PDC Teaching Team

Blake Hudson is the lead designer of Organic Motion and he is passionate about changing the way society views the landscape; his mantra is to “change the world, one garden at a time”. He completed a Permaculture Design course in 2009 at Rosella Waters with Darren Doherty of Regrarians inc. He then spent many years practicing and studying permaculture with a focus on tropical ecosystems. He has particular interest in tropical plants and is always adding new varieties to his living database. Blake conceived Organic Motion (OM) in 2009 as he saw there was an clear need in his local community for local home grown food systems. Putting his permaculture studies into use in a very practical way he is doing his part to help the earth.

Blake also has a background in multimedia design and produces high quality graphics and 3d renderings for our Custom Designs & Manuals. ​Combining his multimedia skills and the understanding of living systems, he has balanced the art and science of permaculture to illustrate quality landscape designs to his clients, which are ultimately installed through his landscaping services or through facilitating workshops.

Blake teaches multimedia skills as well as hands on workshops for permaculture gardening including natural building using earth bag. He is also our resident ‘Rocket Stove’ creator.

As one of the teachers for our annual PDC, Blake will be sharing his knowledge to effectively take a landscape vision convert it into a plan which are to scale and geographically referenced. Blake will share some useful technology skills for practical design illustrations as well as paper to pen for your group design project. He will be offering a toolkit of hints and tips to get you started in designing stunning landscape designs.

When he’s not creating functional and organic permaculture gardens for the tropical climate, he can be found exploring and delving into the patterns of nature to present the geometry and imagery in his visual projection mapping projects with Culture Mechanics.

Tonielle is a designer focused on improving the wellbeing of people and landscapes to generate abundance and efficiency. She says, “As designers, we are ‘placemaking’ for connection between people and their landscape to promote health, happiness and wellbeing, through design processes, planning and management. Functional features in appropriate placement, strengthens the capacity to have diverse and strong relationships, socially and respectfully with environment, which is essentially our true nature”.

Although she engages in the creative concept design sessions with her team, she focuses more on the report writing, education and research. As the driver of the ‘educate’ aspect of Organic Motion (OM), she is a qualified trainer and assessor and co-ordinates events for various workshops and courses, facilitated by the OM team or hosted associates.

In the past, she has facilitated regional recycling projects, worked for conservation groups, organised protest events for Coal Seam gas awareness and assisted a company to establish carbon trading units for improving soil carbon through sustainable farming practices.

She has studied her PDC with Darren Doherty from Regen Ag, Permaculture Landscaping and Consultation with Geoff Lawton and Nick Huggins, Dynamic Governance and Decision Making with Robin Clayfield, and Permaculture Teacher Training with Robyn Francis.

She is an advocate for ‘Sociocracy’ which is permaculture designed social systems and explores this in her work with community facilitation, using this effective framework for decision making and dynamic governance.

Ready to disrupt old paradigms, she’s keen to see the emerging ‘whole systems’ design movement to bridge grass-roots community with governmental decision making.

Tonielle main love is in the garden with plants and kitchen with fresh ingredients. She wrote the ‘Incredible Edible Tropical Superfood Guide’ to support people in their growing journey and facilitates a 1-day workshop that demonstrates how to grow and eat produce suited to tropical climates for health and wellbeing.

From bush kid to beach bum and now forest dweller, she’s always had an affinity for living close to nature and always returned after stints in the city, on the ocean and travelling abroad.

Jay Jackson is the frontman of Organic Motion; always ready to face challenges and find solutions. An average guy from a rough upbringing pushed through younger years rebelling against the system he was born to change. From a tradie background he knew there had to be more to life and so looked for that special something. That’s when he found permaculture and later co-founded Organic Motion with Blake Hudson. Finding fulfillment in every landscape Jay now happily and confidently handles life as one big (ever-changing) design. He lives to share joy in life!

Jay is our project manager and ensures the landscape designs meet clients visions, obtain on ground outcomes and does all the puzzle work of managing . His gregarious nature and positive inter-personal skills are what our clients and students affectionately remember. His ability to achieve the ‘big picture’ and finesse the details whilst managing stakeholders along the way is why he drives the ‘create’ aspect of Organic Motion. Working hands-on with landscape designs and providing one-on-one coaching sees Jay continuously pushing the OM team to new heights!

In the past Jay has been influential on the committee for different community groups, ran dozens of public workshops and travelled 6 countries to gain experience and see examples of permaculture landscapes. Jay has established community gardens in Townsville and Cairns which he currently coordinates at the James Cook University Cairns campus. Bridging from being a painter in the building industry, Jay spent several years working as project officer in natural resource management leading him into a deeper understanding of conservation and land management, which he blends into his design and consultancy work. An avid story-teller and nature lover will make for some great yarns after the days sessions.

