This site is not the official PFAF website, which is still www.pfaf.org .

One of our trustees, Chris Marsh, is giving a presentation on Plants For A Future on Saturday 17 October at the Permaculture Association (Britain) AGM.

You can see the presentation here:

• 091017presentation.htm (works best using Internet Explorer)
• or downloadable PPT format

Comments welcome to chris_e_marsh@hotmail.com

Discussion following the Presentation
report back by Chris Marsh

The presentation went smoothly and excited a lot of interest. Specific queries included:

• A number of people asked about whether the special plants are available, and I related the history and said ‘not currently’ but we are keen to see what interest and ideas the Research and Survey report generates.

• Someone pointed out that The Field was potentially an important teaching resource, and asked if it had been used for that. I replied that it had been, and there is someone who occasionally takes groups of children to the site, but the site needs to be better maintained and have better facilities for courses to be run there.

• That discussion led to another, related question about how the site itself was going to be safeguarded. I had to touch on the difficulties over ownership and management, which led to the suggestion that we find some other group or charity to buy it and take it over.

• One person asked if the mapping and surveying methods which have been used could be made available on the new website, and I’m sure we would want to do that.

• Someone made an appeal that Plants For A Future should keep to vegan-organics, since the logic of vegan food is sound, and potentially very useful for food growing in an urban environment.

• There was an interesting question on the website and database redevelopment, some of which was too technical for my limited understanding. What I picked up on was the need to provide the database to users in such a way that it can be kept up to date, and so that users can feed into it, and I replied saying that this is the kind of thinking which led to the decision to have the whole system redeveloped, new facilities added and the contents updated and enhanced. The questioner emailed me afterwards and I passed on his email. Another point he made was how valuable the database is as an educational resource and he suggested there should be special licensing for educational use.

• My mention of brambles on the site making access difficult in some areas generated a lively discussion. Someone with two acres of woodland in Hertfordshire needs to get rid of his brambles and has consulted all and sundry about how to do this. Several people said 'Bramble jelly!' and the questioner said, 'Fine for a hedge but not my whole site.' Variants of slash and burn or bring in the horses, goats, pigs etc. poured forth from various individuals, and the questioner had had similar advice from advisors from English Nature. I had no suggestion to offer from our experience at The Field besides saying that it was only in certain areas that we had a problem with brambles, and had to hack in to reach some of the special plants. The questioner then declared that he had found a solution from The Lost Science of Organic Cultivation, originally by Albert Howard: Light! – or excluding it – is the key. I responded with what Carol Wellwood has said about experimenting with the benefits to fruit yields of letting light back in selectively. Evidently one has to balance the benefits and risks of shelter with those of excluding light.

There was a workshop later in the afternoon on PAB’s project concerned with research into sustainable land use. They aim to collect information on best practice and experience on companion planting etc. from projects which have employed permaculture design and methods, and from other interesting experiments and projects, seeking partners and collaborators in academia and in the wider world. It is obvious that PFAF and The Field can be brought into the PAB investigation – fortunately we have two trustees in common!

This site was acquired as a holding site for the domain name plantsforafuture.org.uk, has been used for news and information about the Plants for A Future Charity (available here for April 2008 to 1 January 2009), then for an occasionally updated blog at http://blogs.plantsforafuture.org.uk .

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