Meet our Permaculture Educators!
Gavin Hardy - Course coordinator, Foundations & Design
Gav comes from Boorloo (Perth) and has been involved with the Farm since 1996 and has had many roles including Management Committee coordinator, teacher and project manager, and now works as the Farm's Adult Education Coordinator. He completed a Permaculture Design Course with Bill Mollison in the 1990s, and has many years of experience in subtropical urban permaculture. He facilitates community planning days, coordinates a garden coaching outreach team and runs workshops in tree pruning, balcony gardening and permaculture foundations. Gav has a passion for community agroforestry and has traveled to and researched some of the world's best community-based food forests and orchards. He developed EcoFlat Brisbane which is featured on the David Holmgren’s Retrosuburbia website. Gav is focused on bringing dynamic real-world educational experiences into the communities he works with. He has a broad background in mining and construction engineering, landscape architecture and food growing.
Toad Dell - Social Permaculture
Toad (they/them/it) is an Irish/English settler living on unceded land of the Kombumerri People. Co-founder of PermaQueer, board member of Permaculture Australia, Small Giants MBE Alumni and community organiser. They are deeply committed and passionate about using permaculture education to help break up the hegemony and reliance upon cultural systems of violence and use queer theory, trauma informed design and ecological systems thinking in pursuit of this goal. Their work exists in the intersection of community, economy and ecological health, and justice working on projects that restore health and resilience to all components, not one at the sake of the others.
Doreen Jachman - Animals and Trees
Doreen grew up in a small village south of Berlin in former communist East Germany. It was common practice that people would have a food garden and raise animals for milk, eggs and meat. From an early age she started to grow fruit and vegetables and take up a quarter of her parents 1000sqm property and created an ecologically well-functioning food garden that had many medicinal flowers integrated with the food producing crops. During her early teenage years, she volunteered at the locally renowned Saxdorfer Pfarrgarten, where she furthered her study on plants and garden techniques. Doreen has gained formal education in Environmental Monitoring of Soil and Water and achieved a Bachelor in Horticulture as well as completed a Certificate 4 in Training and Assessment and has completed various other courses. Doreen is dedicated to sharing her knowledge and expertise to help others create nourished landscapes.
Michael Wardle - Cultivated Ecology
Michael is a father of 4, and the Principle and Director of Savour Soil Permaculture. He began his permaculture journey about 25 years ago, doing his first PDC with Milkwood and having since done 13 PDCs as a student, 4 teacher trainers and 8 more ‘advanced’ permaculture courses. Michael also studied horticulture at TAFE. Through his learning, he came to find his passion for teaching. Michael is the former Adult Education Coordinator at NSCF and is the community gardens coordinator at the University of Queensland. He now applies permaculture design principles and ethics to his workplace and community, as well as in his professional and personal life. He has been fortunate to apply the design process on over 300 sites over the last 10 years and aspires to be as inspirational and practical as his teachers. Michael continues to do other courses and research to advance his knowledge and increase the value he provides in his teaching, projects and consultations.
Barb Ford - Energy and Technology
Barb started her Permaculture journey in 1992 with a PDC at Crystal Waters and has since done advanced courses, teacher training, and a Diploma of Horticulture. She has taught various parts of the PDC at Northey Street over a number of years and has a particular interest in appropriate technology, especially solar cooking. While her experience has been mainly urban, she has volunteered on organic and permaculture properties in rural Australia, France and Kenya.
AJ - Soil & Water
AJ grew up in Magandjin but never really stopped growing. He has been a gardener for six years, experimenting with the elements to bring more life into the world. After being introduced to permaculture at Northey Street City Farm, AJ shifted his perspective from plants to ecosystems and started thinking up more effective ways to support the community. He started working at the City Farm Nursery in 2023 where he learned to propagate and provide, two years later he joined the compost hub to turn community waste into soil to grow from, and then he began working in youth & adult education to share his passion with those who want to learn how to grow and find their niche. AJ completed a PDC at Northey Street in 2022 and will be taking part in the Crystal Waters PDC in August. He has built up a broad foundational understanding of nature, soil and water from experience and exploration.
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