She also manages her 80 acre Barronook farm on the border of the wet and dry tropics. She facilitates day courses on animal husbandry, all while being a full time mother of her 8 month old daughter! Students will be touring Madi’s farm in the PDC!

One day a few years ago, Madi looked around and realised she was in supremely happy place; part-time gardening specialist teacher and full-time mother and manager of her own 80 acre tropical farm on the Cairns Hinterland. She had also begun animal-system consultancy and running workshops on different aspects of animal care.

This wonderful lifestyle began after realising her love of sharing the knowledge that she’d gained during the endless hours of nerding-out on animal nutrition, parasite management, cross-cultural and historical animal husbandry practices, and weaning her farms from reliance on bagged-and-bought animal feed. She integrates her animals into on farm land management, including fertility, fire mitigation, increasing plant and wildlife diversity, milk, meat, eggs, leather and companionship.

Now, Madi enjoys helping people find integrated systems that work for their own pastures and needs and currently runs small demonstration groups of Dorper sheep, Dexter and Jersey cattle, Nubian goats, as well as several heritage breeds of poultry and a couple of heavy-breed horses.

Madi’s joy comes from experimental farming and finding ways of allowing animals to solve the problems that arise when directing a piece of land to maximum productivity. She is currently working towards a locally-reliant and productive farm while holding best-practice in animal welfare as a guiding principle and regenerative agriculture as my purpose.

We will be visiting Madi and Marc’s farm during the Saturday tour days of the course, where students will be meeting her fury and feathered friends and learning some real practical skills for caring for animals, big and small!

Say Hi to Madi via her Barronook Farm facebook page and ask her more about what she will be teaching on the day!

Rod Ingersoll is a qualified Community Development practitioner & Ecologist. He holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Environmental Resource Management (Honours) is a Certified Environmental Practitioner (CEnvP)

Rodney Ingersoll has developed systems to manage and train local indigenous staff in over 300 community development short courses throughout Papua New Guinea and Australia. Courses have included microfinance, village water supply, land management, chicken farming, duck farming, fish farming, aquaponics, carpentry, village leadership, hygiene & sanitation, literacy, sewing, local markets establishment, vegetable, potato and coffee farming.

He practices what he preaches and is working to transform his Cairns backyard into a sustainable training facility where he hosts weekend workshops, University & school excursions and talks on Aquaponic gardening, Biodiversity & Sustainable living. For more info, see his website www.AquaponicGardener.com.au

Rod has a passion for conserving PNG rainforest and traditional culture. Rods currently in the process of documenting his time living in a PNG rainforest for a year breeding threatened species for Conservation (birds of paradise, cassowaries & tree kangaroos) while playing with illegal loggers.

Rod Ingersoll is a highly qualified and awarded Community Development practitioner & Ecologist who splits his life between Australia & the Papua New Guinea highlands.

Rod assists local tribes & mines to develop & implement sustainable and socially responsible Community Development & Environmental programs eg. Food Security, Health & Wellbeing, Education, Business. Academically,

Rodney holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Environmental Resource Management (Honours) is a Certified Environmental Practitioner (CEnvP) & has Environmental Auditing qualifications and has over 18 years’ practical grass roots community development, & environmental management experience working for NGOs, Local & State Government, Business and Global companies.

HIs work is internationally recognised and he has received several medals of honour for Environmental Management, Sustainable Development and Community service.

Michael & Lindy Alba have 40 years of experience using organic, permaculture and biodynamic methods in the Mareeba area and are retired landscapers/stonemasons. Over the last few years, they’ve opened their home to share their knowledge and personal experiences, teaching half day organic gardening workshops. As well as teaching, they overcame numerous health problems both physical and emotional at a young age using natural methods which has led them share their wisdom of food, growing, diet & lifestyle.

Michael and Lindy Alba are taking students in the PDC on a tour of their productive landscape known as Villa Alba, which is a 2.5 acre property on the Barron River, near the heart of Mareeba. They have a large variety of plants grown for self-sufficiency, plus natives, ornamentals, and succulents.

They have a nursery and extensive food forest with interesting features around their property, such as green ant highways and hand built ponds.

Michael is reforesting the river and adjoining park and will be sharing his 40 years of experience of organic growing, permaculture design planning and biodynamic practices.

They will be sharing their journey of building their house, and some insight of how they overcame numerous health problems both physical and emotional at a young age using natural methods which has led to a life of self-discovery and self-empowerment.

