Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 2 i Pip Magazine

MORAG GAMBLE Morag Gamble, of SEED International, is a passionate permaculturalist who has been involved in projects and teaching for twenty years in twenty countries. Morag has applied permaculture throughout her life in many ways - as a city farmer, school gardener, ecovillager, educator, designer, advisor, networker, writer, film-maker, researcher and lecturer. Morag co-founded Northey Street City Farm in Brisbane, the city farm network and Conondale School’s permaculture garden. She advises university permaculture projects and international permaculture institutes. She leads holiday gardening master classes for children, permaculture camps for senior students, and helps others to design permaculture garden systems. www.SEEDinternational.com.au LACHLAN MCKENZIE Lachlan McKenzie lives in Darwin, NT, teaching permaculture and working with community and school gardens. He has lived and worked permaculture for twenty years, all over Australia, in…

The Chikukwa Project Film The Chikukwa project is an amazing story of African villagers who turned their lives around. This film made by brother and sister team; Gillian and Terry Leahy is a feel good story about an incredible permaculture project that has been growing in Zimbabwe for the last twenty years. Where once the people of the Chikukwa villages suffered hunger, malnutrition and high rates of disease, this community has turned its fortunes around using permaculture farming techniques. Complementing these strategies for food security, they have built their community strength through locally controlled and initiated programs for permaculture training, conflict resolution, women’s empowerment, primary education and HIV management. Now they have a surplus of food and the people in these villages are healthy and proud of their achievements. Their…

TAGASASTE Botanical name: Cytisus proliferus Common names: tagasaste, tree lucerne Origin: Canary Islands Description: a fast growing, deep rooted, evergreen leguminous shrub or small tree with prolific white flowers in late winter and early spring. Permaculture uses: • high protein leaves and twigs relished by stock, both mammals and poultry • seeds relished by poultry • nurse plant for protecting other trees • hedge or windbreak plantings • soil improvement, particularly through the addition of nitrogen via symbiotic bacteria in the roots • branches make an excellent coarse mulch in orchard areas • flowers are popular with bees and native nectar-eating birds • older wood makes good firewood. Design considerations: Tagasaste is a particularly useful permaculture plant due to its utility, hardiness, fast growth and ability to be cut regularly. It…

The original toilet was probably a hole in the ground – a waterless composting toilet. Human excrement left lying on the ground will decompose (compost) the same as any other animal excrement, and any other way of dealing with it is a refinement of the basic process. The main reason we have to deal with human waste in more sophisticated ways is population density. The level of complexity of a waste management system is generally directly related to the volume of waste needing to be treated. In a small rural dwelling on acres, a simple system will suffice; whereas a multi-story apartment block, housing up to hundreds of people, needs a complex system to ensure a healthy environment. The basic principle of minimum impact treatment is to keep liquid separate…

Gonâve island, fifteen kilometres wide and sixty kilometres long, lies under the Haitian sun. What once would have been a rich ecology is now as seriously degraded as the mainland. Even in its degraded state 50,000 sought refuge there after the 2010 earthquake. While most refugees have since returned to the mainland, there are 100,000 people who live permanently on the island. Most live a subsistence life based on charcoal production, agriculture and fishing, but after decades of charcoal production the island’s fertility and water resources are seriously degraded. Locally produced foods still include flour (mainly cassava), coffee, fruit and fish, but ninety per cent of the island now relies on food imported on the local ferry, mostly unhealthy products or aid food. There is no running water or sewerage…

Growing green manures is an age-old gardening technique that draws on a large range of fast growing crops to build, regenerate and maintain soil health. I like to think of it as growing soil instead of food – which is all the same thing really. Among the many benefits is this impressive list adapted from Green Harvest’s website: www.greenharvest.com.au/SeedOrganic/CoverCrops/GreenManureIntroduction.html GREEN MANURES: • help prevent and treat soil disease • increase organic matter, earthworms and beneficial microorganisms • increase the soil’s available nitrogen and moisture retention • stabilise the soil to prevent erosion – we’ve used them extensively on our steep banks directly after fresh earthworks, which has worked brilliantly • bring deep minerals to the surface and break up hardpans – when you choose plants with deep taproots, such as…

