Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 5 i Pip Magazine

JODIE LANE Co-founder of Fair Harvest Permaculture in Margaret River, Western Australia, Jodie has been dedicated to permaculture, local food and community for the last twenty years. In 2014 she was runner-up for the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation’s (RIRDC) Rural Women’s Award WA for her dedication to local food production. She lives, works and plays at Fair Harvest with her partner Dorothee Perez, where they grow food, run a weekly cafe, host monthly Swap Shuffle Shares and teach live-in PDCs; and they’ve recently opened their farm for eco-weddings, g reat gigs and other events. See www.fairharvest.com.au JOHN CHAMPAGNE Since completing his PDC in 1992, John has worked actively in many areas related to permaculture: ecovillage design and development; as a consultant and bioregional strategist; and as President of…

TOMATO PASSATA Here is a product that you don’t have to buy but you can make yourself and simultaneously create connections and community. Nothing quite reminds you of summer than a bottle of preserved tomatoes in the middle of winter. Gather your glut of tomatoes or buy them in bulk from the market and get together with friends to have a passata making day in your own backyard. For those in Melbourne you can join in the Crowdsaucing day with CERES Fair Food. Register for the event and saucing tomatoes, grown by a local organic farmer, will be delivered to you at your house, a community kitchen or someone’s backyard. CFF will also provide you with sauce-making knowledge, how-tos, free delivery of the saucing tomatoes and labels. Because ‘at the…

WHAT IS FAIR FOOD? Fair Food is food produced, distributed and consumed in ways that are ecologically sustainable, ethically sound and socially just. Fair Food is the Australian interpretation of the international concept of food sovereignty, which was launched in the mid-1990s by leaders of the global family farmers’ movement, La Via Campesina (or the farmers’ way). Food sovereignty means a democratic and participatory food system at global, national and regional levels. In which farmers and communities determine collectively the purpose and design of their food systems for their own benefit, rather than the key decisions being taken by, and for the benefit of, the largest multinational agribusiness and retail corporations. Fair Food is food produced, distributed and consumed in ways that are ecologically sustainable, ethically sound and socially just.…

1. Learn to cook. It changes everything: you can make what you want, and avoid packaging and food miles. 2. Spend most of your money outside of the big supermarkets. This is a direct snub to the monopolisation of corporate control over the supply chain. For a guide for people starting out, see ‘7 steps to quit supermarkets’ at the Beyond The Trolley website (see www.beyondthetrolley.com). 3. Buy directly from a producer. Do you know the producers of what you buy, or does the person you are buying from know them? This is where farmers’ markets come in, however there are real farmers’ markets – full of producers – and then there are markets full of resellers who are just buying from wholesalers; you have to discern which is which.…

Tiny and landlocked by South Africa, Lesotho is a mountainous country where most people rely on subsistence agriculture, and around fifty-seven per cent live below the poverty line of US$1.25 per day (World Bank 2010 data). In the past, Lesotho produced enough wheat and corn to feed its people and export grain. However, soil erosion, land degradation and a decline in soil fertility, combined with a HIV/AIDS epidemic, contributed to a steady decline in production. And agriculture is also vulnerable to climate variability. Lesotho now produces less than twenty per cent of its food needs. More than a third of the population is food insecure (UN Food and Agriculture Organization 2014), making Lesotho heavily dependent on food imports and aid. Twenty years ago Canadian Ivan Yaholnitsky arrived, wanting to help.…

This method is all about building beautiful deep, friable topsoil that can grow an intensive amount of good food, quickly. But to do this you need to create that soil structure yourself rather than waiting for the roots of well-chosen and tended plants, and the soil food web, to do that for you. TOOLS AND MATERIALS Once you’ve designed and positioned your beds, get your tools together. You’ll need: a good spade, preferably a posthole shovel or similar; a good quality garden fork; a big board to lay over the bed as you work; and a good rake. And don’t forget a big bottle of water, and the gumption to get the job done. You’ll also need to source some good compost to add to your bed: about four buckets…

