Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond by Brad Lancaster

Spring 2020 - Permaculture Design Course, Tucson, AZ
2020-02-08
Dates for the the upcoming Spring 2020 course are the following five weekends:
-February 8th and 9th
-February 15th and 16th
-February 29th and March 1st
-March 14th and 15th
-March 21st and 22nd
Generally, class runs from 9AM to 5:30 PM each day. The cost for the course is $785. There is an OPTIONAL textbook cost of about $42 for a copy of Introduction to Permaculture by Bill Mollison, available on the Internet, but it is not required. You will be able to complete the course with just the 175 page notebook supplied as part of the course fee. Also highly recommended is Brad Lancaster’s Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 3rd Edition. A limited number of partial scholarships are available to cover the course fee.
For more information see here

Borderlands Regional Watershed Restoration Practitioners Workshop - Arivaca, AZ
2020-02-08 - 2020-02-09
Saturday and Sunday, February 8-9, 2020 in Arivaca, AZ
Hosted by the Altar Valley Conservation Alliance

Sponsored by the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife program

Join other practitioners such as Steve Carson of Rangeland Hands, Brad Lancaster of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Jeff Rhody and Omar Ore-Giron of Dryland Designs, and many more in the Southwest borderlands region to design and implement treatments for drainages and begin aligning professional approaches and strategies specific to our region. The hands-on work emphasis will be on the uplands of dryland watersheds.

At the workshop, we will:

Treat drainages on the Noon Ranch to encourage infiltration and native plant growth, slow erosion, and move toward connecting channels with the floodplain

Strengthen connections among practitioners in our region working in urban, suburban, and rural contexts to grow our awareness of a community of practitioners

Discuss the following concepts among practitioners:

Strategies, approaches, terminology, reading the landscape, and best practices for treating drainages and uplands

Designing work according to various land management goals (e.g., designing for cattle use, wildlife habitat, recreation, etc.)

Links between rural/wildland work, road work, and urban work

Materials, resources, and activities needed to improve professional capacity and the overall quality of work in our region

Using these practices to support local economies in restoring watersheds and developing provisioning economies/food systems

Incorporate materials and lessons learned into the Altar Valley Watershed Plan and other planning efforts

All practitioners and aspiring practitioners are welcome to join the workshop, so please forward this invitation to whomever may be interested! The draft agenda is attached; please plan to bring your own lunches and tools. All are welcome to participate in a potluck dinner and campout near the Noon Ranch on Saturday night!

Please RSVP here!

Water Harvesting Presentation, Book Release & Signing with Brad Lancaster - Phoenix, AZ
2020-01-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Phoenix)
WHERE: University of Arizona Maricopa County Cooperative Extension, Palo Verde Room
4341 E. Broadway Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85040
WHEN: 7:00pm, Friday, January 24th
COST: Free

Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster for an evening of storytelling, celebration, and interaction as he shares new evolutions of inexpensive and highly effective strategies, policies, and practices that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.

All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond in a way that collaborates with, rather than fights, the living systems that sustain us.

Stories and highlights from the newly released & revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books will be featured.

Brad will also be doing book signing, and a limited number of the newly released full-color, revised & expanded editions of Brad’s books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.

Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers will also be available for purchase.

ReEnlivening, ReWilding, & ReHydrating Our Communities presentation with Brad Lancaster - Tempe, AZ
2020-01-17 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 12 noon to 1:15pm, Friday, January 17, 2020
WHERE: Wrigley Hall, Room 481
Arizona State University, Tempe campus
COST: Free – if you preregister
REGISTER NOW: Here
HOST: JulieAnn Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University
Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster, as he shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.
All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond will be featured.
There will be a book signing immediately following the lecture.
A limited number of books will be available for purchase for at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.
A light lunch will be served – but you must preregister here.

