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Derek Downey 's Profile
Derek Downey
Details
Joined:
28/08/2013
Last Updated:
31/12/2013
Location:
Davis, CA, United States
Climate Zone:
Mediterranean
Gender:
Male
Web site:
www.beelovepermaculture.org





My Projects

(projects i'm involved in)


Followers
Glory Warner Matt Briggs Ryan Holm Steve Nyholm
Following
Geoff Lawton Glory Warner
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About Derek Downey

I'm a permaculture educator, designer, and consultant based in the 60 acre suburban food forest of Village Homes in Davis, CA. I teach permaculture and related topics through Bee Love School of Permaculture. I also manage Davis Bee Charmers, a small local business dedicated to providing services and solutions to the bee crisis and have taught hundreds of people how to keep bees without chemicals or treatments of any kind. I founded the Davis Bee Sanctuary in 2011 to cultivate a permaculture community and demonstration site showing abundant solutions to the bee and pollinator crisis, hugelkultur landscapes, food forests, medicinal herb gardens, and other elements of permaculture design applicable to the Central Valley climate and soils.

I am an active member of a number of non-profit permaculture efforts based in Davis, including the 20 acre Experimental College Community Gardens, FARM-Davis and FARM 2.6, the Davis Permaculture Guild, a Davis Transition Town effort, and Village Homes, a community of 273 homes with passive solar design, natural drainage swales, and abundant edible landscaping throughout.

In 2010-2011, I completed the 4-Seasons Permaculture Design Course at Regenerative Design Institute in Bolinas, CA with Penny Livingston. As my design project, I developed a permaculture design for the Domes at Baggins End -- a 3-acre student co-housing community in Davis, CA. In 2012, I founded Bee Love School of Permaculture and have taught permaculture workshops on topics including hugelkultur, natural beekeeping, medicine making, rocket stoves, compost production and vermiculture, chicken paddocking, and food forests. I plan to offer PDC courses in spring 2014 in Davis, CA.

In Summer 2013, I gave Geoff Lawton a tour of Village Homes, N St. CoHousing, and the Davis Bee Sanctuary. At that time, he created a free video of the Village Homes development which can be viewed at www.geofflawton.com.

I have an engineering degree from UC Davis in Biological Systems Engineering, B.S. 2009, where I focused largely on composting and anaerobic digestion systems. I worked on zero waste infrastructure at UC Davis, the Davis Farmers Market, and the City of Davis. For several years, I worked as a compost engineer / researcher at Yolo County's Innovative Composting and Anaerobic Digestion Research Projects. I also took on project management of the UC Davis Biogas Energy Project, a state-of-the-art anaerobic digestion facility that can process most types of organic waste.

I have since moved on to permaculture design as my primary life path. My primary goal is creating a permaculture research center for the Central Valley based in Davis, CA, where PDC courses are offered, demonstration gardens are created, and networking of permaculture efforts in the Central Valley is made possible.

Updates

PDC Course in Village Homes, Davis, CA Spring 2014

I will be offerring a 12 week (1 day per week) PDC course in Spring 2014 in the permaculture paradise of Village Homes, a passive solar community of 273 homes in Davis, CA. Course details will be available soon. Those interested can notify Bee Love and

Posted about 10 years ago (0 comments)
My Badges
Consultant Aid worker Pdc teacher I'm male, single, and looking for a permaculture partner
My Permaculture Qualifications
Unverified
Four Seasons Permaculture Design Course
Type: Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course
Teacher: Penny Livingston-Stark
Location: Regenerative Design Institute, Bolinas, CA
Date: Nov 2010
0 PDC Graduates (list)
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have acknowledged being taught by Derek Downey
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Climate Zones
Derek Downey has permaculture experience in:
Cool Temperate
Warm Temperate
Mediterranean

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