While I pawed through and pored over, the alternative ideas in my parents’ Earth Garden, Down To Earth, and similar magazines, in my teens, I have only recently put some of the permaculture principles into the creation of an abundant oasis.
A year ago, I moved to a very cheap cottage on an almost bare block in a little town in the NSW Riverina. I had a vision of a food forest based on some of the permaculture gardening concepts I had used in patches in other gardens, and on reading and observing.
A year on, and I am beginning to understand the reality of allowing plants to find their way after some initial trial and error.
The fecundity of this garden that now surrounds the little cottage and provides us with more, and more, than enough for ourselves and others, is incredible. At the moment we almost have to steel ourselves each early morning as we head out with buckets to pick zucchinis, cucumbers, beans, kale, carrots, beetroot, corn (including popping corn), lettuce, rocket, rhubarb, melons, pumpkins and cut flowers.
The fruit trees, vines and bushes are growing and we have had a few apricots, plums and passionfruit already. The seven avocadoes I grew from seed are taking off and the hazelnuts we grew from cuttings have got their roots well down into the red soil.
From what looked like a weedy, unhealthy ecosystem favouring a couple of insect species and nasty (think Cat Heads) weeds, has emerged a chaotic, crazy life-filled area, with very little mowing thank goodness, that we share with a huge variety of creatures, microbes and plants.
We are letting plants go to seed where they want to, which works for them and us, we also harvest seed and replant in other areas, we mulch paths to walk on then put that broken down mulch back on the beds, we cut back and use that as mulch, we create compost then put it back in the garden, we use fruit fly netting and garlic spray, plus get rid of any fallen fruit immediately to keep the fruitfly population at a minimal level, we are planting natives for more birdlife and garden structure plus protection for other plants from the severe heat in summer and frosts in winter, and working on better watering systems.
Water is probably our biggest issue, in that the garden takes a lot of water, despite mulching and composting. We are still learning after only a year.
To refine my energy in and energy out techniques, and to co-create with nature to have a sustainable and regenerative garden, I am now considering doing some structured permaculture study and joining Permaculture Australia to join the social ecosystem of like-minded people.
As I walk in the garden, amazed at the growth and life, I realise how humans are not the main feature of nature as we would like to believe, but a part of it, and if we don’t begin to understand that as a collective, soon, we may well be relegated to a much smaller part.
I am still a wanderer at heart, but the joy of an abundant edible, fragrant and beautiful garden to share with a myriad of life forms, is something else. Maybe with some permaculture training, I can work it so the garden can manage without me at times while I go exploring other gardens.
I purchased three WaterUps Oasis wicking beds after pricing a DIY option and realising these are quite good value and probably easier to construct. My husband put together the raised bed component, the first one took longer than the subsequent two but they were not too difficult. He used the paper instructions, and there is also a video you can follow. I used the video to install the waterproof lining and WaterUps cells, this was quite straightforward, you just need a sharp knife to cut out the hole for the water inlet, it took a bit of work with my blunt Stanley knife! I used Perlite for the wick component, you just need to fill up the wells in the WaterUps cells. Then filled the beds with layers of cane straw, mushroom compost, rock minerals, organic fertiliser pellets, seaweed solution, cow manure, compost and potting mix. The water cells are easy to fill from the inlet, I planted out a mixture of veggies from seed and seedlings. I watered minimally from the top until the seedling’s roots took hold and could absorb the water coming up from the cells and also kept the seeds moist. All of the seeds germinated and all of the seedlings survived (rare for me!). It is nice not having to water each day when it is hot if I am busy. We have had some dry spells since I have been using them, the shortest amount of time I have had to top up the water is 2 weeks. I use a piece of dowl to measure how much water is in the cells. These wicking beds have been a game changer for me; our property is on tank water only, so the water saving has been fantastic during the dry spells, and the veggies are thriving. I have just purchased two more beds and over winter am going to try installing one of the Sub-irrigation Channels in a neglected swale veggie bed. I highly recommend these beds for their ease of construction, water-saving, time-saving and amazing veggies!
Note from Permaculture Australia
Julie was asked by Permaculture Australia for this reveiw. Julie is not associated or commission by Waterups in anyway, just a very happy customer.
As a member of Permaculture Australia, Jenny received 20% off WaterUps® products (Australian delivery only)
Join us now to receive your member benifits – JOIN HERE
All set up: Water inlet on the top right, overflow on the bottom right.Bed with wicking holes filled with perlite.Beds filled and ready to plant, next to the water tank.A few weeks later….A few weeks later….A few weeks later….