Water Harvesting Book Release, Talk, and Book Signing with Brad Lancaster - Phoenix, AZ
2020-01-16 19:00 - 20:30 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 7:00pm, Thursday, January 16
WHERE: Changing Hands Bookstore, 300 W Camelback Rd., Phoenix, AZ 85013
COST: Free
Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster, as he shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.
All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books
will be featured.
There will be a book signing immediately following the lecture.
A limited number of books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.
Brad will also have Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers available for purchase.

Water Harvesting Book Release, Interactive Presentation, & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster - Tucson, AZ
2020-01-15 18:30 - 20:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 6:30 pm, Wednesday, January 15th
WHERE: EXO Roast & Bar, 403 N 6th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: Free

Join award-winning author, Brad Lancaster for an evening of storytelling, celebration, and interaction as he shares new evolutions of inexpensive and highly effective strategies, policies, and practices that make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater, storm water, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more.

All can be implemented at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood and beyond in a way that collaborates with, rather than fights, the living systems that sustain us.

Stories and highlights from the newly released & revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books will be featured.

Brad will also be doing book signing, and a limited number of books will be available for purchase at deep discount on a first come, first serve basis.

Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers will also be available for purchase.

Guided Water-Harvesting Home & Neighborhood Tour with Brad Lancaster - Tucson, AZ
2019-12-21 10:00 - 12:00 (America/Phoenix)
WHEN: 10am – 12pm, Saturday, December 21, 2020
WHERE: 813 N. 9th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705
COST: $10 per person. Must pay/register in advance. No-shows cannot be refunded.
Limited number of spaces. First paid, first served.

Number of home tour attendees

One person $10.00 USDTwo people $20.00 USDThree people $30.00 USDFour people $40.00 USDFive people $50.00 USD

Come tour with the guy who wrote the books on water harvesting and more!
Brad Lancaster, author of the just released, full-color, revised editions of his award-winning books “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2” will guide this tour of he and his brother’s family’s water-harvesting & landscape design award-winning 1/8th-acre urban property and surrounding neighborhood.

100,000 gallons of rain and stormwater is harvested annually on the property and in the adjoining public right-of-way. You’ll see examples of:
• an integrated “tiny house” where a one-car garage was converted into a cottage or “garottage” that passive heats and cools itself for free with well-designed winter sun access & summer shading. 75% of its building materials were salvaged from the waste stream;
• solar cooking, solar water heating, and solar power;
• legal & inexpensive site-built composting toilets, which helped legalize such toilets state-wide;
• organic gardens getting 95+% of their irrigation needs met by harvested rainwater;
• inexpensive gravity-fed rainwater harvesting systems providing safe & delicious rainwater for all domestic needs including drinking – with no expensive pumps or mechanical filtration systems;
• extensive gravity-fed greywater harvesting systems turning “waste” waters into resource waters.
• how a joyous 20 plus-years of car-free life has been possible (cargo bicycle is key), and saves over $8,000 annually
In the neighborhood part of the tour you’ll see:
• water-harvesting traffic-calming features that helped turn a dangerous streets into a welcoming bicycle boulevards,
• street-runoff harvesting strategies that use street runoff to freely irrigate street trees and control flooding – and new evolutions improvements on these strategies
• learn how these once “pre-legal” street runoff-harvesting strategies were legalized, rebated, and mandated
• native food forests doubling as wildlife and pollinator corridors that canopy over public foot paths,
• how an annual neighborhood rain and tree planting effort has resulted in the planting of over 1,500 trees and hundreds of understory plants in the neighborhood
• how a county grant helped pay for water-harvesting strategies harvesting over 1 million gallons of annual stormwater in and along the streets
• how a neighborhood-organized Neighborhood Foresters program is training up the neighborhood to steward these features and is implementing more.
• public art & other strategies reclaiming the commons for more life!

