SERVICES

Definition time! I am am "Permaculture Design Specialist" and I use "polycultures" to achieve your goals. My business definition of Permaculture is the science of using Nature to build an edible forest, maintaining the balance necessary for continuity. Polycultures are clusters of plants that complement each other while providing necessary food for you and your family.

YOUR FOREST

Many years ago, sitting at a large drafting table, staring out at a municipal airport, I felt unfulfilled and incomplete. I remembered a friend telling me that he was starting university, taking forestry. I was intrigued, so I also enrolled. Fast forward 4 years, and I was a capital F Forester! For several years, I taught forestry, worked in a greenhouse, and ran a program that put over 8 million trees in the ground.

Fast forward again, and the industry was in trouble. I started my own business teaching first aid. For 15 years, it was fulfilling, but again, that industry began to experience problems. Now what? Well, upon serious contemplation, I realized I missed the forest.

Two years ago, I enhanced my education with a permaculture design course, and last year I started my business.

Now to combine forestry with permaculture, I decided to focus on guiding people through the woods, showing them perennial plants that are edible, giving them instructions on harvesting responsibly, and blogging about issues that enhance or threaten our natural environment.

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OUR PROJECTS

In 2016, I was a landscaper and gardener at a large estate just outside of London, Ontario. I had hands-on experience planting, pruning and cutting trees, maintaining a pond, cutting brush as well as lawns, laying sod, painting and staining, and getting quotes for building a shed.

This experience led to a contract to do an edible garden in a shaded urban setting. The soil was sandy, each site was only 17 x 5 feet long, and they had to have aesthetic appeal. After much remediation and planting in the fall, the project blossomed and now is a beautiful, edible, landscape with strawberries, fiddleheads, aronia berries, honeysuckle fruit, catmint, daylilies, and violets. Because all of these plants are perennials, they are planted once, pruned once a year, and beautiful throughout.

We acquired more projects in woodlots outside London. Now we harvest wild ginger, wild leeks, strawberries, violets, summer greens for salads, berries, nuts, and seeds. These are sold as foraged foods to restaurants and farmers markets.

WHAT ARE EDIBLES?

I'm sure you've heard of fiddleheads. They are the baby fronds of ostrich ferns that grow in the forest. Fried or boiled, with butter or in a salad, they provide wonderful nutrients, variety, and taste to your meals.

You see daylilies growing in many yards and along country roads. They are colourful -- and SOME are edible! The petals are rich in micronutrients and minerals, and taste sweet. *Quick warning, though. Don't eat anything you're not sure of, don't eat plants that may have chemical applications, and ALWAYS ask your neighbour before beheading all of their landscape!

My team and I will help educate you on your plant choices, foraging opportunities, and what to plant for your own consumption or to sell or give away. We are different from other permaculture companies -- we focus on forests!

*Always ask before eating. Leave the kids at home if they like to put things in their mouths. Some mushrooms and plants look yummy, but can be deadly!