This month we lost a Permaculture elder, author, teacher & educator. Dr Ross Mars was many of those thing’s but he was also a husband, father, pop, brother, uncle, friend and mentor to many. Not many people know, but we actually have Ross’ wife Jenny to thank for bringing permaculture to Ross. It was her who first did a Permaculture Design Course and suggested Ross do one too.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Ross’ contributions to permaculture were numerous, and if we tried to list them all, we’d be here until tomorrow and would probably still forget some. Ross’ involvement in Permaculture has spanned more than three decades during which time he had two “Candlelight Farms”, wrote and co-authored twenty books for the beginner Permie, the Permaculture classroom, Permaculture disguised as Science in the Garden, and his last one on Regenerative Agriculture, which only went to the publisher this August. He played an integral role in establishing approved greywater and black water recycling systems in Western Australia, and was a member of the Greywater and Wastewater Industry Group. He was one of the main organisers for the 2016 Australasian Permaculture Convergence here in Perth and contributed to many others. Ross was a teacher, a high school science and math teacher in fact, and he brought that skill into Permaculture facilitating and delivering numerous courses – Introduction to Permaculture, Short Workshops, PDCs, Advanced Courses, Teacher Trainings, Permaculture Earthwork Courses and all levels of the accredited training sector. He wrote and established the accredited training for Permaculture from the Certificate I to Diploma level and made WA the forefront of accredited Permaculture training in Australia. In addition, he also brought Certificate I & II Permaculture qualifications into high schools through the Vocational Education & Training in Schools system. As a designer and consultant, Ross’ name and “Candlelight Farm” will be found on numerous designs for schools, colleges and community gardens as well as his work with property owners helping them achieve their dreams. We could go on, but what we really want to talk about is how many lives Ross touched in doing all this. How many people felt that he changed the direction they were travelling in and his influence on their life. He changed not only people’s properties, but also their worldviews and in many cases the directions of their life.
Two themes keep coming up when speaking with people about Ross: His humour and his generosity. We are the best examples of that and neither of us would be where we are today without Ross. He taught us much of what we know and encouraged us to go out, start our own business’ and to teach others – sometimes with a (not so) gentle kick in the behind. He supported our baby steps with patience, and trusted us as we grew wings and found our own teaching styles. We could also question and disagree with Ross and he would listen and take on our point of view or differences in opinions, but we always knew we were still mates. How many weekends were spent at Candlelight Farm learning from him? Financially, it was never worth it for him, he did it to inspire others and because of his love of teaching and his belief in what Permaculture could do for a community. He would say to us on more than one occasion, “When it comes down to it, Permaculture is about Community, Soil and Water” and although we’ve tried to think him wrong, he had a point. Permaculture is about Community and that was what Ross fostered by his actions and innate generosity. I remember doing one of the courses with Ross around 2011 and he brought in these MASSIVE Bunya pine cones happily declaring he was going to harvest the seeds and make us a gluten free, Bunya Pine Nut Chocolate Mud Cake for our next teaching session. True to his word he did and I’m yet to find a better chocolate mud cake than Ross’ “Bunya Pine Nut Chocolate Mud Cake” – he was onto gluten free before we even knew what gluten was. That was the lengths Ross would go to for his students to harvest enough pine seeds to make us a chocolate cake just so we could experience it.
We like to think that our countless hours of fixing his reticulation, propagating new plants, making mudbricks, building straw bales, sanding, concreting, surveying or building something was actually helping him. Most likely though, he spent more time fixing it up afterward but you would never hear him complain. What his approach taught us though, was that it was okay to have a go and learn on the job. To use tools we weren’t naturally comfortable with, and that circumstances didn’t need to be perfect to work. Ross had an uncanny sense of smell for cake and a knack for materializing out of thin air whenever it appeared. If we needed to speak to him, all we had to do was announce morning tea to our students and his cheeky grin would poke around the corner under the pretence of “selling” books, or needing to talk to our students about something. Teaching was carried out in a refitted shed with the ablutions consisting of a homemade composting toilet with a bucket, a toilet seat and a container of sawdust. This proved a little too overwhelming for many students as in the end it was upgrade to a “normal toilet” that flushed. Ross handed over the teaching reins to us a few years ago so he could enjoy more time with his beloved wife Jenny, their dog Bruno and all the family. We hope we can do him proud and continue his legacy. He was a teacher and mentor, but to us, and many more in the permaculture community – he was much more than that, he was our friend and he will be greatly missed.
Some time ago we inherited a very large garden. I was not a gardener but strangely enough I come from generations of farmers. So, I learned fast. I also wanted a method that would suit my wife who was injured in a car accident and sometimes found bending painful. Trawling the internet, I found Strawbale Gardening.
This was some seventeen years ago. I have experimented with the method, and it works very well. I have taught it in the UK, Australia, America and Canada.