Just in time for the holidays – Brad will also be selling (at deep discount) & signing copies of the just released & revised, full-color editions of his award-winning books; and Plant the Rain t-shirts, caps, and stickers.
https://www.harvestingrainwater.com/shop/

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Las Vegas, NV
2019-12-02 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Monday, December 2, 6:00pm
Place: University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, Lifelong Learning Center, Classrooms A, C, D
850 Paradise Road #105, Las Vegas, NV 89123
Cost: FREE
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning
books, and Desert Harvesters’ Eat Mesquite and More will be featured. And the books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Flyer for Brad Lancaster presentation in Las Vegas

ARCSA Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada
2019-12-02 - 2019-12-05
Brad will be presenting at the conference Dec. 3 at 1pm.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the presentation:
Plant the Rain, Recycle Your Drain Water, and Save Energy; While Growing Resilience, Abundance, and Joy
by Brad Lancaster, author of Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, and HarvestingRainwater.com

In most communities – even dryland communities more rain falls (for free) on the community than all its citizens consume of municipal water. Thus the potential of harvesting rainwater is huge, especially when one considers the energy and monetary costs of pumping and transporting water. 20% of the state of California’s energy consumption goes to transporting and treating water. In the City of Tucson it is over 44%.
Water-harvesting potential and energy savings dramatically increase still more when you integrate it with the recycling of once-used water, or greywater. You don’t need to buy tanks, pumps, and filters—you can grow them in a way that heats buildings in winter and cools them in summer for free. Gravity-fed systems and pipeless systems can also be utilized which never fail from power outages or leaks.
Integrating water-harvesting with flood control takes things even further, by shifting the focus from drainage to infiltration—results in millions of dollars saved per project, enhanced quality of life, and more income for cities and businesses.
Bleak streets and parking lots of exposed pavement can become street food forests and parking orchards irrigated with nothing more than the stormwater from the hardscape. Storm drains become storm parks. Crime drops, the heat-island effect becomes the cool-island effect, and life flourishes. This is available to us all everywhere if we make a simple mental shift. Numerous case studies and strategies to be shared, along with Water-Energy-Carbon Nexus charts for at-home perusal comparing the energy consumption of various sources of water, water needs of various energy sources (that may be used to pump or treat that water), and the carbon emitted by the water and energy sources.

For more info on the conference see:
https://www.arcsa.org/event/2019conference

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Silver City, NM
2019-11-19 18:00 - 19:30 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Tuesday, November 19th, 6:00pm
Place: El Sol Theatre, 406 N. Bullard Street, Silver City, NM 88061
Bring a blanket – wonderful old theater can be cold
Cost: $5 suggested donation,
though no one turned away due to lack of funds
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning
books will be featured. And the books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Book tour flyer 2019 Silver City

Water Harvesting Presentation & Book Signing with Brad Lancaster in Truth or Consequences, NM
2019-11-10 16:30 - 17:30 (America/Denver)
Date and time: Sunday, November 10 – 4:30 pm
Place: Truth or Consequences Brewery
410 N. Broadway, Truth or Consequences, NM 87901
Cost: FREE
Turn water scarcity into abundance!
This dynamic presentation shares inexpensive, and highly effective, strategies that
make the most of free on-site resources—such as the harvest of rainwater,
stormwater, greywater, air conditioning condensate, and more. You can implement all
at home, in your landscape, your neighborhood, and beyond with numerous benefits
such as flood control; reduced bills; local food production; beauty; street tree orchards;
wildlife habitat; regenerating the flows of springs, creeks, wetlands, and rivers;
community-building; and joy.
Stories and highlights from the newly revised, full-color editions of Brad’s award-winning books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond will be featured. The books will be available for sale at deep discount!
Book tour flyer 2019 Truth or Consequences

Localizing California Waters: Integrated Water Solutions For Healthy Communities
2019-11-05 - 2019-11-08
Where: Rush Creek & Evergreen Lodges in Yosemite, California
The Localizing California Waters (LCW) Conference connects unlikely allies towards the broader goal of water management throughout California by discussing local water approaches in an intimate setting.
LCW breaks down barriers to alignment through presentations, round table discussions, workshops and information networking to work towards an outcome of innovative solutions to local and global climate challenges by advancing local water policy and enacting best water management practices at an accelerated pace.
This year, we’re focusing on activating the Water Portfolio.
For more info see:
https://localizingcaliforniawaters.org/

