What would be your dream permaculture course?

We're currently planning next year's calendar of courses and I'd really welcome your input.

Last year we ran Introduction to Permaculture weekends which proved very popular, Beginners' guide to growing your own food - again very popular and the third course we ran was composting and worm farming.

ABOVE - here's our teaching space set up on the deck overlooking the garden - it's cool and shady and comfortable for small groups. This is where we cover all the theory - mindmaps, notes, discussions - they all take place here... then we head out into the garden for some hands on practical experience.

How to grow your own food is a very popular course. It covers all you need to know to get started on an organic vegie patch, or to revitalise an old patch in the backyard that perhaps hasn't worked out so well.

People are becoming more interested in how to grow some of their own food in the backyard. How to grow it organically, how to manage pests and diseases, and how to get maximum yield out of a small vegie bed. Our course includes things like using green manure crops (ABOVE) and how to incorporate them as part of a overall healthy soil management plan.

And finally, composting and worm farming. Yet another popular course for people who are either new to these methods, or have tried but not had a lot of success.

I try to make all the courses we run practical and 'doable' for people to start their own vegie beds, integrate permaculture principles into their lives or start successful compost systems at home.

I aim to give people the skills and confidence to get started - it's the best way to learn, by doing.

Trial and error is a great teacher. Don't be afraid of failing, that's where you learn some great lessons and how to trouble shoot problems - once you know how to do that, you can do anything.

In 2010, we'll continue these workshops, running them regularly with some variety - some on Saturdays, some on Sundays, the two-day permaculture intro split over two weekends... I might even try some weekday workshops to see if that is more convenient for people.

So, my questions to you are; are there any other workshops you'd like to see offered? and what times suit you best - are you available mid-week?

We are working on how we might deliver a part-time Permaculture Design Certificate course too.

Any ideas?

What would entice you to enrol in a course?

What would be your dream 'sustainable living' course?

Let me know your thoughts,

Thanks

Sonya

Transition Towns on River Cottage

I was so excited to hear Transition Towns mentioned on River Cottage Autumn on ABC1 last night.

If you haven't seen this great series try to catch it - it's about real food - growing, preparing, cooking, preserving and eating delicious organic food direct from your own garden and from within your own community.

Wild food, cultivated food and gleaning free food from abandoned farms.

Last night Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (pictured ABOVE) visited a garden in Totnes (where Rob Hopkins of Transition Towns fame lives) to talk to a woman who is 'borrowing' garden space from a local family.

The woman lives in a flat and the family with the land don't have time to grow their own food - so the two were linked up and voila! the gardener can garden and the family receive 1/4 share of all production from the garden.

River Cottage is linking people and land through the Landshare project. A great initiative providing a direct solution for the growing demand for local food production.

River Cottage is on Wednesday nights on ABC1 at 6.10pm. Catch if you can and be inspired by Hugh's passion for good food and eating from the glorious English hedgerows.

Another great show is Costa's Garden Odyssey - based in Australia, Costa travels the nation visiting community gardens, farms and lots of other interesting places, all based on gardens and mostly all about food gardens.

Costa is on SBS every Thursday at 8pm. They even featured the wonderful team from Permablitz in Victoria.

Costa has a great website called 'Not Quite Nigella'. He is another passionate person inspiring others to grow their own and get involved in good food.

For me, permaculture naturally, and very quickly, evolved into Transition Towns.

After completing my PDC in 2006 and hearing David Holmgren speak about peak oil and energy descent action planning just a few months before, I jumped straight into exploring how permaculture might be applied regionally and sociologically to bring about some semblance of sustainability in our local region - and then how that model could then be replicated across Australia.

Little did I know that Rob Hopkins was doing the same in Totnes and creating the world's first Transition Town. Rob was the instigator of the world's first Energy Descent Action Plan (a plan for how a community can move from fossil fuel dependency to local resilience) in Kinsale Ireland.

Rob and Ben Brangwyn contacted me in 2007 to ask if we'd like to become a Transition Town - we said yes and Transition Sunshine Coast was born.

