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2008, Living Mandala
creative services by: 360 Degrees
Co-Produced by
Living Mandala
The Venture Greenhouse
Presenter
John Valenzuela
Description
Imagine a forest where every single tree is dripping with fresh fruits and ripening nuts, every shrub is packed with delicious berries, and every other plant is a medicinal herb, culinary spice, or beautiful edible flower. Tubers and root crops are abundant underfoot, gourmet mushrooms sprout in the shade, and hardy kiwi vines climb back up through the layers of this multi-functional forest of food. During this evening presentation, we will learn about this amazing gardening technique known as food forest gardening with veteran food forester, educator, and passionate horticulturist John Valenzuela. This presentation will also highlight lesser known rare fruits, perennial vegetables, and plants specific to the California Bay Area and Marin County. Come get introduced to how you can transform your yard, park, neighborhood, or world into a thriving, edible, regenerative landscape! Presentation will also include a fruit tasting of some of the Bay Area's finest in season.
What is a Food Forest Garden?
Food forests are diverse gardens modeled after natural ecosystems designed to mimic the way a forest thrives and regenerates. A forest continuously nourishing all elements in the system and produce a vast diversity of outputs, but requires little or no inputs to sustain itself. By recognizing the self-supporting, mutually beneficial relationships of the elements in a forest - from tall trees, smaller trees, shrubs, herbs, ground covers, vines, nitrogen fixers, insectaries, fungi, animals, and more, the food forest garden designs a similar system but replaces the components that are in a common forest with species that are preferred edibles and more useful for humans. The forest then becomes a Garden of Eden, in which edible or useful plants are found from head to toe, where something in season is always ready to eat, and the system requires little or no maintenance to sustain and regenerate.
Food Forests Across America!
In an uncertain economy and changing world, local food security is an essential element to becoming sustainable in this emerging Green Economy. Food Forests Across America is a loosely affiliated group of permaculture designers organizing around the initiative to transform lawns, parks, gardens, and empty spaces into thriving edible landscapes that are beautiful, regenerative, and produce an abundance of delicious, locally grown food! Members of this group or permaculture designers are actively organizing workshops, projects, and initiatives installing food forest gardens around the country. The campaign is working on building a website to more closely link together the work of food foresters, permaculture designers, and gardeners around the country to showcase and promote food forest education and projects, and to powerfully inoculate this initiative into the culture at large. For more information on the campaign contact: forestgarden(at)livingmandala(dot)com
Cost - (includes snacks, food, beverages)
$10 - $20 Sliding Scale
$20 - Standard
$5 - 10 - Students
* No one turned away for lack of funds
-
*Please RSVP & Register in Advance
Agenda
6:00 pm - Doors Open
6:30 - Networking, Snacks, Beverages
7:00 - Featured Presenters Begin
8:30 - Questions and More Networking
9:00 pm - Doors Close.
Ecological Leadership Series
The Ecological Leadership Series is a monthly networking event held at the Venture Greenhouse featuring an amazing speaker on cutting-edge ecological and social technologies. With a green entrapranuial focus, the series will host renowned leaders, pioneers, and experts in various topics from permaculture, sustainability, ecovillage & community design, watershed restoration, aquaponics, holistic organizational design, and other potent strategies that can transform people and the planet.
About the Venture Greenhouse
The Venture Greenhouse of Dominican University of California is a pioneering, early-stage business incubator providing an intensive acceleration process for growing companies that have the potential for significant environmental and social benefits. Located in San Rafael, California, the 5,000 sq. ft. “innovation engine” houses up to 12 companies at a time, with the goal of graduating companies within one year.
Inspired by Dominican’ s groundbreaking Green MBA program, the Venture Greenhouse is a growth accelerator for budding social and environmental entrepreneurs, a learning laboratory for the University’s business students, and a community resource for innovators, investors, sustainability advocates and new ventures. The Venture Greenhouse is the leading innovation and venture creation catalyst addressing critical social and environmental issues, to support humanity thriving within the planet’s ecological means.
Their mission is to accelerate the success of environmentally and socially beneficial ventures by providing a broad array of resources to entrepreneurs from Dominican University of California and beyond. The Venture Greenhouse has a globally collaborative network of enterprises, professionals and partners who contribute to vibrant and sustainable economic development for Marin County and the Bay Area.
Contact
For questions and more information
email: education@livingmandala.com
Living Mandala phone: 707-634-1461
Venture Greenhouse phone: 415-497-3308
Presenter
John Valenzuela
First introduced to the sustainable design theories and methods of permaculture in 1989, John studied and practiced tropical permaculture and taught extensively in the Hawaiian Islands. He has been a lead permaculture design course instructor at the Bullock Family Homestead in Orcas Island, Washington for over 10 years, and also has experience teaching in Costa Rica and now throughout urban and rural California, collaborating with leading permaculture organizations.
His special interests are rare fruit, home gardening, trees, traditional agriculture, plant propagation, and ethnobotany. He is active in the Golden Gate chapter of the California Rare Fruit Growers where he has been the Annual Scion Exchange coordinator for the last two years, and now serves as Chapter Chairperson.
He now lives and grows in North Eastern Marin County California, where he is diversifying a food forest garden with over 150 varieties of fruit on multi-grafted trees, along with a small nursery, while practicing photography, developing educational materials, freelance consulting, team teaching, planting and maintaining gardens. John is known for an engaging enthusiasm that matches his depth of plant knowledge. For more information on John and his work visit: http://cornucopiafoodforest.wordpress.com/
Affiliate Organizations & Sponsors
Become a sponsor or affiliate of this series!
For details email: sponsors@livingmandala.com
Ecological Leadership Series
Food Forest Gardens: Growing an Ecoystem of Abundance
Featuring John Valenzuela
Thursday, Nov 29th, 6:30 - 9:00 pm
The Venture Greenhouse
San Rafael, California
