By Will Power, Maplewood Permaculture NSW
Gatherings have always been part of permaculture. Before newsletters and acronyms, people met around kitchen tables, the backyard fire pit, in the shed, or garden. Nothing new needed to be invented; it was simply about noticing what was already there and making the least change for the greatest effect.
Spreading across sixteen locations, from Oberon to the Clarence Valley, neighbours have chosen a day of the month to bump into other permaculturists at their local. Since 2022, ‘Permaculture at the Pub’ has become the working title for something that is not a formal group or event, but an idea shared. Just as you might meet friends to watch the game on a Friday night, these casual meet-ups are about soil, seeds, and curiosity.
Like fruiting bodies of a broader mycelium network of people, knowledge, and curiosity, these meet-ups appear where conditions are right: interest, availability, timing. Some may be fleeting. Others recur again and again. They are small signals of a living system of relationships, ready to sprout wherever the network is nourished.
A typical get together looks like anywhere from half a dozen to twenty or more folk catching up over what they have been up to for the last month in their garden or in the community. The first Thursday of the month is when we began meeting up in our little village of Paterson.
Certain questions come up. When does the talk start? Who is presenting? Could there be tours, seed swaps, produce shares? All familiar impulses. All well-worn permaculture ground. These have been gently set aside. Not because those things aren’t valuable, but because each addition makes the door a little heavier to open.
Requiring little, the invitation is wide. You don’t need a garden. You don’t need to be growing food or designing systems. You can arrive curious, unsure, or just wanting to see who else nearby might be thinking along similar lines. The point isn’t instruction. This space asks not for the bravado of expertise, but for the quiet care to connect. When the same rain falls on everyone at the table, the conversation tends to stay grounded in what is common.
The word “pub” can carry certain connotations, so it’s worth clarifying that alcohol is not the focus, nor will a pub setting suit everyone. In the original sense of “public house,” what matters is the idea of shared civic space. In rural towns, pubs often serve many roles: they are the local restaurant, playground, bottle shop, book club, and community hub all in one. Families can attend without needing separate childcare, and for many communities on the land, the pub is a practical venue. Some have chosen different venues or formats, and time of day, setting, and tone are all locally adaptable.
Much has been written about social systems as plainly as ecological ones. This approach grows from Mollison’s teachings about resilience arising from density of connection rather than control. Landscapes don’t hold together because they’re instructed to. Communities don’t either.
One of the most encouraging aspects has been seeing Permaculture Design Certificate students take this idea and quietly run with it. After the intensity of a PDC, there’s often a gap between finishing a course and embedding practice into daily life. These informal, recurring meet-ups have become a way for students and graduates to stay connected without creating hierarchy or obligation.
These gatherings are small gestures against the drift of disconnection, against the tendency to lose touch with the land and one another. Conversation moves between gardens and towns, knowledge passes sideways, and trust settles into the spaces people share. It is here, in the ordinary rhythm of returning to a shared table, that community grows, not through planning or instruction, but through the consistent work of connection.
Maplewood Permaculture are lead teachers on the Permaculture Design and Homesteading Certificate Course held twice-yearly in collaboration with Limestone Permaculture, in addition to providing permaculture design and consultation services.
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