It was the first initiative in Australia and the first outside the UK. My vision was for every council region in Australia to have a transition initiative - regional collectives of people all working toward climate and energy solutions for the future across the nation.

Since Transition Sunshine Coast began we now have many local towns within the Sunshine Coast registered as official Transition Towns - including my home town Eudlo. There is Transition action happening in every state in Australia now - very exciting.

Transition Towns are proving popular in Australia and NZ particularly and there is an Australasian version of the handbook available.

And it seems Transition Towns might just have the legs to run the race.

Many groups out there are doing a lot of very good work. Changing attitudes and behaviours, lobbying government for change, leading by example and most importantly, providing ways for people to learn how to live differently - how to live a better, low impact life and how to build a sense of community.

But many are not linked in any way to any other group, they are working in isolation and I suspect all reinventing the wheel.

Having a network of groups all linked provides a very powerful message to decision-makers at all levels of government and will accelerate action for all of us when we link together.

Transition Towns has the advantage of having a great international network of people - all communicating and all in touch at some level. The term Transition Towns is also becoming much better known and it's beginning to really mean something and to have an impact.

They also have handbooks, structured workshops and clear pathways forward for action - and they have permaculture ethics and principles to support their decision making processes.

That's why I'm so excited to be part of it and to hear Hugh talking about it on his River Cottage program was just wonderful - I know that show is popular here in Australia as I hear a lot of people talking about it.

If you'd like to know more about Transition Towns leave a post here or visit Transition Towns Australia (another blog I run!) to see if there's a Transition Town near you.

Happy transitioning,

Sonya

The many functions of plants

In June I posted about living the permaculture life. The idea started while I was reading food not lawns by HC Flores - an inspiring book for anyone wanting to localise their food supplies.

That original list of plant functions included: Nitrogen Fixers and Soil Improvers, Natives, Fibre and Structural, Medicinals and Aromatics, Support Plants, Insectories and Flowers and Habitat Plants.

But while I was planning this weekend's workshop on organic gardening, I thought of ways to expand that original list with even more functions plants perform in our lives.

I had 'Edibles' listed, but they need to be further refined by seperating annuals (such as short-lived zucchini plant pictured below) and perennials.

Edibles - Annuals

But many of us also like to grow annuals in our vegie beds - spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce just to name a few. So we need to consider these annual in our overall planning and garden management.

Edibles - Perennials
Perennials (longer-living crops) include plants such as this Brazillian Spinach pictured below. In permaculture there is a lot of emphasis on perennial planting - ensuring you have low-maintainance food supply all year round.

Water Plants

A category that deserves its own space is aquatics - water plants grown in containers in the garden (if you don't have the space for a full sized dam and all the eco-systems that go with it). We installed an old bathtub in the garden and created a bed of perennials (comfrey, ginger, etc) around it. In the tub is kang kong and Vietnamese mint.

Beauty

Another function of plants is to provide beauty - there is nothing wrong with wanting your garden to be beautiful as well as functional. And some flowers can be eaten - such as the Heartsease pictured below.

Survival Foods

Survival foods need a place in your garden. They link with perennials, but these are really hardy plants that are well suited to your climate. Here in the subtropics we plant yams, taros, and (pictured below) cassava (this is a varigated one). Choosing plants for their survival qualities (for them - being hardy and for us - providing protein and other nutritional support in times of crises) makes a lot of sense.

Fuel

Another function plants perform is to provide fuel. We harvest windfall timber from our property to fuel our indoor stove - this in turn heats our home and cooks our food. Here we are using appropriate biological resources to perform a function, rather than relying on fossil fuel resources. Our woodpile sits and seasons until next winter.

Animal Fodder

Crops specifically for animal fodder need to be considered regardless of the size of your system. Even in the smallest backyard, a functional, working guinea pig tractor could be mowing the lawn, eating scraps from the kitchen and being pets for children in the home. Supplement your animals' diets with produce (food and medicinal) from your garden. We have below Pigeon Pea - leaves are great animal fodder and the seeds and flowers are edible for humans too.

