With lots of snow followed by warmer weather, there’s lots of water flowing everywhere. Here on the mountain, that water rushes with gravity downslope towards the river, but on its way it picks up a little something extra. Walking around…
Lenape ‘Permaculture’: The Three Sisters
The land where the Southside Permaculture Park exists today, and much of the land in Eastern PA, northern DE, southern NY, and NJ, is part of the area of Lenapehoking, “Land of the Lenape”. The people of Lenapehoking (prior to…
Permaculture as Situation Planning
“The most important thing we can do right now, regardless of what the future holds, is to build community, solidarity, and a culture of radical mutual love.” The future is uncertain. We do not know for sure what it will…
A Walk in the Woods: Observe & Interact
After finishing the last test of the semester on Monday, I decided to go for a nice long run to unwind. The air was crisp but not too cold, the wind was fairly calm, and the recent warm rain left…
Feature: The ‘Calitheatre’!
The calitheatre is a calisthenic workout center and lecture/performance space integrated with vines, swales, and rain gardens to be built at the Southside Permaculture Park this coming spring. We just received funding for its construction today, and are very excited…
Using Edges: Negotiating Boundaries with Grass
Grass seems to have a dual identity in our society. For many home-owners and property developers, a homogeneous grass lawn is a symbol of status and serenity; it must be protected from invasions of weeds by any means necessary. For…
Philosophy of the SSPP Part 2: Social Fragmentation, Power Dynamics, and Cooperation vs Competition
Welcome back to the Philosophy of the Southside Permaculture Park post series! Part 1: Introduction to Permaculture and the SSPP Part 2: Social Fragmentation, Power Dynamics, and Cooperation vs Competition Part 3: Human/Nature Dualism, Contradictions, and the Thermodynamics of Civilization…
Guild Highlight
In the absence of human intervention, species of plants, animals, fungi, and bacterial automatically group themselves together in ways that mutually benefit all those involved. Old-growth forest is a prime example of this, with squirrels burying nuts that grow trees…
Mycoremediation in Action
On a visit to a materials dump yard to pick up some logs to build some structures in the park, we noticed something interesting. The dump yard had been completely clear cut, dug up, and destroyed by all the trucks…
Rocky Soil: Asset or Liability?
While digging a swale, we came across an absurd quantity of rocks. The soil was incredibly compacted and almost 50% rocks by volume, leaving us with a huge pile of rocks after digging the trench. Rather than see these rocks…