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Photo: Kumquats growing in the Phoenix greenhouse at CRMPI.

"Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in
     my heart." 

- Victor Hugo

Snow blankets the grounds of our mountain top home here in Basalt, Colorado, but inside the greenhouses worms are busy at work, navel orange trees are giving fruit and plans are growing in anticipation for the return of all of our classes and workshops in 2021.

Four month of continuous harvest of Kumquats in our topical greenhouse, Phoenix is full of fruit this winter! 
An early wet snow covers the forest garden, meanwhile the harvest is in full swing in Phoenix.

In this edition...

It's been a while, and we have so many exciting updates to share! In this issue of the CRMPI newsletter:
  • Permaculture Academy 2020 Update
  • Permaculture Design Course 2020 Update
  • Where There Be Dragons Visits CRMPI!
  • CRMPI 2021 Class Schedule
  • Meet our 2021 Instructor Team!
  • Whats's growing at CRMPI?
  • CRMPI needs your help! Send letters of support.
  • Donate

Permaculture Academy 2020

Last summer we made lots of new friends during our 7th permaculture academy!

 

Above: The academy group takes a swim in the waterfall near CRMPI. Colorado summers are hot!
Right: staying safe in the outdoor classroom!

Permaculture Design Course 2020

Our 33rd annual PDC course took place last summer! We were joined by 12 individuals from Missouri, Utah, Nevada, Texas and Colorado. 



Above: The 2020 Permaculture Academy cohort. Right: Getting some work done in the shade. 
Where There Be Dragons Visits CRMPI!
Pictured: The students picking fresh produce and nettle for tinctures and tea. After our harvest of apples from the forest garden, the students made a delicious apple strudel!
This summer CRMPI was visited by a group of college students who were part of the Where There Be Dragons semester program.
They were on a trip following the Colorado River and studying sustainability on the way. At CRMPI the students received a tour and participated in hands on permaculture activities including building worm farms, harvesting herbs and pruning trees. 


"As my first hands-on experience engaging with a permaculture initiative, learning from Jerome led me to question everything I know about modern agriculture and the food I consume daily. The entirety of the time I spent at CRMPI was wholly immersive- even my introduction to the project resembled more of a food tasting tour than an orientation as we walked through the premises. While the forest garden concept initially seemed chaotic to my conditioned familiarly with vast acres of mono-crop, I soon came to understand the unseen layers of symbiosis. Intention could be found behind every root that eventually produced food to benefit people and planet. In the few days I spent at CRMPI, I mostly worked to build worm farms below the pathways of the Phoenix greenhouse, layering duckweed, comphrey, rabbit manure, and compost, all sourced from CRMPI itself. Having a hand in cultivating growth in the greenhouse from the ground up was a rewarding and worthwhile project. Another personal highlight was harvesting herbs to later create tinctures, which allowed me to gain a seller understanding on the topic of holistic healthcare and the medicinal power that our natural world holds . 

Aside from the impressive nature of the project and the knowledge I gained from my experience, Jerome’s portrayal of persistence and dedication proved to be one of the most memorable elements of my time working with him. I left CRMPI with a renewed sense of hope for the future of our food systems and a forward thinking attitude."

- Grace McGinley 
 

 

- What's Growing at CRMPI? -
Top: This summer our lush forest garden was growing so much we needed to cut it back to keep the road open! Top Left: Figs growing in the Mediterranean greenhouse. Top Right: Pakistani variety of mulberry ripens in April in the Mediterranean greenhouse. Lower Left: Heirloom tomatoes from the greenhouse. Lower Right: Heirloom lettuce variety that grows late to extend our salad season. Mature heads of this lettuce grow up to one pound!
But that's not all...
Top: Growing pomegranates as edible shade in the Phoenix green house! Middle Left: Cut and carry greens for our rabbits. Middle Right: Bringing in the Carbon! Lower Left: We have 20 varieties of grapes in the forest garden and six varieties that ripped mid spring. Lower Right: Low bearing navel oranges in Phoenix greenhouse.
The duck house this fall.
CRMPI 2021 Class Schedule
 
The 2021 dates for workshops, the Permaculture Academy and the Permaculture Design Certification Course are live! To learn more about our 2021 course offerings, see the full instructor bios for all of our offerings or to sign up, visit our website.
 
