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Post by gilbert on Feb 10, 2014 20:10:52 GMT -5
Hello Everyone,
I am the organizer of a new Catholic Urban Farming Group in the Denver Metro area, the Saint Isidore Society. You can see our website at saintisidoresociety.wordpress.com. We are building an urban farm site, working in member's yards, starting top bar beehives, setting up a seed bank/ library, and working to give ourselves real hands on education in all the skills needed to have a resilient, self sufficient local economy. We hope to use all the valuable perspective and truth of Permaculture and the whole sustainability movement to care for the Creation God has entrusted us with, without the ideology and New Age leanings they generally come with. Anyone is welcome to join who wants to be a good steward of Creation and holds all human life Sacred.
Once we have built up our skills and infrastructure, we hope to help the urban poor by teaching them to help themselves, and giving them the tools to do it.
I was directed to this site to find a group of gardeners interested in open source plant breeding, who could help me out with some projects I had in mind. And I certainly have found them!
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Post by steev on Feb 10, 2014 21:03:56 GMT -5
So you find Catholic leanings and ideology less potentially objectionable? Just asking; not having a dog in that fight.
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Post by gilbert on Feb 10, 2014 22:13:36 GMT -5
Potentially objectionable to whom?
Less objectionable to Catholics: yes.
Less objectionable to those who are neither Catholic nor New Age: possibly.
New Age types have lots of groups already, so they don't matter.
We who are interested in sustainability need to ditch the Hippy stereotype to make actual progress changing the world around us.
Catholic Philosophy fits perfectly with Permaculture and Sustainability. I am trying to get more Catholics interested.
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Post by kevin8715 on Feb 10, 2014 23:12:18 GMT -5
What did you exactly have in mind? I'm not Catholic but always enjoy helping others in their gardening pursuits. A description of your climate (weather, usda zone, soil, etc.) would be very helpful. From what you said so far, sounds like you're interested in landrace gardening. Lots on here have those seeds but it is better to get seeds from people with similar climates (hence the climate description). My climate has a really long growing season (266 days frost free but only light frost in the winter), HOT, and arid (drought this year). All I have is artichokes seeds to spare really. Also, what crops in specific (common: corn, tomato, etc.) or/and uncommon: sunchokes, oca, etc?
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Post by steev on Feb 10, 2014 23:24:15 GMT -5
Sorry, gilbert; somehow I got the impression your mentions of "New Age" and "Hippy" (for no reason obvious to me) were a tad insensitive and negative; kind of "We're not like THOSE people".
I would point out that the "Hippy stereotype" is something fostered by people using it as a very negative trope on other people. So you can't "make actual progress changing the world" without ragging on some straw-man you regard as "not you, nor your target audience"? Wow! That's too bad. "Those people" sure are an impediment to your desired activities!
I think "Permaculture and Sustainability" have objective legitimacy, with no connection to any religious dogma or sect, nor do I see the value of linking them to any such or putting them in opposition to some "out-group". If you really think this sort of "us against them" approach is the way to attract the people you hope to recruit, perhaps you would be more comfortable dealing with a more biased, less open-minded audience.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 10, 2014 23:49:20 GMT -5
I keep my ideology and leanings to myself in public forums and at the farmer's market. What I will say publicly is that my work wouldn't be possible without a close association to those with "New Age leanings". I'll leave it to your imagination to decide whether or not I am one of THOSE people.
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Post by gilbert on Feb 11, 2014 12:55:20 GMT -5
I think you misunderstood me. Catholics in general tend to be suspicious of Permaculture. My aim is to present it to them in their own terms, thus furthering the spread of Permaculture. There is nothing in either Permaculture or Catholicism which keeps them apart; just misconceptions on both sides.
And I was simply pointing out that the typical Permaculture group will not attract many Catholics. Thus my group fills a need, if we want everybody to start practicing permaculture.
And those with New Age leanings have definitely come up with some great idea. I am not a Russian Dictator. (The Russians decided that since Mendel was a monk, he couldn't have known anything about genetics. So they put their best plant breeders in jail.)
Thanks for all the work you do!
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Post by gilbert on Feb 11, 2014 13:08:49 GMT -5
Hello Kevin,
Denver is a high desert, zone five. Most days in the winter the temperatures reach fifty at least, sometimes sixty. Most years the ground does not freeze. For a few weeks every winter we get cold waves, but they are unpredictable, and coming suddenly after warm weather, especially in the late spring, they tend to stress the trees and kill buds, thus destroying fruit crops. We usually have our last frost in late May, but we can get one in June, and we get our first frost in September. We get less than 14 inches of precipitation a year, most of it in spring. The dry air tends to evaporate soil moisture soon after rain or snowfall, and snow tends to sublimate without melting. Nights tend to stay cool during the summer due to lack of atmospheric insulation, and for the same reason summer days are hot and UV radiation is high. (We are about a mile above sea level.) In the shade, temperatures are almost always cool.