We needed a coolroom: a space designed to store fresh and processed products to eat later. We selected a site under the existing insulated back verandah, incorporating an existing light fixture and using the thermal mass of the rear mudbrick wall of our ownerbuilt house. The walls of our coolroom are non-load bearing. The internal shelves are built sturdily. MATERIALS Walls • bricks • cement mix • damp course film • timber • insulation batts and foil • wall sheeting and decorative panels (e.g. fibre cement), and plastic connecting strips • extruded flexible gap filler • external vent • paint (exterior and interior). Door • a section of double skinned aluminium insulated material • L channel, to length for three sides of the door • adhesive-backed rubber stripping • door…

Creating a truly local meal–where every part of the meal is produced locally–can be a challenge, but once you get into it, it is also quite addictive. It takes a bit of a mind shift – to look at the harvest first, then let the imagination run wild, and lastly find a recipe for final inspiration. Traditional recipes have often been developed around harvest time, so finding recipes from somewhere with a climate similar to your own is a great place to start. We now have access to so many plants from different parts of the world that we can get creative, mixing and matching cultural tastes while eating from our own gardens. When you consider the harvest first, you need to start by looking deeper into what is actually…

The idea of bioregions appeared in the 1970s, along with permaculture and, like permaculture, bioregions are a way of describing things that already exist but seeing them differently. Bioregions are more easily identified in rural areas, but even in cities, catchments such as the Yarra or the Hawkesbury have distinct bioregional characteristics, as do many suburbs. ‘Transition Towns’ has emerged over the last decade as a global movement full of practical actions to build resilience in a world threatened by peak oil and climate change. When combined with permaculture principles and the art of reading the landscape, Transition Towns have empowered communities to produce ‘energy descent action plans’, detailed permaculture designs for whole bioregions, not just for a farm or garden. Bioregionalism defines a geographic region and then identifies individuals…

Designer: Taj Scicluna, in collaboration with Linton Cummins Client: Lordy Dannaoui Location: Yarraville, Victoria Aim: To design an urban sanctuary of edible and medical plants. Background: The property is in a region with a history of industrial use, close to the city of Melbourne and the estuary of the Yarra River. One person and three cats currently reside on the property, which is 960 square metres, consisting of a fairly flat and open area. The priorities of the project will be to: build soil; grow fruit and vegetables; and create a beautiful environment that is healing and nourishing, as well as functional and productive. Wish list: vegetable garden, food forest, medicinal garden, compost/worms, a variety of vines, water tanks, fire pit, greenhouse, geometric garden bed, outdoor pizza oven, sweat lodge,…

TURN PAGE FOR ANSWER IN YOUR PATCH Myfanwy with carrots and beetroots she’s grown in her garden. Send in a photo of youself with your harvest and you could appear here and win a great Pip kid’s prize. Send images to: maude@pipmagazine.com.au DESIGN AND BUILD AN ECO-CUBBY Building your own cubby – using things found in nature or your garden or scavenged from waste – is immensely satisfying. Depending on where you live, and the materials you can find, your cubby is going to look wonderfully distinctive: there are always different materials to find, and new designs to try out. Experiment – build a little one or a whole village! You can try this in your yard, in a neighbourhood park, at a school or community garden, while you’re on…

After reading Nick Rose’s book, Fair Food; Stories from a Movement Changing the World (UQP 2015), I knew it was going to be the theme for this issue. Fair Food is central to what so many of us are striving for: food that is produced in a way that supports not only our bodies, but the producers who grow it and the wider community as well. Fair Food goes beyond growing our own vegetables. It’s about creating systems that help build community, such as farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture. You may not always grow everything you want to eat yourself, but you can support people within your community to grow it for you. Ideally in each of our bioregions (‘Bioregions: our spirit of place’, page 68) we can provide for…