Watershed Management Group w/ Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, November 3–10, 2019 — Tucson AZ
2019-11-03 - 2019-11-10

Online Rainwater Harvesting Course
2019-10-21 - 2019-12-05
Note: Enrollment remains open until the night of October 27th.
Rainwater Harvesting Course Structure
WEEK 1 RAINWATER HARVESTING PRINCIPLES: You will share stories of people and sites that are using rainwater harvesting to enhance their lives and communities.
WEEK 2 SITE ASSESSMENT: You will discover how to analyze the rainwater resources in your climate and on your site, as well as the water requirements that you need to plan for.
WEEK 3 WATER COLLECTION STRATEGY: You will decide what features and systems to use and the reasons behind making the best choices for your site.
WEEK 4 RAINWATER HARVESTING DESIGNS: You will integrate your rainwater harvesting strategies into a wider plan that also considers the sun, plants, soils, and more.
WEEK 5 TECHNICAL SYSTEMS DETAILS: You will refine the conceptual plan you are developing to bring you closer to installing the plan on your site.
Learning Formats
You will assess your on-site rainwater resources and learn to apply a diversity of strategies to maximize their potential. This expert-led course features:

video lectures
exercises
assignments
custom made spreadsheets and templates

The course also features the work of Arizona rainwater harvesting author Brad Lancaster. Brad’s best-selling-award-winning book “Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond Volume 1″ is the textbook for the course. Brad is also the featured lecturer, alongside Andrew Millison, the course’s developer.

For more information and to register see:
https://pace.oregonstate.edu/catalog/permaculture-rainwater-harvesting-online-course

Motherload Documentary Arizona Premiere at Film Fest Tucson
2019-10-12 18:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
LOCATION:
Tucson Children’s Museum, north lawn
200 S. 6th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85701
Join proud hosts Film Fest Tucson and community partners Technicians For Sustainability, Brad Lancaster – Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Exo Roast Co., Transit Cycles, Roadrunner Bicycles, Living Streets Alliance and This Is Tucson for the Arizona premiere of the crowd-sourced cargo bike documentary, Motherload.
Motherload is a crowdsourced exploration of our cultural shift toward isolation and disconnection, what this means for the future of the planet, and how life on a cargo bike could be an antidote as experienced by scores of devotees. This film about the rise of the cargo bike and its ability to empower families to rethink their transportation in the 21st century.
Event is FREE. RSVP for your free ticket(s) here.
See movie trailer here
Brad will be there on his cargo bicycle with copies of his just released, new full-color editions of his books Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volumes 1 and 2 available for sale along with Plant the Rain shirts, caps, and bicycle stickers!

Desert Harvesters/Neighborhood Foresters Hands-On Neighborhood Tree Pruning & Mulching Workshop, September 29, 2019 - Tucson, Arizona
2019-09-29 08:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning
& Mulching Workshop
And neighborhood chipping/mulching fee for service, and neighborhood native plant delivery,
and help with planting service

Open to all

Sunday, September 29, 2019
Starts at 8 am, stay as long as you can or want
Cost: $5 suggested donation, though no one will be turned away due to lack of funds

Meet at Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard (NW corner of 11th Ave & University Blvd)
After the pruning and mulching demonstration, we will move to various parts of the neighborhood to get hands-on experience with certified arborist Aleck as we prune native food-bearing trees in our neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
This is an incredible learning opportunity as every six months we revisit and rework areas pruned so we see the effect of our good work and mistakes, thereby enabling us to improve and evolve with the expert guidance from Aleck.
Professionals can also get continued education credits for the workshop from Aleck.
Instructors:
Local certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon, The Pedaling Arborist; assisted by Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond; and Omar Ore-Giron of Native Roots Gardening and Desert Harvesters will teach participants:
– Best pruning times, techniques, and tools;
– How best to maintain City clearance standards for trees in the public right-of-way along footpaths and streets; and
– How to reuse prunings (cut up with hand tools or chipped with chipper/shredder) as an aesthetically-pleasing, water-conserving, fertility-enhancing mulch.
After the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch by Tank’s Materials/Fairfax Company.
This way the pruned biomass is recycled back into the root zone of the trees it came from. Nothing is thrown away or removed from the natural system. And we feed, rather than degrade the living soil carbon sponge.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky
into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy

