One way to remove the spam from the top.

Garden design meets art and sculpture meets sustainability in Sonoma California.
http://www.thelateshowgardens.org/

While not local, this is certainly a thought provoking garden show worth the time of a virtual visit for those interested.

Two good photo reviews can be found here:
http://deviantdeziner.blogspot.com/2009/09/late-show-gardens-review.html

http://www.mitchellmaher.org/lateshow/

nice. sonoma is a nice area this time o the year.

Chris—This might be of interest to you— http://commonvision.org/  as far as west-coast gardening…

October 2-4 at MA Center in Castro Valley, CA

Darren Doherty (Australia) is one of the world’s most experienced Permaculture Design professionals and teachers.  A prolific designer, Darren has developed over 1100 properties across 4 continents and has co-taught with Bill Mollison & David Holmgren (the co-originators of Permaculture) and Geoff Lawton.  In this workshop Darren will be bringing his immense experience in water design, pasture regeneration, and species selection to the MA Center to work with participants to create a working design that:

  * Rapidly improves soil fertility for the new orchards.
  * Connects rainwater catching earthworks across the landscape
  * Employs Keyline design strategies for orcahrds, paddocks, and reforestation
  * Uses cow grazing to improve soil health.
  * Plants trees within grazing patterns.
  * Develop a productive and marketable agroforestry system

That was an interesting link Piffy in a new agey, California, hippie dippy sort of way. I tend to think of myself as more of an ornamental gardener than a food, agriculture type. Funny though how perennial food plants sneak into the garden all the time. Even more so now that it is a hot gardening trend.

There is some annual organic/permaculture school down in Mills River I think. I remember reading about it and thinking it would be a good thing to check out. With the possible scenario the future holds, this land I am on may need to go into much higher production. Right now the blueberries, apples, peaches and vegetables are a large supplement to dependence on other sources.