 
   Workshops:
 
Greenhouse Design Session:
May 1st and June 5th
 
Forest Gardening Session:
May 2nd and June 6th
 
Permaculture Academy: 
 
August 16 - 24 and September 13th - 24th
 
Permaculture Design Course:
July 12th - July 24th 
 
Meet Our 2021 Permaculture Design Course Instructor Team!
We have a fantastic team of instructors who are hard at work on creating an engaging, COVID-19 friendly curriculum. 
Jerome Osentowski is the Director and founder of Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute and a permaculture designer for thirty years. He has built five greenhouses for himself and scores of others for private clients and public schools in the Rockies and beyond. Among his accomplishments is hosting the longest-running Permaculture Design Course in the world.
Stephanie Syson is co-founder of Dynamic Roots, a medicinal herb company and has spent over 15 years researching and practicing various forms of sustainable farming across the United States and Latin America.  She is a Certified Permaculture Designer, an educator in the fields of Permaculture, Greenhouse Management, Seed Saving and Herbalism. 
Patrick Padden received his design certificate from the International Permaculture Design Course in Harare, Zimbabwe  and completed a Master’s Degree in Integrative Eco-Social Design with Gaia University.  He is a practicing permaculturalist, consultant, public speaker and educator through his company Padden Permaculture, where he offers residential landscape and farm scale designs and installations.
Kareen Erbe is a certified permaculture designer and has taught permaculture and gardening workshops through her business, Broken Ground, for 9 years.  She and her husband live on a  permaculture homestead in Bozeman, Montana. She has a BSc. in Environmental Science and completed an advanced permaculture program taught by Geoff Lawton, at the Permaculture Research Institute of Australia. 
Jen Ghigiarelli is a livestock farmer in her sixth full-time season. While specializing in multi-species rotational grazing systems, Jen has also done work in dairy, annual vegetable production, permaculture, and tree/perennial systems. She sees agriculture at its finest when it is integrative in approach and supportive of the greater ecology around it. Jen was previously an intern at CRMPI with Vanessa Harmony and we are so happy to have her on our instructor team!
Vanessa Harmony is a treehugger, horticulturist, arborist, edible plant enthusiast, and mulch fanatic! She quit her cubicle job in 2013 and started studying forest gardening at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture. She now runs a fruit tree nursery and consulting/education business called Colorado Edible Forest LLC.
Michael Thompson is a Colorado-licensed architect, with 30 years of experience designing buildings in the high Rocky Mountains.  His passion for design is focused on land planning in concert with Nature, and on energy productive buildings, including greenhouses for growing food year-round in cold climates, as well as passive and active solar buildings.  
Calling all CRMPI Supporters!

We are reaching out to our community to ask for your support. We are collecting letters of support to send to the Eagle County Planning Department to go along with our application for a Special Use Permit. We need a Special Use Permit to continue our 35 year history of offering classes on permaculture design in our onsite food forest.  If the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute has added value to your life, community or career through one of our design courses, summer classes, internships, interactive tours or articles, please send a letter of support to admin@crmpi.org about your experience! Please address letters to the Eagle County Planning Office.

We also want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has already sent in a letter of support. We are so grateful for the vibrance of our community at times like these. We are endlessly in awe of what we can do when we come together.

Hear what some of our supporters have to say: 
 
To CRMPI,

I write as someone who has recently acquired property outside Paonia, Colorado, with the intention of using principles and practices of Permaculture land design and management in its development. Long before moving here in 2018 I was aware of, impressed, and inspired by the example of Jerome Osentowski’s Permaculture facilities in Basalt.

Visiting in person and attending classes at the Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute has only served to increase my appreciation for what Jerome and his associates have accomplished over the many years of its operation, both in terms of the actual physical implementation of permaculture design principles and in his ongoing educational mission of sharing his experience and teachings with the community at large. And it has to be said that the reach of that community is international.

CRMPI is widely and justifiably famous for its abundantly productive food forest and its innovative design of climate-controlled greenhouse production. Being on the property, spending time observing the processes in place and enjoying the abundant fruits of this labor of love - clearly a love of place, grounded in a respect for its unique location and ecology - is an experience that really cannot readily be duplicated elsewhere.

Bruce Woodside


Dear CRMPI,

When I purchased "The Forest Garden Greenhouse" at the beginning of August, I couldn't have known that I would be learning, in person, with the author, and touching the plants and gardens featured in the book by the end of the month.  It was awe-inspiring to see Jerome's forest and to be taught by such a legend with a seemingly endless bank of knowledge.  The course introduced me to concepts I had never heard of, the climate battery and compost tea for example, and gave me courage to go forward on our land in an even more conscious way that benefits our gardens and improves the land overall.  The hands-on learning, (creating worm farms for example), was ideal and Jerome clearly loves teaching.  I especially enjoyed the guest speakers and the tours of other greenhouses and permaculture farms in the area and learned a tremendous amount in just 4 days.  An idea that crossed my mind while I was there is that it would have been fun and beneficial to design our desired greenhouse and then see if we could design the climate battery for it and have Jerome and Michael evaluate our designs.  Overall, this was a life-altering experience and I absolutely believe examples like CRMPI will be paramount in continuing to further the permaculture movement.

It was an honor to meet everyone involved and to experience such passion all around.  (Oh, and the chefs and food were fabulous!)

Julz McGuire
 
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