The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

Born in 1974, I grew up in Ottawa and studied filmmaking in Vancouver. After school I travelled, taught English, lived in Toronto, and worked as a freelance writer. Later I settled in beautiful Wakefield, Quebec, for nine years, finding a lovely community there.

Gradually my passion for the arts was suplanted by a passion for growing food, with the tipping point happening in 2007. I had had gardens, worked on farms, and done an apprenticeship on a farm before then, but since then I've really been diving into permaculture. I did my PDC in Georgia in 2009, went to several northeast permaculture convergences, took part in an internship at Aprovecho, and of course read, read, read. I created a permaculture garden at a Waldorf school/farm, and designed a one-acre community orchard at Eco Echo prior to its planting in 2010. I also taught several intro to permaculture classes to Katimavik participants.

Currently, I am renting a house in Ottawa, bartering reduced rent in exchange for designing and implementing a permaculture plan for the 1/3 acre lot. My wife and I are also writing a business plan for a farm, and shopping for farmland for sale in the Ottawa area. We plan to start a farm in the next year. My main interest is in applying permaculture to the commercial farm scale, and demonstrating the financial viability of permaculture to commercial growers.