PERMACULTURE LAND TRUST NEWSLETTER - FALL 2026
Autumn Equinox and Harvest Moon
As the seasons change, together with our community of friends and collaborators we are celebrating the harvest, welcoming the transition to winter, and taking time for reflection about how our land trust can best serve the community of life to which we belong.
Here are some of the goings-on as we round the bend into Fall:
Northeast
New York Paw Paw Festival (NY) - PLT co-director Andrew Faust is a guest speaker at the very first NY PawPaw festival this coming weekend at Magic Forest Farm near Albany NY.
Our First Permaculture Forest Garden on Public Land (NY) – Join us for a Food Forest Planting Day in Bob Mangles Park at Dewitt and Webster Streets in Ellenville NY – Saturday, October 17, 2026 (11AM - 3PM). If you are interested in volunteering for this event, please RSVP to andrewfaust12@gmail.com.
Permaculture Land Trust’s Andrew Faust and the Town of Wawarsing are teaming up with New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Hudson River Estuary Management Program and the NYS Water Resources Institute to plant 150 curated native trees and shrubs in the town’s Bob Mangles Park along the bare banks of Sandburg Creek - a waterway in need of some love. This 8-acre site is protected by conservation easements held by DES.
The Wawarsing Watershed Educational Park will provide a legacy planting of diverse native trees and historically valuable and productive trees and berry-producing shrubs, planted in the riparian zone and floodplain of the confluence of three streams – Sandburg Creek, Beer Kill, and the Fantine Kill. We will plant a Forest Garden and create an educational park informed by the Permaculture model that blends well with and improves the local ecology, including selected varieties of regionally-appropriate nut trees, fruits, berries, fuelwood, and lumber trees; while providing improved water quality in the streams, preventing streambank erosion and adding much-needed habitat for wildlife and pollinator insects throughout the proposed planting areas. This is our first public Forest Garden of many more to come!
Mid-Atlantic
Happenings in Landenberg (PA). Dale Hendricks and Carol Curtis’ upcoming Fall Gathering will be a festive time for breaking bread and making music at their super-diverse forest garden in southeast PA.
On October 31st Dale and Carol will be hosting a workshop on Recovering Springs and Creating Small Ponds in degraded agricultural landscapes with Andrew Faust. Please contact Andrew for more information: andrewfaust12@gmail.com.
Workday with a Graftmaster (NJ). Join us for a day of co-learning and communion with a Pruning and Grafting Work Day at an incredible repository for tree crop genetics – Ted Daniecki’s Nut Grove and Fruit Orchard in Burlington County NY, with Ted as your host along with Andrew Faust. The date to be announced, and will be in late October. Please contact David Harper for more information: landincommon1@gmail.com.
Southeast
Biochar Production and Agroforestry Tour (NC). Dan Settles and Working Landscapes are hosting a biochar workshop and farm tour at Dan and Sharon Settles’ silvo pasture farm near Oxford NC on October 8.
Forest Garden Pillaging and Tour (NC). Join Permaculture Land Trust and hosts Liane Salgado and Cliff Crandell for a late-October tour of their remarkable Living Edge Forest Garden near Chapel Hill NC. This is an opportunity to participate in an annual “pillaging” where cuttings and divisions of certain species can be shared. Date to be announced. Please contact David Harper for more information: landincommon1@gmail.com.
Why All of this Matters
It is well past the time for us to begin healing the damage our modern human societies are causing to this living Mother Earth - the one mother we all share. This is our time to reforest instead of deforest; to grow more real food with regenerative, community-based agroecology and agroforestry instead of extractive industrial agriculture; to revive and care for the living soils, clean plentiful water and biodiverse ecosystems that are our inheritance; and to stop short-circuiting Earth’s small water cycles and allow them to re-set the climate balance (reducing carbon emissions is only part of the story). This is how we begin to transform our extractive culture into a truly regenerative culture – one in which life creates conditions for life. One that loves all children, of all species, for all time.
In a nutshell, PLT’s calling in our home biome - the eastern deciduous forest of North America - is to:
1) Lay the foundation for a true Agroecology / Agroforestry Commons - a commons where land is held in trust for the long-term benefit of local communities and biodiverse ecosystems.
2) Create and support Co-learning communities of beginning farmers, agro foresters, agroecologists and other allies.
3) Advance bioregional Foodsheds and supply chains, as part of local living economies.
We do this in each Bioregion and community we serve…starting with the Hudson Valley of NY, the Delaware Valley of PA/NJ, and the Triangle/Triad region of NC.
Please check out our first guide to Growing Community Food Forests in Eastern North America, and feel free to share it with family, friends and neighbors in your community. Email David Harper at landincommon1@gmail.com to order a free PDF version, or you can order printed copies here.
We invite you to get in touch with us and share what you’re up to…please feel free to add comments and share how you are moving through the completion of this growing season.
In Abundance! The Permaculture Land Trust crew – David, Andrew, Brigid, Lisa
PS - And keep an eye out for our Winter Solstice E-news update!
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