The Berkeley Permaculture Bike Tour: Photo Gallery
This post is a photo gallery from the East Bay Permaculture Guild’s Permaculture Bike tour in Berkeley this past Sunday. It was glorious day and a slew of people came out.
But first a little background on permaculture:
The word permaculture, coined by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren during the 1970s, is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture as well it is was permanent culture. Through a series of publications, Mollison, Holmgren and their associates documented an approach to designing human settlements, in particular the development of perennial agricultural systems that mimic the structure and interrelationship found in natural ecologies.
This tour shows what some folks in Berkeley are doing to live more sustainably: growing their own food, raising chickens, capturing, heating, and conserving water, and generating electricity.
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Only in Berkeley?
Berkeley became a nuclear free zone in 1986. Ironically, more than 20% of Berkeley’s electricity comes from nukes.
My first stop was Fort Awesome on King Street. Notice how the bottom of the sign looks strange. That’s because they painted over the word “DRIVING” which has been stenciled at the bottom of many Berkeley stop signs over past several years.
Zack, one of hosts at Fort Awesome, a cooperative for low-income people.
The front door of one of the two homes at Fort Awesome.
Solar photovoltaic panels at Fort Awesome. These panels feed excess energy back into the grid.
Solar water panels at Fort Awesome. Also known as solar thermal, these panels heat water reducing the need to burn natural gas.
Food not Bombs provided a hearty lunch of sandwiches, pizza, chips, and dips.
The Fort Awesome Community Garden which is several blocks west of Fort Awesome. This particular plot is tended by the Headstart program of a local elementary school.
Their community garden has individual and community plots. Anyone can help out at a community plot without having any responsibility. A good way for the occasional gardener to get their hands dirty.
People often say it sucks to have a billboard in your community garden. They made it a positive. On warm summer nights, they have movie nights. They turn off the billboard lights, hang a screen, and project a movie as a community event.
Christopher Shine hosts the tour at his house. Shine is a permaculture educator.
Shine’s chicken coop. In the morning he brings the hens a bundle of collards from the garden and retrieves 9-12 eggs.
Shine’s grey water system. The water from the washer (using non-toxic soap) is channeled to bamboo along the fence which he uses for privacy and to make things.