A ustralia is an enormously wasteful society: on average, every Australian throws away the equivalent of five bags of groceries each year. That’s $8 billion worth of food, rotting in landfill. Almost half of what goes to Australian landfill is food and green waste. We have a widespread problem of nutrient depleted soils on our farming land, yet huge amounts of useful organic matter are thrown into landfill, contributing to greenhouse gases and climate change. In permaculture we pay a lot of attention to waste, or rather to the avoidance of waste. You’re probably familiar with the Rs of waste minimisation: reduce, reuse, recycle, and the more recent inclusions refuse and repair. When we refuse to participate in wasteful practices we make a difference on an individual level. But it’s…

Economics has always been driven by supply and demand: you make something, and if people buy it in enough quantities it gets made again, usually in greater quantities. Supporting businesses with good ethics not only supports them to offer their products and services, it has the potential to empower all involved in the transaction. Many of us choose to shop locally, shop organically, shop in accordance with our ethics and really live the catchcry ‘put your money where your mouth is’. By shopping at big chain stores, and with non-local businesses that have money making as their prime motivation, our money supports their ethics rather than what’s close to our heart. By supporting businesses with environmental, social and heart-based ethics we enable them to continue, grow and thrive. This creates…

I got hooked on gardening at age fourteen when I found mustard seeds in my parents’ spice rack, planted some and watched them transform into little trees with yellow flowers followed by a tangy and crispy crop! I started growing my own vegies and fruit, then started planting trees in local parks when there was no space left at home. Years later, when my own children started exploring and playing in the garden, I set out to connect my children’s experience of the garden with my passion for edible gardening, and came up with the ideas behind what I do now as a designer of edible and sensory children’s gardens. In this article I’d like to share some of the things I’ve learnt over the years if you’re interested in…

This article is about the little network that could. A low-key, flexible organisation made up of permaculturalists, community gardeners, teachers and Northern Territory Department of Education staff working together to make growing and cooking organic, local food a key part of daily life in the Top End. Throw in a bit of resilient communities’ action, and sustainable design and practice, and we are really getting somewhere! There are many joys of living in the Top End and many challenges, and often these are the opposite sides of the same coin. The climate is more like that in South-East Asia than in most of Australia. Top Enders, like most Australians, love eating at Asian restaurants. However, if you look closely at those Asian dishes you are more likely to find broccoli,…

Permaculture Design Course – 6–18 April 2015 The Crossing near Bermagui, South Coast NSW. Tutors - John Champagne and his teaching team. Now in its 9th year, this PDC has empowered hundreds to take meaningful steps in their own lives as well as in the landscape and community that surrounds them. Nice blend of theory and practical sessions to assist learning with two whole days dedicated to visiting the best permaculture properties the Bega Valley has to offer. Spend thirteen days in the beautiful bush setting of The Crossing and focus your energy towards a new direction. P:0264927306 E:brogopg@bigpond.net.au www.permaculturedesign.com.au Immerse yourself in a total permaculture experience with courses at Djanbung Gardens. PDCs, short courses, professional development, internships and APT accredited qualifications with Robyn Francis and our dynamic team of…

I’m really excited about the diverse range of articles included in issue two. We’ve got stories from all over Australia. People are hearing about Pip, and the word is spreading. Our six sections have changed slightly for this edition. ‘Create’ has become ‘Thrive’, which is a section about earning a living and the ‘B’ word: business. Robin Clayfield’s article on the ethics and heart of social enterprise reminds us of all the ways in which businesses can choose to be ethical, and it offers a checklist of what to think about – whether we are running our own business or choosing businesses to support. Beck Lowe’s article on growing your own meat is something close to my heart at the moment. We have just gone through the process of raising,…

