earth is one we are careful to nurture for everyone thats enjoyed and continues to enjoy our content.

We thank you for joining us on this journey! It is through your participation that we are able to create and foster this space of learning and sharing! 

Enjoy the space! 

With love and gratitude, 
Josh, Ness, Sean, Mati, Klaus and Frida  

 
Syntropy is life and complexity. Even in decay, nature is imbued with life. 

We’ve been leading advocates of using Tithonia Diversifilia (Mexican/ Bolivian sunflower) as a master plant to combat the ‘dreaded’ kikuyu grass for the last 10 years. Spreading the knowledge, inspiration and many many stakes of this wonder plant all across North Island, Aotearoa. This beauty is one of our dear tithonia members that has done her task of nurturing the soil and trees around her and now has been out shaded and overcome with signs of age, giving away to a new life form. 

This is how nature works and we need to understand these continual cycle. The role of succession each plant plays in the ecosystem as a whole. 

It’s also good assurance that, yes folks, beautifully vigorous as your tithonia bushes may be... they will phase out, so don’t fear that they err on the side of rampancy, and rather embrace their force until she has played her part, and the forest overtakes as a complex, robust ecosystem that constitutes to evolve. 

.

And if you think ahead, you can encourage the new life form that takes over to be one that you can eat (as in this case, wood ear mushrooms) or is beneficial mycelium for the health of the forest. 

Do this by either inoculating the stump that’s phasing out with an edible/ beneficial mushroom mycelium or by mulching with inoculated mushrooms substrate, depending on which type of mushroom you want.

Thanks to this powerful duo, the Kereru and the mulberry, our food forest harbours a substantial diversity of native trees. 

Our whole 1.5acre food forest was once a kikuyu dominated landscape where only certain trees survived, let alone thrived. Since applying Syntropic Agroforestry practices on the land, observing and working with the rampancy of the existing vegetation, we facilitated the absence of less desirable weeds through managing them in ways that fulfilled their role, while creating deeper abundance in the wake of their redundancy. 

The inclusion of tough exotics such these mulberry trees (Whau are also great in more fertile conditions) have been a vital pillar in the attraction and harbouring of our treasured kereru! Who feast on the leaves (in quite a comical display of tight rope acrobatics), rendering these trees not only a great source of nutrition for them, but also an ideal place for them to drop their poo. Which in a sparse kikuyu smothered, or sprayed landscape would struggle to germinate, but due to the increased fertility archived by the functional diversity and density of plants used, these seeds they gathered from the surrounding native forest germinate in abundance. So although we don’t get many mulberries, the result is extraordinary! 

Additional benefit- A lot of the native trees in nurseries are cutting grown, meaning the root structure is weaker (no tap root) and no genetic biodiversity. Having seeds dropped in this innately natural way is so ideal. Our food forest is a proud diversity of exotic food and fertility producing support species, and equally amongst them is a dense and vibrant native forest, most of which have been contributed by an orchestra of native birds. 

And so this food forest is as much a multidimensional co-created sculptural art piece, as it is our home and our livelihood.