Progress at the Sustainable Living Center and Urban Farm has been slow but steady through the summer months. With some serious effort, the bare grass and piles of building debris in the front and back yards have given way to garden beds and fruit trees. The permaculture design that was born on paper in the early spring has found roots on the ground at the property and you can find the results in a beautiful green space around the house.  We have also managed the task of sorting and storing all of our donated and salvaged building materials on the site.

We have finished all of the demolition work in the house and stabilized all of the walls. The new standing seam metal roof is completed, and the windows are in as well, so the house is weather proof and sound. A few obstacles have come up during the early stages of the remodeling process. The most significant was the news that we are required to have a fire sprinkler system installed in the house. This has substantially increased our projected cost. We are still looking for any assistance folks can offer in helping out this community-funded project.

The action is about to pick up in the coming couple months as the permitting process comes to a close and the serious carpentry starts. Please keep an ear out because we will need as many helpers as we can scrape together this fall including some skilled carpenters, electricians and plumbers.

Thanks again to all those who have helped out and checked in on us over the year. We will continue to be in touch.

To volunteer or make a donation to the building fund please contact NCP

New Community Project (NCP) is pleased to offer a straw bale house workshop August 20-21, 2011 in Harrisonburg, VA.  This 2 day course provides students the opportunity to participate in building a local straw bale house, while learning the necessary steps from design and construction to finishing details. Natural Builder and designer Ted Butchart will lead the workshop

When:  August 20-21, 2011 – 8:30-5:00 each day   (rain date August 27-28)

Where: Good Earth Gardens, 3393 Muddy Creek Rd. in Harrisonburg, VA

How much: $165 (4 work trade scholarships will be offered)

Participants: The course will be capped at 25 participants. Registration Required

Lodging: Camping is offered on site. Bring a tent! Rustic bathroom and cooking facilities are available.

Meals: Participants are expected to pack a lunch both days. A celebratory dinner will be hosted on day two by the home owners! Snacks will be provided throughout the workshop

Proceeds: All proceeds support NCP’s local initiatives – promoting sustainable homes and communities in the Shenandoah Valley

Hands on Construction:

The hands-on aspect of the workshop focuses on building a 352 sq. ft. modified post and beam cabin. Students work in groups while learning to bale the walls, place window and door frames and smooth and shape the finished walls. During the second day of the workshop students will finish baling walls, add finishing details (including wiring, plumbing, plaster stops and wire mesh) and prepare the walls for plastering.  

Education and Discussion:

Throughout the workshop students will participate in lectures and discussions on the latest straw bale building methods, discuss the advantages of straw bale houses, analyze important techniques for building durable straw bale structures, and explore design considerations for their own projects.

Students will finish the workshop prepared to start their own straw bale projects and connected with a local network of experienced straw bale builders they can call on!

Ted Butchart: 

Ted has designed 50+ straw buildings, and advised and instructed architects, engineers, contractors, building officials and owner builders. He is a founding member of the North American Natural Building Colloquium and the Director of the GreenFire Institute.  Now in his second career as a Naturopathic Physician, Ted bases his natural medicine practice, Virginia Natural Health, out of Staunton, VA.  Recently Ted taught sessions in Natural Building and Intro to Natural Medicine during NCP’s Spring 2011 Permaculture Design Course.

Suggested reading:

• “Build it with Bales” by MacDonald
• “Serious Straw Bale” by Paul Lacinsky
• “More Straw Bale Building” by Chris Magwood, Peter Mack, and Tina Therrien
• “Building Green” by Sneel and Callahon 

Downloads:

• Straw Bale Registration
• NCP Release Form

Please email questions, comments, and/or registration forms to Aaron Johnston at aaronhjohnston@gmail.com or call (540) 236-8505 for further details.

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“It is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.” — Wendell Berry.

This spring New Community Project held our first Permaculture Design Course. This 72-hour certification course was headquartered at our new Sustainable Living Center, at 715 N. Main St. in Harrisonburg and featured site tours of Radical Roots Community Farm in Keezletown, Polyface Farm in Swoope, Stone Soup Books in Waynesboro, The Seed Community Garden in Staunton as well as several home sites. 24 students from within the Shenandoah Valley participated.

Based on patterns and processes of ecological systems, permaculture is the art and science of creating healthy and resilient human environments abundant in food, water, shelter, energy, and community. The course focused specifically on exploring sustainability strategies for the Shenandoah Valley, and participants emerged as a thriving practitioner network, each with the ability to design and build gardens, homes, and communities modeled on living ecosystems.

This ecological design course featured lectures and workshops on permaculture ethics and philosophy with Adam Campbell (NCP) and Meghan Williamson (Staunton Creative Community Fund), ecological system understanding and edible forest gardening with Tom Benevento (NCP), organic food production and design concepts and techniques with Dave O’Neill (Radical Roots Farm), natural soil improvement with Wayne Teel (JMU), healthy buildings and human settlements with Ted Butchart (Virginia Natural Health), local economies with Mary Katharine Froehlich (Stone Soup Books), and mushroom cultivation with Mark Jones (Sharondale Farm), to name a few.

Concluding the course students presented their final designs! Using the skills, techniques, and teams that began forming last February, they worked with Shenandoah Valley families and residents to design home-scale permaculture systems throughout the Valley.

Many thanks to the graduating class of the NCP Permaculture Design Course 2011! We learned as much from you as we hoped to teach. Congratulations, and many more wonderful projects and workshops to come!

