Would you like to take your Introduction to Permaculture course at Red Sand Cottage?  Come and enjoy our gardens, animals and woodland just a few minutes walk from a beautiful beach!

We can be very flexible on dates, so get  in touch and we will tailor something just for you.  We can teach the course to a small group or you can come alone and enjoy one-to-one training and experience.  We'll cover the basic course material and then create extra activities and teaching to suit your own specific needs.  For instance, you might be interested in food preservation, dairying, coppicing, solar cooking or herbalism. 

Sandra and Fred will guide you through the course material and give you lots of tips, hints and demonstrations on eco-friendly living.   We could even show you how to make your own laundry liquid and you'll save enough cash to cover the cost of the course!  

You can stay in our camper trailer if required and share meals with us or cook for yourself.  The trailer is small & cosy   with two double sleeping areas in one room with a separate bathroom area.  It is  good for a single person, two friends or could be a good opportunity for a small  family to get to do the Permaculture Introduction Course whilst the kids tag  along!

Often the Introduction to Permaculture is a 2-day/weekend course, but at Red Sand Cottage you can take it at a more leisurely pace if you wish.  You could make a vacation of it - stay in the  trailer and have tuition in the mornings and practical hands-on sessions in the  afternoons along with free time to enjoy Prince Edward Island.

The price may vary depending upon length of stay and  extra workshops required, but as an example, the basic 12-hour workshop will cost (per person) $200 over two days or $300 over 4-5 days with free accommodation and meals and accompanying kids under 10 come free.  You will receive a certificate for the course.  Discount for couples/families.

The accommodation is basic in an old 1980s trailer, but we've done it up prettily and it's clean.  We will make you feel  welcome and comfortable when you visit our home & site.  We'll do our best  to make your permaculture experience with us an enjoyable one!

The cost of the course is for the tuition,  workshops and materials.  The accommodation and meals comes free, so we ask in return that you share the food preparation, cooking & clearing up duties and carry out some practical tasks whilst you are here to reinforce your learning.   If all this sounds good and fair to you, give us a call!

Sorry, due to the farm animals and wildlife conservation, we are unable to accommodate pets.  Due to our cold-temperate climate we can only offer courses between May-October.  This means you've still time to organise something for this year!

This little photo scrapbook is a light hearted look at where we live.  It takes a minute or so to load but (we think) worth it!

Part of our Forest Management Plan is to carry out small patch cuts in the white spruce 'monoculture' in order to enhance biodiversity.  This is a picnic glade we've cleared, one picnic table is in place, another to follow (no easy task!).  Already new species are springing up and looking strong and healthy: balsam fir, mountain ash, eastern cedar and white birch are appearing where once there was only the one species (white spruce). 

If we had left well alone for nature to take it's course, the spruce were of an age where they would start to fall in about 4-5 years time.  When light hit the forest floor, new seedlings would appear (just like we are encouraging here), but they could easily be crowded out by spruce seedlings.  This is what happened originally when this farmland was left to regenerate.  In other, newer areas of the woods, we can see this happening.  At first there are a number of different seedlings, but the older the woodland, the more these get crowded out by the spruce.

This picture shows a section of the woodland walk.  Here you can see clearly how only the tops of the spruces are green, everything else appears dead and there is no vegetation on the woodland floor.  The spruce are too close together, but it's too late at this stage to thin them, the best course of action being the patch cuts advised by the forestry consultant.

 For two people who have spent the last 20 years or so planting trees, it seems odd to be cutting some trees down, but we are now convinced that it is the best course of action for this particular woodland and we're already seeing the wildlife move in. 

As the increased light brings new species, bees and butterflies are also attracted.  Grouse have already moved in to the alder coppice and we've actually seen baby rabbits and squirrels sheltering in the brush piles we've created. 