Chipping and Mulching Service for Fee/Donation
In the workshop we’ll show you how to efficiently cut up prunings in mulch with hand tools, but for larger volumes of prunings we also offer a service for a minimum $20 donation whereby the prunings will be picked up by Omar and his trailer and taken to Tank’s Materials where they will be chipped and composted.
In return, Omar will bring about a 1/2 yard of finished mulch back to you from Tank’s.
(Note that the minimum donation for the service can vary based on the volume of your prunings).

Email Omar at nativeroots.az@gmail.com
We’ll also discuss other chipping/mulching services we are considering for future events.

Bring your own pruning tools, though we will provide tools for those that lack them

Come learn how you can replicate and evolve this practice to grow more healthy forests and citizen foresters in your neighborhood.
This workshop is open to, and can be attended by, EVERYONE, no matter what neighborhood you live in.
NOTE: All public rights-of-way in front of properties must maintain a minimum continuous clear walkway area 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall to make our neighborhood walkways and forests easily navigable for all. Please prune accordingly to enable this.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters and Desert Harvesters

In addition, now is a great time to plant your rain gardens to start to get them established over the cool months!
See wildflowers and native perennials with seed mixes available from Wildlands Restoration and sold at Native Seeds/SEARCH, Tucson Audubon, Spadefoot Nursery, and Desert Survivors Nurseries.
Also, this week is Desert Survivors’ Native Plant Nursery’s big fall plant sale!
This weekend the sale is for members. Tuesday on, the sale is for everyone.
See the plant appendix of the new, full-color Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, Volume 1, 3rd Edition
and ideal rain garden planting zones for the plants.

Native plant purchase, delivery, and help with planting service in Dunbar/Spring neighborhood
For a $10 per 1-gallon-sized plant fee, Brad will select, purchase, and deliver native plants for Dunbar/Spring residents, as long as you:
• you will be planting them within or beside a rain garden harvesting stormwater runoff
• you will help plant them – we’ll help you
• you agree to water and steward the plantings and their rain gardens to get the plants well- established.
You’ll need to water them at least once per week for the first year.
This is a great way to get more vibrant, living sponges, of mult-use native plants withing our community forest and public rain gardens (in public right-of-ways, round-a-bouts, chicanes, etc.)
Email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com if you are interested.

Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, March 3–10, 2019 — Tucson AZ
2019-03-03 - 2019-03-10

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation and “Eat Mesquite and More” Book Signing, November 9, 2018 — Albuquerque NM
2018-11-09 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster: Keynote Speaker at Spokane Conservation District's Farm & Food Expo, November 2, 2018 — Spokane WA
2018-11-02

Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, October 21–28, 2018 — Tucson AZ
2018-10-21 - 2018-10-28

Aleck MacKinnon, Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron & Desert Harvesters' Neighborhood Foresters Program: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree Pruning & Mulching Workshop, September 8, 2018 – Tucson, AZ
2018-09-08 08:00 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation & "Eat Mesquite and More" Booksigning, August 12, 2018 — Truth or Consequences NM
2018-08-12 17:00 - 18:30 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation & “Eat Mesquite and More” Booksigning, August 10, 2018 — Albuquerque NM
2018-08-10 16:00 - 17:00 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster of Desert Harvesters: Wild-Food Forestry Presentation & "Eat Mesquite and More" Booksigning, August 9, 2018 — Silver City NM
2018-08-09 18:30 - 19:30 (America/Los_Angeles)