Firstly, you do not need soil. So, it follows that you can start your new strawbale garden almost anywhere. On grass, concrete, on your drive, patio or in the backyard. There is no digging and best of all no weeds. There is no waste. When the strawbales are “tired” having had no soil borne diseases they make first-rate compost.
Speaking for myself and a few friends these seem to be the most popular vegetables to grow in strawbales. Pole beans, onions, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, spring onions, marrows, pumpkins, peas, beetroot, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, and cauliflower to name but a few. I have had extremely mixed results with sweetcorn so I would probably advise you to steer clear until you have mastered the technique. Strawbales fit in most spaces, you can grow on the surface of the bale, being careful to plant right to the edge, and vertically using poles.
One of my favourite strawbale systems uses three bales and seven canes. I grow three varieties of tomatoes up the canes and lettuce, cabbage and marrows on the surface. I have attached a bad drawing to illustrate. You can also plant flowers to act as companion plants. Strawbale gardening is not simply a question of throwing a few seeds in the bale and hoping for the best. It is a little more complicated than that. But it is very doable and very worthwhile. The main thing is to get the strawbales composting. You achieve this by adding water and a nitrogen-based feed over some time and in varying quantities. This gets the bales “cooking”. I have devised a seventeen-day “maturing” schedule and by the end of this time, the strawbales should be ready to plant and or sow into. This is a vital part of the whole operation and when done correctly ensures good crops.
Potatoes are great fun to grow in bales. There are two lengths of bailing twine going horizontally around the strawbale. This is one of only a few times I removed both the twines. It gives the potatoes a bit more freedom. Choose a potato that is not generally available in the shops. My favourite is Pink Fur Apple. It is a great little salad potato and super tasty. When you pull apart the strawbale to reveal your potato treasure it should come away in slices. If you lay this down it makes a great bed for marrows and pumpkins, so not a thing gets wasted. Incidentally, this method is great for children and makes a good classroom project.
One last thing, a strawbale garden looks great. I hope this has whetted your appetite to have a go at strawbale gardening. If you need any further information, please use the Contact Us page on my website. If you want all the lowdown, then I have written an e-book that covers everything.
These reflections are my own of events that occurred in the lead up to the formation of the trading name ‘Permaculture Australia’. It’s intended as background information as we gather in Adelaide at Convergence that includes a really important AGM. Members of PA can elect 7 people to the Board…..people with passion, skills, commitment and the time available to project this organisation into the huge potential it has to represent the movement.”
“The survey conducted by the Amigo Troika ( Bruce Zell, Ian Lillington & myself) is now 13 years old and represents a moment in time. If conducted today….what would it look like? As we elect 7 Board members soon, maybe its time to ask the membership, ask the movement what they vision a Peak Body to do into the future ?”
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned out to be a contentious issue in the Australian permie community. As we are approaching the biennial Australian Permaculture Convergence (APC), a gathering celebrating all things Permie, organisers and participants must navigate the complexities of meeting face-to-face in as respectful and safe a manner as possible.
Individuals within the permie community, like many communities in Australia, hold a variety of different relationships with COVID, and with COVID-safe practices. A number of participants who will be at the APC are beloved permie elders, in their 70s and 80s, who are at increased risk from the impact of COVID. Others among us are immune compromised, unable to be vaccinated while simultaneously at higher risk from complications of COVID.
Others of us are healthy, vaccinated, and committed to keeping our more vulnerable embers safe by doing all we can to stay COVID-safe. Included in this is a concern for our over-burdened health system and health workers, and the vaccination imperative for protecting our health system. Yet others of us are sceptical of vaccination technologies.
Some of us choose not to be vaccinated, and some see mandatory vaccination, mask-wearing and lockdowns as infringements on individual and community rights. There is a concern among some that the pandemic has provided justification for autocratic government and police interventionism; others are concerned that some of the protest actions of this last group have opened the door and invited right-wing, white-superiority, US-style “preppers”, and the culture of racism, misogyny and violence that accompanies them, into the permie space, thus putting members of our permaculture community at risk.
Some of us argue that COVID and vaccine debates have nothing to do with permaculture, while others argue that they are issues central to our ethics: People Care (eg: the importance of keeping people safe); Earth Care (eg: COVID is a zoonotic disease, and zoonotic diseases are exacerbated under industrialised monocultural food growing practices) and Fair Share (eg: discrepancies between food security and access to health care, including vaccinations, between wealthy and impoverished communities).
Organisers of the APC are doing all they can to ensure that our convergence is a physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually safe space.
There will be a couple of sessions at the APC for open and respectful discussion on covid and Permaculture.
Some background reading David Holmgren’s various writings on the pandemic: see, for example, Pandemic Brooding
For a review of the variety of responses within the Australian permaculture community, see Terry Leahy’s piece Permaculture’s COVID Conundrums.