We want and need pollinators in the forest garden, pollinators and all kinds of beneficial insects doing good work for us.  They might keep pests under control, or benefit the soil.    There are many ways to attract them by creating a welcoming ecosystem for them, i.e. by planting flowers they like.   We even had bee hives at the Romany Rest, but haven't got around to that here yet, so we decided to make a habitat for mason bees, bumble bees and other beneficial insects like butterflies and ladybugs.

Mason bees are champion pollinators!  I've read that they don't sting, or at least if they do, it's only akin to a mosquito bite.   Here's what we've made to attract them all:

This might be a bit elaborate for most people, but you can scale it down (or even up!) to suit your own needs.  I just got a bit carried away to be honest, and I enjoyed making it so much.

Doing a web search for 'Bug Hotel' brings up a few links but a few horror stories come up about bed bugs in hotels.  That is not what we're aiming at!  Try instead to search for 'Insect Hotels' and you will come up with a staggering array of inspirational ideas.  There seems to be no end to folk's artistry and creativity with these things - it's wonderful and a little bit 'addictive'!

You could start by drilling a few holes into a log or block of wood, or stuffing some bamboo, straws or hollow dried stems into a can.  Face it south or south east, about 3' off the ground for mason bees and protected at the back and sides from the weather.

A stack of old pallets stuffed with materials such as twigs, small logs, pine cones, straw, hay and dried leaves makes a good and quick hotel. 

Here is our rack card with the details of our opening hours and our summer workshop program on the reverse.
We hope to see you here!

The 'card' will flip from one side to the other.  If you would like to pause to read it for longer, just hover over the pic and click on pause :-)

We heard you could grow potatoes directly onto a lawn, cover then with straw and get great spuds!  I'm sceptical but I'll give anything a try at this stage.  We're both working absolutely flat out on a kind of permablitz with just two workers!  So anything that might just work is fair game for a try as far as I'm concerned.

I asked around on Facebook and several people said it works, so ..... I laid down some cardboard, then some potatoes, then some straw and then some seaweed.  I'm assuming that as they sprout I keep adding more straw and seaweed.

They aren't even seed potatoes as we haven't been able to find any to buy on the island, so got some local grown potatoes from last season that have started sprouting a bit.  That's it, let's see if it works!

(Just updated to show the growth that happened.  We canned/bottled the potatoes and got 15 quarts).

We love Mandala Gardens.  We had one back at the Romany Rest and it was not only beautiful but super-productive.  This is the start of the new Mandala Garden at Red Sand Cottage.

In permaculture we copy patterns found in nature.  This is mainly because nature has evolved ways to achieve maximum efficiency and efficiency = sustainability.

Often in nature we find a circular shape, and often too, a circle within a circle, i.e. in cells, flowers, fruits.

It is also common to find 'spokes' radiating out from the centre of a circle, for example a spider's web.  I like to think of this Mandala garden almost like an orange cut in half, where the segments are between the paths.  This time, right at the centre we have a herb spiral and a little pond at the bottom of it.

The Mandala isn't finished yet, but I thought you might like to have a look at the 'work in progress'.  I'll update with new pictures as we progress and as things start to grow, at which time it should take on a whole new look!

The entire Mandala garden has been re-claimed from lawn by a variety of sheet-mulching methods and layering with organic materials and then topsoil.  It is around 46' diameter and has

Normally I would use 'keyhole paths' in a Mandala garden, and I do intend to with this one, but for now the materials (edging stones) and time have been exhausted.  It can be fine-tuned next year, for now it needs to be finished and planted up ASAP.

Sculpture in the Mandala Garden

I couldn't attend one of the recent vigils, so I made this seaglass and driftwood sculpture in memory of the 'Whistler 100'.  These were the 100 sled dogs that were killed inhumanely when the dog sled business took a downturn.  It's called 'The Rainbow Bridge' and incorporates 100 pieces of seaglass (one for each dog) arranged as 'stepping stones' across the rainbow bridge.  They will not be forgotten.