APC13 PERTH, WA: 2–5 OCTOBER 2016 The theme for the Perth (Swanleigh) convergence in October 2016 is ‘Permaculture – designing for resilience’. David Holmgren, Rowe Morrow, Robin Clayfield and Graham Bell are running advanced courses, and some prominent permaculture practitioners have indicated that they will be there. Registration information Registration will soon be available on the website, so please check that frequently. All costs, courses, tours and other events will be listed there. Registration and attendance at APC13 is a prerequisite for any tours and courses that follow. Only PDC holders can enrol in advanced courses. Courses We have put together a great range of post-APC13 courses that include: • one-day workshop with David Holmgren on Future Scenarios – also open to the public • two-day Advanced Permaculture Principles course…

Biochar is made by a process called pyrolysis, which means burning organic material with minimal oxygen. When woody biomass (dried, not green) is pyrolysed, all of the volatile components burn away and leave behind a carbon skeleton in a very stable, hard carbon form. This creates charcoal that has a pore structure which provides its near-magical potency in the garden. In the soil, this hard structure serves as a kind of ‘coral reef’ for microbial life. Bacteria move in, paint the walls with their exudates and invite some fungi over for tea. Myceloid pathways are followed by hungry nematodes and microarthropods of all shapes and descriptions. The ‘reef’ begins to resemble a Star Wars cafe: all these busy soil creatures sharing grog and stories and, by the way, mentioning that…

The minimum standard for all new houses built in WA, since May 2011, is six stars. Ratings are calculated considering the climate zone, location, dimensions of the dwelling and occupancy. A ten star rating is difficult to achieve. Besides maintaining a comfortable temperature all year round, without the need for air conditioning or additional heating, the construction is required to feature efficient insulation, as well as thermal mass, to hold heat and thus moderate variable temperatures often experienced in Australian houses. Window placement is another necessary consideration, to enable cooling breezes to enter when required, using windows that act like vents to extract warm air to surrounding areas. Both dwellings on the site generate more electricity than they use, with the sun powering the roof-mounted, grid-connected three kilowatt photovoltaic array.…

Charles Sturt’s exploration party of 1844 was saved from death when it chanced upon four hundred Aboriginal people harvesting grain on the Warburton River (South Australia), in what was to become known as Sturt’s Stony Desert. Sturt and his men were revived with cool well-water, roast duck and the best cakes Sturt had ever tasted. Once recovered, the party was offered a new house in the orderly town that lined the bank of the river. Sturt’s saviours weren’t living on the bones of their behinds in hapless search for food; they had an organised agricultural economy. Sturt remarked on their obvious happiness, their civility and the wonders of the evening meal preparations, sauced with song and laughter. What would happen if our children, black and white, were taught that this…

In 2009, residents Duncan McNaught and Caroline Kemp were inspired by the words of architect Ken Maher, at about the same time as the price of a single lime hit $2. Maher’s work pushed them to think about community engagement with the suburban landscape, and how they could add value to their Buderim environment. This led to the relatively simple act of using the road verge outside their home to grow herbs and citrus trees, for their neighbours and themselves. Caroline explained that, ‘This is an urban area, so space is at a premium. We wanted to take that dormant public space and turn it into something useable and functional.’ IMPROVING THE SOIL Duncan said it was a tough slog, at the beginning, to get the soil quality to where…

Ask my children where their favourite place is: ‘The river!’, always the river. We often venture down to the river after school with a little picnic, or some things to cook up on a campfire. Our spot is in the upper Mary River – shallow, rocky, shady, cool – a peaceful place in the restored riparian zone of Crystal Waters Eco Village. The children skim stones, rock hop, find bridges and islands, float sticks and leaves, search for fish and yabbies, make harbours, swim, splash in mud pits and smear themselves from head to toe, climb trees, build cubbies and create complex games. I hear their constant chatter and laughter, and sometimes songs. I notice how intensely productive they are in making ‘things’ for their games. There is real meaning,…

