We’re back in 2021!
Early in 2020, we had to cancel a full year of programming because of COVID but, thanks to the support of Blue Mountains City Council, we were thrilled to kick off again in January with an Introduction to Permaculture and a Permaculture Design Course at Headspace in Katoomba.
This was a very hands-on course which combined theory with actually building a permaculture garden at the site in time for Headspace’s grand opening at the end of February.
The Blue Mountains community rallied to support the young people doing the work and donated plants, wood chip, tools, compost bins, worm farms and lots more! The Rotary Club of Blackheath donated the funds for us to build timber walls to terrace the very sloping site, Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens donated over 200 native seedlings for us to plant a micro-forest in the heart of Katoomba, and Bunnings Katoomba were also extremely generous with their donations!
Twenty two young people participated in the project and it culminated in a wonderful launch at Headspace with a smoking ceremony, local bands performing on the terrace we’d built, and stalls next door outside Centrelink.
Check out a ‘before’ photo of this spot – the hydrangea at the fence was completely entangled with blackberry so there really was a lot of learning about weed management!:
Here’s another before-and-after shot:
The final design was developed by Vaughan Jones and Erik Osterberg who were a great team throughout the development and implementation phases. You can read an interview with Vaughan here
