Ah Ha! the devil is in the details. Weep holes. Good idea. The Master Gardeners here are having a workshop with some speakers from University of Washington and University of Alaska (Fairbanks and Anchorage both). So a lot of knowledge that is particular to our area, and not just about flowers, but about sustainable gardening -- whatever you choose to grow. We also have a permaculture group up here that offers a course that lasts 6 weeks but it is $800. A little spendy. Thinking about it though. I don't have a lot of time to waste.

Save your money Mary, you can probably find everything on line that they are going to teach you on that course. JMHO.

I guess. I was looking more for things relating to Alaska. Perhaps some of the northern states share them until I see Minn or SD with 80-90F weather while we are still in the 40's. Composting takes a while here because it is not very warm - average is 62F in the summer. Works for me but the 'yeastie beasties' don't care for it much.

$800 is a lot of money, but a 6 week course with lots of time spent could end up being worth the cost, especially since it's in your region.

I'd be tempted to see if they have a shorter seminar that they do, maybe over a weekend, for less cost.

I figured it would give them a call and see about weekend work shops like you suggest. Not sure of keeping animals except for feces fertilizer. We are leaning more toward vegetarian/vegan these days. thanks

I signed up to attend the Master Gardeners Spring Seminar.

Mana, Myths, or Marketing: The science behind alternative gardening products
Garden Reality or Wishful thinking: Validate your growing theories using real research tools
Ty it..You may like it: new trees to trial in our landscapes

Keynote speakers: Exploding the Myths: Horticultural practices for healthy landscapes
A Leaf of Faith: growing your own food organically in an Alaskan Summer

Speakers Linda chalker-Scott, associate professor of horticulture and landscape architecture, Washington State University
PH.D, Steve Brown, PH.D agriculture and natural resources agent, UF, CES Mat-su and Copper river districts
Pat Joyner: alaska community forestry program coordinator

I split this off from the hugelkultur herb spiral thread, it was going a little astray, but it deserves its own topic.

There is also the full course from the NC State that was referenced before...I'm still going through it, kind of like an audit I guess. It's free, and it's the entire course. The professor who teaches it has his yard featured on the cover of Gaia's Garden.


Here's the link again: http://goo.gl/3Q4Kr

thanks and sorry for going astray on the thread.

Hmmm. May take a little figuring to gain access.

Oberon46 said:thanks and sorry for going astray on the thread.

Bah...no problem. It's a good new topic anyway.

Oberon46 said:Hmmm. May take a little figuring to gain access.

Are you not seeing the list of class sessions?

Hmmm... I see the list but when clicking on one I get a brief paragraph of the tutorial and when i click "more" only get another line or two.

There is also a big FBI piracy warning law showing, a small video screen but a notice to "install Microsoft Silver LIght", whatever that is. If I remember correctly it is not compatible with my Win2K OS. Perhaps it is the same for Oberon.

Shoe

Ah, Silverlight...yeah that's Microsoft's answer to Flash. Unfortunately it's not officially supported on Win2k, as you said...there are people that get it to work just fine though, so might be worth a try. $200 upgrade to Windows 7 is cheaper than the $800 price tag on the Permaculture course ;)

milkmood said:$200 upgrade to Windows 7 is cheaper than the $800 price tag on the Permaculture course ;)

Thanks, Dave...I agree

I don't care to invest in Windows BUT my sis recently sent me a tower with XP on it (FREE) so will hopefully hook it up this weekend. It's supposedly a half-step ahead of Win2K but yet is still supported by more browsers and other misc programs. ( I still hope to learn Linux one day---don't give up on me, Dave! Or heck, even Apple might work).

By the way, milkmood, an older computer like this won't handle any upgrades...just the needed memory alone to run Windows 7 is more than what I have to work with but I appreciate the suggestion.

Shoe (happy he now has an XP tower, a monitor to go with it, and it took 3 weeks to get a power cable cus I'm a miser and wanted a free one!) I ain't right, am I!?

Right as rain, Shoe. I liked XP, but the new laptop has Win 7 and is fast. I know, Dave is cringing, but this is as good as it gets here. Hey, I survived Win 95! Know all I know thanks to its reliable crash a week.

And don't throw any rotten organic veggies at me, but it seems like permaculture is a fancy name for sustainable common sense farming/gardening. And, that the fancier the name, the more they can charge you for a course in it.

I got to the website, and selected New Classes and saw the huge list of chapters. Really neat. but it requires a sign in and I couldn't find a place to start a new sign in name.

http://www.permies.com/t/12644...

Here's another discussion about the price of the Permaculture Classes. Ontario-based. {Sort of like Alaska?}.

On my journey through graduate school, in retrospect most of what I learned I think I could have taught myself.
However, when there is a really great teacher, self-taught does not compare. On the other hand most of what graduate school is, is teaching you how to handle just about any learning challenge on your own. Maybe a permaculture class would be the same: teaching you how to learn, and then teaching you how to teach the same to others.

I'm kind of amazed that a vegetarian/vegan could be self sustaining in Alaska. It would seem that the most reliable, all year food would be fish or mammal. Fascinating to think about growing all you eat in such a short growing season.