I am Irene Verbeek. I own zelfvoorzienend-leven.startpagina.nl and permacultuur.startpagina.nl, the first site about selfsustainability, the second about permaculture. Both sites contain a list of the best websites I could find about each subject. Apart from this I did the 72 hour PDC-course at Kasteel Nieuwenhoven. Since 19-09-2011 I have access to a small part of land (10 by 50 meters) on which I can start an permaculture garden. I want to design a garden and start planting trees and bushes the winter of 2011/2012 to start this garden.

A friend of mine knew I was interested in organic farming and ecology, and told me in 2006 that permaculture might be interesting for me. Since I worked for Startpagina.nl I read a lot about the subject and immediately started permacultuur.startpagina.nl out of interest. In the summer of 2010 I found the time and money to start the 72 hour PDC, although the course luckily took more houres.

At this time I have (finally) been able to find a piece of land on which I can start a permaculture garden. The land has not been used for the last 18 (!) years, and the neighbours do not use any pesticides. I am allowed to use it until the owners are allowed to build on it, which hopefully for me will not be very soon. Luckily my expectation are good: It is not likely a building permit will be given the next 10 years. On this land I want to experiment with permaculture, to practise and finaly to show people what is possible.