Taj Scicluna is working to create a fertile and abundant world, where the earth’s resources are distributed fairly, with care and responsibility. Her passions include beekeeping, primitive living skills, herbal medicine – which she studies – and spoken word poetry. And she aims to bring back people’s medicine, people’s food and people’s freedom, not only through a passionate voice, but through individual action and community empowerment. Taj has run Permaculture Design Courses, with co-teacher Tamara Griffiths in the Dandenong Ranges, which incorporate interactive and creative teaching methods for all kinds of learning styles. Through passionate permaculture education and regenerative environmental services – such as permaculture design and the creation of delicious ornamental edible gardens – Taj aims to nurture diversity, and to protect ecology through healthy and resilient communities and…

Wulagi Primary School is an urban school in Darwin, Northern Territory. The school has a history of close relationships with the wider community, and a focus on sustainability. A large community and school permaculture garden has been established on the school grounds. Students from preschool to year six have the opportunity to dig deep and learn permaculture inside the classroom and outside. Our school is very creative and, as a result, produces a lot of wastepaper. Although we are not able to reuse all of it, one of our classes developed a process that turns some of our wastepaper into beautiful, colourful craft paper. The process has six ‘stations’. 1. COLLECTION STATION We have collection stations placed around the school, designed to collect colourful wastepaper. They have monster heads to…

POLYFACES: A WORLD OF MANY CHOICES Film directed by Lisa Heenan and Isaebella Doherty, created by Darren Doherty (Regrarians Media 2015), Review by Robyn Rosenfeldt This is not just a film about farming, it is a reminder to us that the food we eat is farmed by people on land, in soil’, Darren Doherty. Polyfaces follows the life and work of Joel Salatin and his family, creating a new farming model that will, in the words of Salatin, ‘heal the land, people and culture, one bite at a time’. Set in the stunning Shenandoah Valley in northern Virginia USA, Polyface Farm uses no chemicals, and feeds over 6000 families and many restaurants and food outlets within a three hour ‘foodshed’ (distance from the farm). The Doherty-Heenan family spent four years…

In most of Australia cucumber is a warm season crop; sow after frost. It likes well-drained soil, but don’t let it dry out. Can be sown indoors, then transplanted out when first leaves appear. Germination requires minimum soil temperature of at least 15 °C. Avoid overhead watering to prevent disease. SIMPLICITY: Easy ANNUAL: Will produce seed in the first year POLLINATION: Cross Pollinating. Insect pollinated. Will cross with other cucumber varieties; to ensure purity, grow varieties at least 500m apart HOW TO: Select only the best fruit and leave to mature on the vine. Cut fruit in half, scoop out seeds and place into a glass jar. Leave pulp to ferment for a few days until the gel surrounding the seeds has dissolved. This is important not only to aid…

Beyond the romance and deep pleasures of hands in soil, and the joy of sweet red orbs grown from tiny seeds that you thumbed into your garden beds and nurtured daily, freshness clearly also plays a part. A supermarket tomato can be weeks old before it makes it onto your chopping board. And, because of that time between harvest and table, the fruit is picked unripe to survive its long journey to a household, through countless refrigerated storage points: chiller to truck, to chiller, to truck, to supermarket shelf, to bag, to home. But it’s not only freshness or ripeness that affects the flavour of the fruit we eat. How it was grown matters: was it grown outside in summer sunshine in rich, organic soil, weeded and harvested by hand;…

‘With this energy-descent future looming, the “lucky country” is likely to get a big shake-up.’ My soon to be released book– ‘RetroSuburbia’ (due to be published late 2016) – focuses on residential landscapes, backyards and behaviours in suburbia, where most Australians live or were raised. Less theoretical and dense than some of my previous work, ‘RetroSuburbia’ builds on my ‘Aussie Street’ presentations, showing how ordinary Australians can downshift and retrofit their houses, gardens and lifestyles to be more sustainable and resilient; to survive and thrive. With this energy-descent future looming, the ‘lucky country’ is likely to get a big shake-up, with: the bursting of the property bubble; the ongoing collapse of prices for Australian exports; more extreme weather events; and geopolitical crises. We don’t have time – decades – to…