Brad Lancaster, Aleck MacKinnon, Omar Ore-Giron with Desert Harvesters and Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters: FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop, February 10, 2018 — Tucson AZ
2018-02-10 09:00 - 14:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
FREE Hands-On Neighborhood Tree-Pruning & Mulching Workshop
plus, an opportunity to get your prunings chipped into mulch for an extremely reasonable donation
Neighborhood volunteer pruning crew—note the piles of fresh prunings on the curb, ready for chipping
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Starts at 9 am—stay as long as you can or want
Meet at Dunbar/Spring Community Garden/Orchard (NW corner of 11th Ave & University Blvd)
After the demonstration, we will move to various parts of the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood to get hands-on experience with Aleck as we prune native and domesticated food-bearing trees in the neighborhood’s public rights-of-way.
Instructors:
Local certified arborist Aleck MacKinnon (The Pedaling Arborist),
Brad Lancaster (Desert Harvesters and Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond), and
Omar Ore-Giron (Native Roots Landscaping)
Participants will learn:
– Best pruning times, techniques, and tools;
– Best practices to maintain City clearance standards for trees in public rights-of-way along footpaths and streets; and
– How to reuse prunings (cut up with hand tools or chipped with chipper/shredder) as an aesthetically-pleasing, water-conserving, fertility-enhancing mulch.
Immediately after the pruning, we will turn the prunings into mulch with a chipper/shredder that will be moving through the neighborhood behind the pruners.
In this way the pruned biomass is recycled back into the root zone of the trees it came from. Nothing is thrown away or removed from the natural system.
This is how to transform wasteful Brush & Bulky
into resourceful Chipped & Mulchy
Come learn how you can replicate and evolve this practice to grow more healthy forests and citizen foresters in your neighborhood.
This workshop is open to and can be attended by EVERYONE, no matter what neighborhood you live in.
NOTE: All public rights-of-way in front of properties must maintain a minimum continuous clear walkway area 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall to make our neighborhood walkways and forests easily navigable for all.
See our Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Walkability Study
Sponsored by the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters
and Desert Harvesters
Chipping Service (by donation): Turn “wastes” into resources, as you transform your prunings into mulch
Throughout the pruning-workshop day, Omar Ore-Giron will be operating a rented industrial chipper-shredder to quickly turn prunings into mulch. To cover costs he will be asking for a donation of $30 per property for those using the chipper services. This is an amazing deal, as this would ordinarily cost well over $100 per property.
Pruning Requirements and Guidelines for Neighborhood Mulching Service:
• Contact Omar (nativeroots.az@gmail.com, (520) 425-9795) by Friday, February 9, to let him know you want your prunings mulched. Suggested minimum donation is $30.
• All public rights-of-way adjoining all properties must maintain/prune a continuous clear walkway a minimum 5 feet wide and 7 feet tall, so two people can comfortably walk along the path side by side without having to duck under limbs. Violations are subject to citations from the City of Tucson.
• All piles of prunings left beside street curb (for chipping into mulch) should contain ONLY freshly pruned green limbs 3” in diameter or less.
• No old, dry dead wood will be chipped into mulch, as this dulls the chipper blades too quickly.
• Pile branches so branch butts are all facing in the same direction. This helps ensure that the pile of prunings is not tangled, but rather is orderly and therefore easy to take apart to chip into mulch.
• Wide branch “crotches” or “V’s” should be cut at their base, so the branch will fit into the chipper (no diameter can exceed 3 inches).
• All piles must be on the street curbside before chipping service arrives on site.
This is a wonderful opportunity to:
• Meet neighbors, build community, and expand your knowledge of local plants and ecology,
• Prune your trees in a way that will improve their health and reduce future need to prune,
• Make walking and bicycling in our neighborhood more convenient, enjoyable, and safe,
• Keep our trees’ useful biomass and fertility in our neighborhood,
• Increase our living soil’s ability to bioremediate/filter pollutants,
• Enhance our soil’s ability to absorb and hold onto water—lessening flooding AND reducing water bills, and
• Maximize the amount of carbon we can beneficially sequester in our soils and trees.
Bring hat, work gloves, water bottle, and pruning tools if you have them (we will also have some for those without).
If you have trees in need of some pruning, prunings in need of chipping into mulch, or would like to participate, please contact:
Omar Ore-Giron, Dunbar/Spring resident and owner of Native Roots Landscaping, at nativeroots.az@gmail.com or (520) 425-9795.