Retired landscapers and stone masons, they now facilitate monthly workshops and tours of their property and sell fresh produce, seedlings and fruit trees at markets, as well as host seed saver meetings.

Jodie Eden and John Wilki grew up in Herberton. Together, they live on their ‘Good Life’ property in Wondecla, where Jodie grows an amazing vegetable garden which provides for their needs and John builds their dream home from wood grown and milled onsite. They are welcoming students to tour their home during the PDC!

Jodie Eden grew up in Herberton working on her family tin mine, working in many jobs including nurseries, where she learned plant propagation before she studied an Environmental Science degree.

She’s ‘done it tough’ living 6 years in the remote bush without the usual ‘mod cons’ and I had struggled to grow her own food for over 25 years. She believes in living the Good Life – eating delicious, varied food while having a low impact on the earth and she is passionate about living sustainably but practically.

​Jodie’s parents were primary producers who believed they had a responsibility to rehabilitate the environment following their particularly destructive form of alluvial tin mining.
So, she grew up seeing what ‘sustainable development’ might mean – using both brains and hands to make a living. She believes it is possible to produce the goods we need to live while looking after the planet.

Her dad used to say “Bloody Greenies! They should be out working as miners, foresters and farmers not just complaining about how the rest of us do it. Everyone uses metal, timber and food so we need people who can produce these things without making a mess”.

Jodie studied Environmental Science and is now a Community Education Ranger, never loosing her interest in practical sustainability. She asks ‘How can we work the land to make a living without making a mess?”

She spent a chunk of her years as a hippy drop-out which made her realise that she loves many aspects of modern technology (freezer, washing machine, telephone, modern medicine) and also discovered that true ‘Self Sufficiency’ is a slightly foolish aspiration since it takes a lifetime to get really good at anything. “We are such social animals, why not happily trade our specialised skills?”.

Jodie has been growing her own vegetables for over 25 years in a particularly unusual climate (a tropical highland) and is now getting it right. She works for money four days a week and on her days off, she produces at least three quarters of their food. Amazingly, when she was otherwise unemployed, she grew only about a tenth of our food.

Jodie says, “the increased return for effort is mostly due to experimentation and observation, years of making mistakes and noticing them, but also there is the confidence that comes from secure tenure, and being able to plan for the future. Somehow I snaffled not only the most wonderful husband, but also the fabulous soil that he lives on!”

​Jodie and John’s property is 85 hectares, part of John’s family farm, with a mixture of 2/3 elevated pasture and cultivation on mainly red basalt soil and 1/3 forest. They have a very pleasant view of farm, forest and mountains from our house. For the years when John has been busy building the house, their nephew has been conventionally growing crops including maize, potatoes and wheat. The remaining land has been agistered for beef cattle and they look forward to getting back into farming but will probably always have some level of shared activity. Students in the PDC will be visiting Jodie’s garden to see a ‘dome’ chicken tractor mandala garden in abundance and John’s house build and Lucas Mill system.
John Wilkie was born in Herberton and lived all of his life on the family farm, except for 6 years studying vet science at uni in Brisbane. Instead of working as a vet, he was delighted that his Dad called him home to run the farm.

John has used his biomedical education to understand living systems and his own health and over the years, has been intermittently working at timber cutting, farm cultivating, cattle handling including horseback, earthmoving, fencing, building and machine repair and modification…all since the age of ten years old. He is currently farm managing and building his house including milling the timber.

​From the time he was a small child, he remembers a love of playing in the dirt with toy machines then progressing to helping with real tasks of earthwork and timber cutting with hand tools.

Post WWII when his dad bought the farm, conditions and finance in the Wondecla area were little advanced from the pioneering days and timber post and firewood sales were a valuable supplement to their meagre income. From his father and mother who grew up in and survived the Great Depression, he learned the art of conservation of materials and energy which led him to the desire for a more natural and sustainable lifestyle and dislike of waste.

Living and working on the farm most of his life allowed him to make best use of the available materials, situation and weather conditions of their site. With this in mind and using his past experience, he set out to build his house from the ground up, sourcing and milling the timber from his farm.

John’s wish is for a long and healthy good life, has been prompted by his bio medical education and the joy he share’s in his life and house with his lovely wife.

Gardening has been my passion since I can remember. Both sides of my family have been farmers and gardeners for generations. I have been a part of and have created gardens in Victoria, NSW and South East Queensland before beginning my journey into learning the ins and outs of tropical market gardening. Shortly after settling into Cairns life 3 years ago, I started my search for a place to garden and was given the opportunity to utilise this amazing piece of land. The space has proved to be ideal with the bountiful resources available and close proximity to the city. I am a strong advocate for sharing space and wish to promote this in a broader context.