Permablitz Greensborough

Seedlings in place and awaiting planting

Permablitz: eating the suburbs, one backyard at a time.

What a great slogan! On Saturday I went to my first Permablitz out at Greensborough. A Permablitz is like Backyard Blitz but using permaculture principles. It is very popular, which was good at Greensborough as it was a massive blitz and needed many hands. The site at ACES St John of God Accord is for adults with a disability who are starting a community supported agriculture scheme. They grow and sell vegetables in the local area.

As I've done my Permaculture Design Certificate, I joined Permablitz as a Guild member: I'm one of the permaculture designers. Guild members form a little group to do the design for each Permablitz. It's a win-win-win situation: the Guild members get to practice their design skills, the property owner gets their backyard designed and blitzed for free and those who volunteer on the day get a bit of exercise and learn something about permaculture in the backyard. After the volunteers go to three or so Permablitzes, they can have their own place blitzed. And we

need houses to permablitz: will it be your place?

A prepared garden bed, 1m wide

As I'm a Guild member, I put my hand up to be a team leader on the day. I really, really enjoyed it. It meant I could welcome people, point them in the right direction of what to do and help them learn and share all things gardening and permaculture.

My day as a team leader has really shown me how much I enjoy teaching and facilitating. I really should run workshops and eventually a Permaculture Design Certificate in the future. So I'll be looking into what courses I should do, both permaculture training ones, as well as other mainstream training courses.

After going to many training events over the last five months and helping begin Permaculture Inner North, I'm beginning to know people in the permaculture world and them me. It's a nice to start feeling connected to a community, however large it is.