PAN newsletter JULY 2026 - gratitude edition!

Hello again PAN members. Writing to first and foremost extend a big THANK YOU!! to our kind members who sent money towards our web fees. Due to a large donation from a member who prefers to remain anonymous, the fees for the year have been entirely covered. Amazing. Very grateful. 

As a fundraising idea going forward, I’m wondering if we might want to do something like I saw in a recent call out from Paul Wheaton‘s online permies forum. They sent an email with a fundraiser where for $35 you would get access to a whack of digital content that was all listed out. Made me think that something like that could potentially be an interesting fundraising option for us. Members who feel they have something they could offer, be it a discount on their products or services, access to digital videos or instructions, or really any other thing that might be of value to our community, could donate that to include with the offerings. This idea seems like a win win as it could allow us to connect even more. Just an idea! If it sparks anything in you and you think you have something you could donate to such a future fundraiser please give me a shout. 

I am writing this from a beautiful spot up on Parker Mountain near Annapolis Royal where my family rents a cottage every summer. The pic at the top of this letter is my view as I do my morning movement on the deck.. quite a magical place with it‘s large white pines, maples, white aspen & larch, surrounding a small lake.

This trip has been particularly rewarding for me, as I got to visit the permaculture paradises of two couples who are PAN members, fall into the exceptional category when it comes to their properties, and who also just happened to have donated toward the website fees!

If you ever walk around the small town of Annapolis Royal, you would have a hard time not to notice a particular small corner yard with anything but small food production going on within it. It actually spills over along the edges, where a grateful community member was harvesting black currants when I showed up. Rick and Kathy Ketcheson are longtime PAN members and supporters, and I was thrilled to have a peek around their home’s incredible garden. In the small space they have made efficient and elegant use of every square inch, with mature nut and fruit trees, overflowing berry and currant bushes, vegetables, herbs and gorgeous flowers. They explained to me their irrigation methods that help make the magic happen, including a couple sub irrigation beds where water in the bottom of large tubs is wicked up with a fabric to the root zone of the grateful plants above. They do bokashi composting onsite. I loved the story that explained the whack of baby hazelnut trees in pots, which you nut growers are probably already familiar with.. squirrels bury the nuts and then you get seedlings popping up everywhere. Ah the abundance, one of my favourite things about working with plants! I was grateful to be gifted with two of these babies to take with me. Pic of the partners in permaculture production below:)

My second garden tour of my vacation here was to blackbird hollow. I knew they were located somewhere in this area, and for the last couple years have thought about paying a visit and checking out the permaculture nursery. This time I decided to check in with Lisa and see whereabouts exactly they were, and it turns out they are indeed very close to where I am staying. I decided I had to pop over, and man am I ever glad I did. What a magical mystery tour, that included many plants I had never even heard of. Lisa and Jord shared their plant knowledge and their processes with me as I snacked my way through their veritable jungle of a food forest. So many varieties of berries and currants I had never tried before. What fun, and what an example of wild abundance. Pic of these sweet forest dwellers below:)

I also wanted to share something that a member sent me in response to what I had shared about the groups attempting to protect the land from mining and gas industry. PAN member and applied physician Troy Vom Braucke works on next generation technologies, and has connections to scientists working with a new technology that seems a promising alternative to current extraction methods. Apparently this cleaner and more efficient technology works for hydrocarbon, minerals, energy and rare earth extraction, both for recycling and virgin materials. Seems like technology we could actually use! If you are interested in this you can check out RASA’s website, and see newsletter #164 (scroll down the list) https://siomec.com/news-2026/ where Troy talks about how we can extract energy from hydrocarbons like diesel without burning it, turning it into a circular resource. 

In trying to see what all is happening in the world of permaculture lately locally that I might be able to share, I came across this initiative happening in PEI to encourage growers of perennial crops. If you are living on the island and interested in receiving some funding that could help towards growing of perennial crops you can check out the parameters of the funding here. As permaculturists we know the value of perennial crops, from food security to sequestering carbon to wildlife habitat to just being plain easier and more reliable in a less reliable climate, so it’s nice to see the government catching up with this and offering some help to those providing these products at market scale. 

That’s it for now fine folks. Hope you are up to your eyeballs in summer fun, and/or summer relaxation, and/or summer production, whatever combination of these is currently floating your boat!

Til next time, may you be happy, may you be well,

Megan Ashworth Hartlen

volunteer admin for the Permaculture Atlantic Network

located in Mi'kma'ki, unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq 

facebook               instagram

PAN website