We are interested in all the standard crops vegetable crops, and I am building up a seed bank. I am especially interested in breeding perennial vegetables, since most of them are not adapted here. My first project will be a perennial kale/ cabbage.
Any advice is appreciated!
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Post by gilbert on Feb 11, 2014 13:14:39 GMT -5
And I don't wish to be disrespectful to anybody! Sorry if some of my comments sound that way.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Feb 11, 2014 13:50:24 GMT -5
Permaculture is a very valuable movement, but there are different strains/philosophies within Permaculture. To me the most important aspect of Permaculture is its value at training people to look at the agriculture they do as a system within a larger system. Permaculture is basically systems ecology applied to agriculture. But I do know what gilbert is talking about, some Permaculture gatherings can take on the aspect of a neo-shamanist church service. This can be jarring to anyone of any different religious bent who really just wants to learn about plants, ecosystems and appropriate technology.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 11, 2014 14:11:20 GMT -5
I'm laughing my head off. Thinking about the local permaculturists and the local Mormons getting together for a permaculture workshop!!! Gwah!
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Post by gilbert on Feb 11, 2014 14:29:49 GMT -5
Oxbow and Joseph: Exactly!
And that is just unfortunate. Permaculture does not NEED to include any religious aspects (though individual groups certainly CAN if they want to.) The more people working to solve the problems of the world with permaculture, the better. My group will attract lots of people who just wouldn't fit in a standard Permaculture group, but are interested in self-sufficency and alternative farming.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 11, 2014 20:14:51 GMT -5
I was raised Southern Baptist, found rabbis with variations of my last name, look Greek Orthodox, and don't consider this offensive:
"Every morning before going to work, Isidore was accustomed to hearing Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day, his fellow labourers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation, so runs the legend, the master found Isidore at prayer whilst an angel was doing the ploughing for him.
On another occasion, his master saw an angel ploughing on either side of him, so that Isidore's work was equal to that of three of his fellow labourers. Isidore is also said to have brought back to life his master's deceased daughter, and to have caused a fountain of fresh water to burst from the dry earth to quench his master's thirst.
One snowy day, when going to the mill with corn to be ground, he passed a flock of wood-pigeons scratching vainly for food on the hard surface of the frosty ground. Taking pity on the poor animals, he poured half of his sack of precious corn upon the ground for the birds, despite the mocking of witnesses. When he reached the mill, however, the bag was full, and the corn, when it was ground, produced double the expected amount of flour.
Isidore's wife, Maria, always kept a pot of stew on the fireplace in their humble home as Isidore would often bring home anyone who was hungry. One day he brought home more hungry people than usual. After she served many of them, Maria told him that there simply was no more stew in the pot. He insisted that she check the pot again, and she was able to spoon out enough stew to feed them all.
He is said to have appeared to Alfonso VIII of Castile, and to have shown him the hidden path by which he surprised the Moors and gained the victory of Las Nevas de Tolosa, in 1212.When King Philip III of Spain was cured of a deadly disease after touching the relics of the saint, the king replaced the old reliquary with a costly silver one." -- excerpted from Wikipedia
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Post by steev on Feb 11, 2014 20:22:26 GMT -5
Where, exactly, can I find that iconic "standard Permaculture group"? Sounds like they could be more fun than salting snails.
Nice story, degzing; is it from the King James Wikipedia?
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Post by templeton on Feb 21, 2014 23:15:55 GMT -5
Sorry, a bit late to this thread. Welcome, Gilbert. I'm a ratbag athiest myself, but really enjoy hearing how other people make sense of this messy universe. I spent a small amount of social time with Bill Mollison in the 80's, and Dave Holmgren lives 3/4 of an hour away - I've heard him speak a few times. Bill and David's original permaculture books were just applied ecology agriculture. Not much religious, spiritual or even cultural commentary in either of those books. Bill's later Permaculture Design Mmanual which a friend of mine was translating into german, does have social commentary embedded in it from memory.
David, as far as I know doesn't have a spiritual agenda. Bill, when I spent time with him seemed to be a pretty grounded practical person, and never expressed religious views in my hearing. It is interesting that we often project our wider views and beliefs onto others who we think must have the same views because they share one of our lifestyle choices or beliefs. eg. 'All vegetarians respect the lives of animals' - but then Hitler was a vegetarian. I can imagine that there are folk (me among them, probably) who like the idea of permanent agriculture ecosystems, but don'r hold with all the design principles of permaculture as more lately expressed. T
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