Here is a photo of kang kong (below) in our water garden - this was taken over winter, when the plant is dormant. In summer it will take over and provide greens for the table.

Other categories of plant functionality to consider are;

Household Uses

Grow luffas to provide scourers in the kitchen and luxurious scrubs in the bathroom

Grow plants to provide toilet paper, cleaning products - I even have a vase made from bamboo

Musical Instruments

Grow gourds to make musical instruments

Grow Job's Tears, collect their seeds to provide percussion

Arts and Crafts

Grow plants to use in papermaking, dyeing, weaving, sculptures and fibres

Understanding, appreciating and utilising plants to their highest uses and producing no waste are key permaculture principles - how are you using plants from your garden?

Cheers,

Sonya

Some welcome rain

We had some welcome rain a few days ago - it freshened up the garden in a way watering just can't.

Everything looked so beautiful. The rain was preceded by an electrical storm and the garden always looks greener, brighter and shinier after lightning.

We keep a rain gauge in the garden and record the rainfall. We had 55mm this time.

Our dog Barney loves having his photo taken... so here he is

The Blue Quandong is leaving these brilliant blue marbles in the garden for us.

We have a mountain of compost ready to go out into the garden.

This is the fruit of the Star Apple - a tropical tree that grows well here, but is frost tender. The fruits are nothing like an apple, more like a plum and when you cut them, the inside resembles a star pattern, like a lot of fruits do.

A great bunch of bananas coming on. These are from a Dwarf Cavendish plant - normal size fruit, but the plant is dwarf, which makes harvesting a lot easier. We now have to keep an eye on them and beat the parrots and possums to them.

When this bunch is harvested, we will cut down the whole plant - bananas only fruit the once, so this 'mother' plant will go to mulch and the 'daughter' and 'baby' plants will be allowed to grow.

The daughter becomes the next mother plant and we'll allow one pup to grow to keep the three plants productive. This way you always have three plants in one clump at different stages.

You can see the dark skies through the budding poinciana tree.

I've brought some perennial basil in to use as decoration in the house. I'll take these and propagate them now.

This year has been a great year for Beetroot. They were the one plant in the garden that loved all the rain we've had - they would stand up happy and healthy when everything around them looked water logged and sad.

I prepared this bunch for a raw dish - grated them and added orange zest and orange juice with a handful of flat-leaf parsley strewn through. A modified recipe of Maggie Beer's. I then added an olive oil and lemon juice dressing and seasoned the beetroot with salt and pepper before serving. Everyone loved them.

We served the beetroot on Saturday night for dinner when we had friends over. We ate out on the deck, a lot of food was harvested from the garden, including after dinner coffee.

This week I have a lot planned for around the garden and in the house - particularly the continued creation of the ultimate propagation shed. It's still under construction but I'm itching to get planting.

I'm also taking time this week to write up the curriculum and prepare lessons for this Saturday's workshop on organic gardening with permaculture principles at Veggie Village.

Hope you enjoy your week,

Sonya

Frugality and consumerism

"Abundance is a state of mind not a quantity of consumer goods," David Holmgren (co-orginator of Permaculture)

There’s so much information currently available on the net and on people’s personal blogs about living frugally.

But I think the word ‘frugality’ needs a marketing makeover.

The Macquarie Dictionary defines 'frugal' as; economical in use or expenditure, prudently saving or sparing, entailing little expense, costing little, scanty, meager.

But I have a problem with the word.

(By the way, the same dictionary defines ‘consume’ as; to destroy or expend by use, to use up; to devour; to spend wastefully; to suffer destruction.)

And a ‘consumer’ (which we all are) as; one who or that which consumes – one who uses a commodity or service (as opposed to a producer).

But back to the word frugal.

To me frugality conjures up images of going without – which for any of you who regularly read these inspiring blogs knows is definitely not the case.

Most of the people espousing frugality actually have very full, abundant, rich lives.