Right-of-way footpath before pruning…

…and after pruning!

EARLY-BIRD REGISTRATION ENDS for Brad Lancaster with Watershed Management Group: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, March 5–11, 2018 —Tucson AZ
2018-01-05

Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters & Desert Harvesters: 22nd Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Carbon Planting, November 18, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-11-18 07:30 - 12:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
.
.
Help green our streets and walkways with water- and mulch-harvesting rain gardens planted with native, food-bearing shade trees!
Such trees contribute to cooler neighborhood temperatures in summer; attract native song birds; reduce downstream flooding; beautify our community; sequester carbon; and clean our air, water, and soil.

Be part of the effort to amplify the oasis effect in the Dunbar/Spring neighborhood!
22nd Annual Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Rain, Tree, & Carbon Planting
Date: Saturday, November 18, 2017
Time: 7:30 am
Meeting spot: In front of 813 N 9th Ave
Description: Join Dunbar/Spring neighbors Brad Lancaster, Omar Ore-Giron, and other Neighborhood Foresters for demonstrations & training on the work we’ll do. Then help your neighbors—and get to know more of them!—as we plant rain, mulch, and trees within water-harvesting basins in the public rights-of-way along our streets.
TO GET READY…
** Sign up for Omar’s Water-Harvesting Basin-Creation Service:
Neighbor and landscaper Omar Ore-Giron is offering a water-harvesting-basin-digging service before the tree planting for just $30 per basin. This is an amazing deal! Trees planted with such basins grow to be healthier and larger, and have faster growth rates than those without such basins. Using his CanDig machine, Omar will create water-harvesting tree basins deep enough to harvest street runoff. (We’ll offer a curb-coring service the week after planting, to cut core holes in the curb, enabling to the street runoff to flow into the basins.) Omar must have all basin-digging (and coring) requests by November 12. Contact Omar at (520) 425-9795 or nativeroots.az@gmail.com to sign up to get your basin(s) dug.
** Tree-Order Deadline is Sunday, November 12!
To get your tree-order form(s): email Brad at brad@harvestingrainwater.com, or download them from www.DunbarSpring.org or the Native-Tree Order Forms page of Desert Harvesters’ website.

THIS EVENT IS A COLLABORATION OF:
Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters and Desert Harvesters

WMG with Brad Lancaster: Water-Harvesting Certification Course, October 30 – November 5, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-10-30 - 2017-11-05
Photo courtesy of watershedmg.org
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Watershed Management Group’s Water Harvesting Design Certification Course provides professionals, educators, and community organizers with comprehensive instruction in water-harvesting systems design and construction.
Through a unique combination of hands-on and classroom instruction the course provides a thorough, on-the-ground understanding of the core practices in this increasingly popular field.
Fall 2017 Course
Dates: October 30 – November 5, 2017
Times: Classes generally run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Where: Various locations around Tucson, Arizona
Early registration runs through September 5, 2017
To register and/or FMI, including meaning of certification, program requirements, cost, and a slate of recent course instructors (some of whom, e.g., Brad, will be teaching parts of the Fall 2017 course), visit WMG’s certification-course webpage.
Certification-course curriculum
The curriculum provides detailed instruction on water-harvesting systems, planning, design, and installation for retrofitting urban areas. The course includes:

In-depth site assessment and system design
Hands-on training workshops to install water-harvesting systems at public, residential, or commercial sites
Reading and homework assignments to solidify knowledge gained in hands-on workshops
Final exam to earn certification

The Water Harvesting Design Certification course is designed and administered by WMG staff with assistance from professionals who teach and implement water-harvesting practices.