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Thanks to all the volunteers that made our Workday Kickoff Celebration a success!! On Friday and Saturday Nov 19-20 over 70 volunteers dug garden beds, removed sidewalks, framed walls and installed floors at the new Sustainable Living Center! Thanks for your support in kicking off this great community project. Now we will continue to need volunteers and donations in order to finish the project by spring. If you are interested in volunteer opportunities or would like to know how you can help out please contact Aaron Johnston at aaronhjohnston@gmail.com

Volunteers needed! @ NCP Sustainable Living Center and Urban Farm

What we will do:

• Build interior walls
• Prep garden beds for next season
• Level the floor in the living/ dining rooms
• Reframe the windows on the front of the house
• Reinforcing the exterior wall
• Have a great meal together
• Relocate an exterior door
• Permaculture design work
• Celebrate the kickoff of the Sustainable Living Center!!!!

More Info:

New Community Project needs volunteers to help create Harrisonburg’s first Sustainable Living Center and Urban Farm at 715 N. Main Street. The center is both a supportive urban homestead for those in need in our community and an experiential learning site for the broader public. Our goal is to link sustainable living practices and social justice concerns as the foundation for community building and peacemaking. The site demonstrates and experiments in permaculture design, organic gardening techniques, energy efficiency, solar energy, low carbon foot print, water catchment, green technologies, and ecosystem restoration. We are currently remodeling the house on our site and need your support. We need volunteers to build walls, install electric and plumbing, build kitchen cabinets, refinish floors, install drywall, paint, provide food, tile floors and clean. We also need donations to purchase building materials!

Contact Us:

If you are interested in supporting this work by volunteering please contact our green building coordinator Aaron Johnston at aaronhjohnston@gmail.com or call 540-236-8505

On Saturday, April 24th from 10am-1pm NCP joined members of the Kelley street community to clean up a lot that will be turned into a community garden. If you’re interested in helping out in the future, email NCPHarrisonburg@gmail.com

1) Home-scale Mushroom Growing Workshop – Mark Jones from Cismont facilitated a home-scale mushroom growing workshop at the OCP. About 10 people attended and we learned many cool ways to grow mushrooms. Turns out it’s pretty easy! Stay posted for more workshops with Mark. Check out his website here: www.sharondalefarm.com

2) Home-scale Greenhouse Building Workshop – In 4 hours, a team of 12 people built a home-scale sized greenhouse from scratch! These greenhouses are easy and cheap to build. We’ll be doing more greenhouse workshops in the future. Stay posted for future workshop dates.

from Tom and Beth

Any good organic gardener will tell you that the key to a successful garden is good, healthy soil. A healthy soil is home to an abundance of nutrients, minerals and living organisms that make plants strong. Strong plants are less susceptible to pests and disease and are more likely to grow faster and produce more food. All of the bugs, worms, and microorganisms make up about half of soil’s weight. We depend on them to survive.

As spring approaches, now is the time to start thinking about your garden. Here are a few examples of things that we do at New Community Project’s Muddy Bike Urban Garden to build healthy soil, conserve water, have fewer weeds, and allow nature to do some of the work for us!

When designing our garden beds, we try to use nature as our example. One thing that nature teaches us is that plants do not grow in rows. Because of this, we design keyholes into our pathways, which create unique and beautiful gardens!

Keyhole design allows for a clear distinction between path and garden bed, keeping us off the beds so they stay nice and fluffy. It also allows us to access more of the garden with less path and works with the ergonomics of our bodies so that we aren’t straining to bend and lean as much. Keyhole gardens can be designed like many patterns found in nature—or design one of your own!

Another technique that we use a lot is sheet mulching or lasagna gardening. We love it because it protects and uses the natural function of worms and microorganisms to break down organic matter. Sheet mulching also utilizes materials and resources that are often thrown to the wayside. Finally, sheet mulching conserves water, reduces weeding significantly and is composting right in the garden, saving us lots of time!

Step-by-step guide to building sheet-mulched garden beds:

• Once a design has been made, use a shovel or other tool to break up the top layer of soil and grass. This loosens the soil for plant roots to enter, helps with water percolation and fluffs it with oxygen.
• After you have formed your beds, apply a 1-2 inch layer of compost, manure or any “green” materials (food scraps, green grass clippings). We recommend compost if building in the spring and manure in the fall so the manure has time to break down before planting. (Droppings from our rabbits are a ready source of nutrients for our gardens.) Water well, so that it feels like a wrung out sponge.
• Next, lay down a layer of cardboard or newspaper over the entire bed space. Make sure not to leave any gaps and to overlap pieces by at least 6 inches. Water well.
• Finally, lay down a thick layer of leaf mulch, straw, wood chips or any “brown” materials. This should be 6-8 inches thick. Water well.

When it is time to plant, part your brown materials, cut through the cardboard or newspaper (although if you do this in the Fall, the earth life has done this for you by Spring), and plant away!

Finding lots of materials is important. Our city has a fall leaf pickup where material is mulched and free for city residents. Check with your city to see if they do the same. Cardboard is everywhere! Save your own and build relationships with nearby restaurants and grocery stores to collect cardboard. They are usually more than happy to give it away. Build connections with local farmers too. They are often desperate for someone to collect manure. Collecting all of your materials before you begin is key to sheet mulching.

We have been extremely satisfied with the results from sheet mulched gardens. By mimicking the way nature works, we are allowing her to continue to heal and help us create beauty with functionality. In the end, it can be healing for ourselves too. Happy gardening!