They eat better, are less stressed, enjoy life more and have more fulfilling family relationships than people who do the work/spend/time poor treadmill cycle.

I used to work full time in a corporate job – I worked for a wage, then spent the weekends cleaning a big house, shopping and spending the $$ to buy things to justify to myself giving up my whole week during something I didn’t particularly enjoy just to earn a wage.

Of course you need to work to buy a home, to buy food, clothes, to enjoy life etc.

Of course you do, but we get so caught up in the idea that you have to buy ‘everything’ and that you can’t produce anything yourself – and that every year everything has to be better, bigger, newer, have newer features – that’s the cycle I’m talking about.

That cycle of earn more = spend more – it will never be enough – no matter how hard you work, no matter how much you earn. And it costs to work, the travel, the clothes, the lunches – when you add it all up you begin to question just how much you really need.

We're conditioned to think that you have to pay people to make things for you, or fix things in your house for you.

Things are for throwing out and replacing, not repairing, recycling or even pre-cycling (not buying it in the first place).

Nowadays here at home, we’re doing a lot more to meet our own needs, producing more, growing more, making more, rather than working for someone else to get the cash to buy what we needs.

We make meals from scratch and spend whole days at home - no car travel, no spending at shops.

As a result, we actually need a lot less cash now.

Not ‘upgrading’ our house and taking on a new mortgage when we sold our last home was the biggest step we took – we were at a crossroads some years ago – sell the big house in the ‘burbs and move to something bigger, or move to something we could afford.

We took the second option and bought this useful property that is now providing food and income for us. (Which can also be done very successfully in the suburbs too, you don’t need acreage to grow food or to do permaculture.)

Permaculture ethics are Care of Earth, Care of People and Fair Share – the last one relates to what we use, how much we use, how we use it, what we return back into the system and self-responsibility for the resources we consume while we’re on the planet.

It also questions the hot topic of population – fair share extends to all our actions, including the choices we make relating to reproducing.

David Holmgren (co-originator of Permaculture) encourages us to make the move from dependent consumer to responsible producer.

To take responsibility for what we use and produce as much as we can ourselves. It’s not about self-sufficiency, it’s about self-reliance.

Permaculture isn’t about each property being an island that is self-sufficient – it’s about meeting as many of your needs as you can as close to home as you can, then ‘fair trading’ the rest of what you need.

Here’s a quote from David, "Abundance is a state of mind not a quantity of consumer goods."

So how could we describe that shift without locking it into the word ‘frugal’ which I think turns a lot of people off?

What about the term ‘mindful spending’ – acknowledging that yes, we all still need cash to interact with the world, but we can make the move to be very mindful of where that cash goes, who it goes to and the types of systems it supports.

Money still needs to be circulated to support other people in their employment – but where does the money end up? Overseas or local? Too many small local businesses have been lost already.

Does your money stay local, does it go direct to the producer or does a ‘middle-man’ take a cut, who sets the price (very relevant to the relationship between farmers and the big supermarkets), how is the business run, what are their ethics and philosophy, can you trade or barter rather than needing actual cash, can you produce something that is of value to someone else, can you join forces with others to bulk buy and save money?

If you’re mindful about where your money goes and if we as consumers ask these questions, the market may just respond – it’s demand driven – and if people demand to know where their dollar goes and who it supports, then we can begin to influence changes to these systems.

Here’s a quote to leave you with

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has," Margaret Mead

Cheers,

Sonya

Goannas and garden party flags...

The weekend was an example of my diversified permaculture life... multi-skilling is the key.

First up off to Veggie Village to teach the soil day of a four day intensive gardening course they are running there.

A beautiful sunflower caught my eye - you can see it from the road when you drive down the hill to the gardens - greeting visitors with its sunny face.

We did some seed saving, and I did some at home too, it's been dry for quite a while but rain is expected this week, so it was a good time to get the seed heads off the plants and stored away before they rot.

