Sam Bullock, with the help of friends and interns Jocelyn Burkhart, Paul Kearsley and Charly Robinson, welcomed 12 Farm Education and Sustainability for Teens (FEAST) students to the Bullocks Permaculture Homestead and Nursery last week for a three-day private permaculture design course. FEAST is a summer-long program for high school students who receive credit while attending classes taught by local experts.
FEAST coordinator Whitney Hartzell said, “It has been amazing to see the youth inspired by the members of the community that are keeping the island’s agricultural heritage alive. The Bullock’s homestead and nursery, are leaders in the permaculture world”.
The permaculture section of the FEAST course began with a detailed tour of the different “zones,” which include multiple gardens, wildlife habitat, plant guilds, and irrigation and solar systems. During the tour, the students enhanced their visual observation skills by walking each other around blindfolded. Without sight, students found themselves smelling, listening carefully, and feeling their way through the garden. When they reconvened to describe their experience they described details such as rough leaves, smooth bark, temperature and moisture changes in the grass beneath them, alarm calls from birds, sweet smells, herbs and earthy smells. Kearsley encouraged the students to take the observation techniques they practiced during the course with them to the different farms and gardens they will be visiting this summer
Students learned about guild planting (planting complementary plants together to insure successful growth), incorporating different zones within a design, installing drip lines, and prorogating different plants to preserve and promote genetic diversity.
This week, the FEAST program brings the crew to Kyler Townsend who will be teaching a two-day myco-remediation course. – improving the soil through mushroom cultivation. Students will propagate their own mushrooms, learn of the many uses of fungi to clean up contaminants and toxins found in polluted environments throughout the world.
Later in the week, the group will learn to make Seed Balls by combining clay, compost and a variety of seeds. This natural farming technique creates small-scale seed habitats to distribute in gardens, yards, abandoned urban lots and industrial zones.
FEAST students will teach a Seed Ball workshop, open to everyone through the Orcas Island Recreation Program. Those interested in participating are asked to meet at the FEAST Garden, in the center of Eastsound next to The Kitchen, on Friday the June 27 at 1 p.m.
FEAST students will man a booth at the Saturday Farmers Market on June 28, where they are available to answer questions about permaculture, myco-remediation and seed balls.
As Bullocks’ intern Charly Robinson said, “I am really looking forward to the day they take over the world.” This summer’s amazing crew of young people are eager to share what they know and what they are learning.