Describe what you do at Common2us? Common2us is an urban market garden in a residential suburb, only thirty kilometres from the centre of Sydney. We are as close as you can get to the city and have a two hectare lot. We grow a wide variety of fruits and vegies throughout the year, and sell directly to customers. The most important thing for us is to find a model that will allow us as farmers to live well, and to create good living conditions for ourselves, so that we can lead by example and attract young people to farming. At the same time, it is important to us to build relationships with our customers, so that we can give them a sense of being closer to what they eat and…

What is a tiny house, and why do you build them? A tiny house is a dwelling small enough to put on a trailer or a truck. I was always building cubby houses as a kid. And when our third child arrived we eventually needed another room. I had an old Dodge truck, and I thought building a room on that was the easiest option, out of necessity: no plans, no foundations. What do tiny houses mean to you? Tiny houses minimise space requirements and confine your needs to one room: you can cook, eat, socialise, sleep and wash – for example by sinking a small bathtub under a trapdoor in the floor. It’s about simple design, without limitations. How do you think permaculture, tiny houses and global sustainability relate…

Su Dennett has been sourcing, cooking and serving fair food for three decades. Su’s kitchen is at the core of the Melliodora Permaculture Farm, Hepburn Victoria, and feeds up to twelve people on a normal day; and dozens more when the house is open for public tours. Her deep commitment to ‘being the change’ means that much of the food she serves travels just a few metres to her kitchen, making ‘food miles’ almost irrelevant. Every food source is considered, including weeds and trees on public land, and every opportunity is taken: Su can do things with food that most permies throw away – carrot tops are part of the salad, and dried broad beans are a staple. When the parrots learned to get the walnuts before they were ripe,…

Why here? When my partner Fin and I met, a few years ago, we were both facing the age-old problems of finding ethical work, rising property prices and securing a loan. Last year we leased a tiny flat in the inner-city suburbs of Hobart, Tasmania, and started on our plan to grow a whole lot of food, make a little money and live a productive, home-based lifestyle. The flat has a small, east-facing communal space, and an even smaller north-facing courtyard. Our landlord and friend Mike had the brilliant foresight to plant productive trees, and we were fortunate to inherit a smorgasbord of cool-climate fruits. Although – as renters – our gardening endeavours are constrained, we’ve: dug up every centimetre of lawn; covered the concrete with pots; installed removable worm…

Connecting with the earth and nature gives me a very different perspective on which to base my environmental endeavours. Feeling a deep connection with nature, and experiencing myself as part of our living, breathing planet – not separate from it – supports me in acting for positive change, and earth care, in a natural and passionate way. I’m motivated and I act because of the love, respect and connection I feel for nature; not because I’m fearful that, as humans, we’re trashing the planet and we’re all going to die. I have felt this way since I was a young person, exploring my grandparents’ garden. Simply spending periods of time in nature, especially forests, supported me to deepen this sense of connection with all of nature: to sense myself as…

Near Woodburn in New South Wales there is a little community up on a hill called Korinderie Ridge. There is a huge community garden, surrounded by massive mango trees and banana circles, with pigs and chickens. The kids there know a thing or two about gardening and grow heaps of food! Ochre (7) and Eltham (5) Moore, and April (7) and and Cedar (5) O’Reily told us all about what they do in their garden up on the Ridge. So what’s your favourite thing about gardening ? Ochre: I like eating the vegetables we grow, and finding frogs in the leaves. Eltham: Playing in the dirt and finding worms. Cedar: Planting! April: I like planting seeds and watering the plants. Which vegetable is your favourite to grow? Ochre: Cucumber! Eltham:…