Southwest Florida Permaculture

On Sunday, March 20th about 25 people came together for a permablitz at the Hope Clubhouse in Fort Myers. The Hope Clubhouse is a community of support for adults living with a mental illness and provides opportunities for meaningful work, paid employment, education, friendships and access to housing. Our good friends at ECHO and Edison & Ford Estates also helped make this event possible by donating plants.

On Saturday, October 25th about 20 permies came together for a permablitz in Bonita Springs just around the corner from our previous one.  We started out the morning with an explanation of the importance and dynamics of food forestry before we started digging in.  Over the course of a few hours, we established a small food forest complete with “fedge” or food-producing hedge made up of native cocoplum and tasty Surinam cherries; groundcovers like perennial peanut; climbers like dragonfruit to creep up the boundary walls and trees; and of course, various fruit trees like mulberry and fig.

On March 23rd, 2014 we met at Sue's and held our fourth permablitz.  We installed a small food forest consisiting over fourty trees and shrubs and had an aquadic gardening workshop. The event was an absolute blast!

About twenty people came out and worked, learned and broke bread together. Here are some pictures from the event:

The classic wheelbarrows with mulch pile and sunrise in the back drop shot... with Kiki the cat for added effect.

Sunday October 26th saw the Permaculture Guild of Southwest Florida come together for its third permablitz.  It was held at Matt and Patricia's place and was exciting in part because their property is "only" .33 acres.  Considering we planted more than 50 food bearing trees and plants including a wide range of huge canopy trees including three avocados, two mangoes, two lychee, a jak fruit, and macadamia nut, it really showcases that you don't need a lot of land to grow a TREMENDOUS amount of food.

First, some before pictures:
 

On August 11th, 2013 24 amazing Permies from the Southwest Florida Permaculture Guild volunteered their time in 94 degree heat to start a Food Forest at the Rainbow Sage Acre Farm in Naples.  This was our second Permablitz and it went really well.  The people who came out were truly amazing and very hard workers.  We got a LOT done and Andrea and Rene were wonderful hosts!  We did a ton of sheet mulching and planted 72 fruit trees, banana plants, and Moringa trees!  

On June 16th 2013, the Southwest Florida Permaculture Guild held its first Permablitz. It was at our member Andrei's home in Golden Gate Estates and our goal was to begin development of a Food Forest for him and run water from his well to that Food Forest.

Ten brave, generous souls came together and the following chronicles our accomplishments.

Andrei's home is on a well. Step one was to tap into that well so we could send a water line back to where the Food Forest was to begin development.