Certification will teach you to:

Integrate water-harvesting systems with other design considerations (energy conservation, aesthetic design, food production, wildlife habitat, etc.)
Calculate runoff potential of catchment areas and run soil-percolation tests
Create a water budget and match water-harvesting systems with appropriate landscaping
Size, design, and build appropriate earthworks features for different applications (eg. infiltration basins, berms, swales)
Design greywater systems for laundry, bathroom sink, and bathroom shower water
Construct gravity-based greywater systems from laundry-machine wastewater to irrigate landscape
Design, size, and install plastic cisterns
Design water-harvesting systems to support small-scale food production (including earthworks design, cistern design and application, and soil improvements)
Design all of the above systems while incorporating safety and health considerations

To register and/or FMI, including meaning of certification, program requirements, cost, and a slate of recent course instructors (some of whom, e.g., Brad, will be teaching parts of the Fall 2017 course), visit WMG’s certification-course webpage.

Vail Preservation Society with Brad Lancaster: Community Event: Connect Past to Future, September 23, 2017 — Vail AZ
2017-09-23 08:00 - 11:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Connect Past to Future in Historic Vail!

Vail Store and Post Office, ca. 1935. Image courtesy of the Vail Preservation Society.
This community event is an opportunity to engage with the living history of the unique town of Vail, Arizona. Participants can choose from a variety of activities ranging from making adobe bricks, learning passive & active water-harvesting and pollinator-friendly landscaping techniques from Brad Lancaster, playing the historic game of cornhole, attending historic-preservation presentations, learning about historic-preservation trades, to touring the 1908 Old Vail Post Office and the 1935 Shrine of Santa Rita in the Desert.
There will also be an Artist & Artisan Sale and a Plant Sale going on for the duration of the morning’s events.

Date: Saturday, September 23, 2017
Time: 8–11 am

Venue: Old Vail Post Office
Address: 13105 E Colossal Cave Road, Vail, Arizona (at the corner of Old Vail Road (map))

Cost: Free

Note: In addition to teaching about water harvesting, Brad will likely be part of the tours of the Santa Rita Shrine’s still-functioning water-harvesting system from the 1930s!

For additional information: Click the flyer below &/or
send an email to vailpreservationsociety@gmail.com

Click to visit the website of the Vail Preservation Society

Brad Lancaster, Ann Audrey, Rafael de Grenade, Barbara Eiswerth, Richard Fe Tom, and Jonathan Mabry: LEAF Network's Statewide Conference: Planning, Growing & Harvesting Edible Urban Forests, September 22–24, 2017 — Tucson AZ
2017-09-22 - 2017-09-24
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Planning, Growing, and Harvesting
Edible Urban Forests
A Statewide Conference of Education, Community Involvement, and Local Tours
September 22–24, 2017
Tucson, Arizona
Presented by the LEAF Network and Tucson’s City of Gastronomy

CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
September 22
8 am – 5 pm
Methodologies and Templates for Planning, Growing, and Harvesting Edible Urban Forests
A day of education for technical and policy personnel from government, NGOs, and academic institutions and for the public. (Brad will be presenting at some point during this day and September 23)
Registration: $50
September 23
8:30 am – 4 pm
Community Engagement in Planning, Growing, and Harvesting Edible Urban Forests
A day of education and celebration for community members from Tucson and beyond. (Brad will be presenting at some point during this day and September 22)
Registration: $40
September 24
9 am – 1:15 pm
Tours of Edible Urban Forests
Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace Tour of Mission Garden
9–11 am
Registration: $10
Iskashitaa Tour of Edible Trees on the UA Campus
11:15 am – 1:15 pm
Registration: $10
Learn more and register at leafnetworkaz.org
Download the flyer here