The bugs were enjoying the flowers - an example of how letting particular plants go to flower (dill, fennel, queen anne's lace, coriander, yarrow etc) attract the beneficial predators into your garden to help with pest management.

Sunday afternoon there was a commotion in the chookhouse. A young goanna had got in to eat the eggs. Goannas are active during the day so it's hard to keep them out of the house - I don't want to lock the house up as the chooks need access to their food and water - I'll just need to be more vigilant with egg collection - I'll do it mid morning to try to deter the goannas going in there for a feed.

I shooed the goanna out of the house and cleaned up the remains of the three eggs it had eaten.

Also did some food preserving. Cherry Tomatoes roasted in the oven, then frozen for pasta dinners next year.

And I completed my first sewing project - I wrote a few posts ago about wanting to learn how to sew, we already had this sewing machine and my husband showed me how to use it.

I bought some material and I was off... the result were these pretty garden party flags.

We have people coming over for dinner on Saturday night, so these will dress up the deck.

I was very pleased with my first attempt at sewing. Next step is to do some type of workshop at a local sewing centre and to make more of these. I'll also use them when we have our market stall in town.

Rain is expected this week, as I mentioned earlier, so we're looking forward to that - and no doubt the garden is too.

Cheers,

Sonya

For the love of soil! Move from oil to soil

It’s been said that the most important crop an organic farmer grows is soil.

The first ethic of Permaculture is Care of Earth – directly related, in part, to our need to rebuild the Earth’s natural capital – soil.

On my bedside table is Natural Farming by Pat Coleby – a book all about Australian soils.

BELOW - compost on the left, worm castings on the right

I read an interview with Vandana Shiva (India’s leading environmental activist) where she was talking about climate change, peak oil, the economy and soil.

‘Vandana Shiva, says that the industrialised West is literally consuming the developing world.

We eat cinnamon that comes out of Thailand, bananas from Central America.

To feed our ever-growing appetites, we push industrial agriculture methods on once-traditional agrarian societies, and now we want these faraway lands to produce a different kind of food: biofuel, to feed the West’s automobiles.

At some point, Shiva argues, we’re going to have to choose between sacred cow and sacred car.

Q Practically speaking, how do you get back to a soil-based, rather than oil-based, society, culture, and economy?

A I wouldn’t say “get back to.” I would say “go forward to.” Going forward to a soil-based society means building economies of place, and economies of place means recognising the ecological limits of the place where you are.

It means grounded economies. The financial collapse is going to compel us to look for livelihoods beyond the false speculations and the credit spending, where you spend more than you earn.

I feel that the combination of climate change, peak oil, and the financial collapse provides an opportunity for us to build economies of place that will shift not just from oil to soil, but it will shift from financial capital to people as the real wealth—people as both the generators of wealth as well as wealth of communities. If we can get there, we will have a future. If we can’t get there, we will see more and more conflicts emerge around the world in conditions of new scarcity."

You can read the full interview here http://www.urbanitebaltimore.com/sub.cfm?issueID=71&sectionID=4&articleID=1190 I found the interview on the Little Homestead in the City site in my favourite website list.

And I’m researching and preparing to teach a soil workshop at a local community garden this Saturday – so I’ve got soil well and truly on my mind.

Understanding the life of soil was a major breakthrough for me. Seeing soil as a world of micro flora and fauna – plants and animals – who have the same needs as plants and animals on the surface.

That they need air, water, food and protection from extremes of weather and dangerous chemicals.

That the soil is a living, breathing entity full of life and as humans we can support it and take care of it.

I always enjoy running soil workshops – if people ‘get’ soil they will be able to grow anything suited to their climate, they’ll be able to troubleshoot problems in the garden a lot easier, they’ll appreciate how important soil is to human existence.

I really love this un-attributed quote from Jack Allan’s great book Organic Guide to Composting…

“Human vanity is best served by the reminder that, whatever humans’ accomplishment, sophistication, artistic pretensions, humans owe their very existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”

So, for the love of soil, go forth and make compost – do it for your garden, the planet and for yourself.

Cheers,
Sonya