Australasian Permacullture Convergence 2015 NW Tasmania hosts the next Australasian Permacullture Convergence [APC 12] in March 2015. The town of Penguin is home to the RESEED Permaculture Centre and the NW Environment Centre who will host the event from 9–12 March, with a festival before and tours afterwards. It’s 40 years since permaculture conversations began between Mollison and Holmgren in Tasmania and so the theme is ‘Honouring the past– transforming the future’ - the challenge to permaculture. Visit: www.apc12tas.com or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/apc12tas Southeast Harvest Southeast Harvest Festival celebrates the quality and diversity of fresh food produced in the south-eastern shires of NSW. Join us to share in the harvest, make connections with local growers and learn how to eat with the seasons. The weekend is centred around Moruya. It will…

Bulldozers are often seen as symbols of destruction, but when they are in the hands of a permaculture designer they bring about a transformation of rural landscapes beyond anything that can be achieved by hand. Yandoit Farm, between Castlemaine and Daylesford in Central Victoria, is undergoing a five-year wholefarm makeover. In April this year, many litres of diesel were burned in a permaculture festival of earth moving! These once-in-a-lifetime landscape improvements were carried out alongside an earthworks course so that students could get direct experience of the process. When Michael and Lisa Jackson bought this beautiful 140 acre property along the Jim Crow Creek, they took on a going concern, with tractors, equipment, a shed full of hay … and cows, lots of them. With a great sense of responsibility…

The word permaculture has different flavours for different folk. My favourite flavour is that of design. I see permaculture as an amazing design system helping people and landscapes partner to look after each other, each providing the other with a significant amount of what they need to thrive, now and into the future. My main experience in applying this flavour of permaculture relates to what I do for a living: for the last five or so years I have been collaborating with friends to design and create edible gardens in and around Melbourne. In this work we use a permaculture design process to bring people and space together in backyard edible ecosystems. The design process we use starts by tuning in to the people and then the site. Next, we…

When I talk about my lifestyle, people always seem to be fascinated by the fact that I kill and butcher meat at home – I presume because it is so far removed from most people’s experience (and because it is an unpleasant process). They seem even more bemused if they know that I love animals. Keeping animals, and eating meat, allows our family to lead a more sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyle. This is contrary to conventional thinking – meat eating is normally associated with a higher environmental footprint. This is certainly the case in industrial agricultural systems where animal production is not integrated with other farming systems: many animals are raised on food that could be consumed by humans, and the waste produced from intensive systems becomes a disposal problem.…

Our kids love the bright orange and yellow house we’ve built: of course – they helped design it, and chose the colours! Ecovillage homes don’t have to be in muted tones of forest green and mission brown. Nature abounds with colour and beauty, and our permaculture garden is filled with these. These are reflected by bold splashes of colour on the walls that bring a fun, happy, positive feeling to the spaces in and around our home, and reflect a lively glow into our rooms, making a great living and learning space. We’ve been building our house at Crystal Waters Eco Village, near Maleny in Queensland, for just over a decade. OWNER BUILDERS We are owner builders and have almost finished. You know the story – just need a few…

What inspired you to start the Nethercote Produce Markets and then go on to open Sprout Eden? My friend Barbara and I were disappointed with the amount of fruit and vegetables available for sale locally and knew that, with the great range of microclimates and soils in Nethercote and surrounding localities, there must be a lot being grown. We hoped that starting the market would be a great opportunity to encourage local growers to get involved and hopefully grow more. We were frequently asked to hold the markets more regularly. One Sunday afternoon, while parked in the main street of Eden, I spotted an empty shop and the idea for Sprout was born. My vision was to create a mini version of the seasonal markets, providing customers with daily access…

Nineteen year old Madelaine Scott is an egg farmer and has been for twelve years. While people her age are often studying or still trying to find their feet, Madelaine is a full-time farmer running her own business. How did Madeleine come to being a successful egg farmer at her age, a business she has built up herself from scratch? Well a lot of it comes back to being homeschooled by her parents Rob and Colita. Rather than sitting down in a classroom and learning addition and subtraction, and biology, Madelaine’s parents thought the best way for their children to learn was by doing. So they encouraged all their children to start up a small business. When she was seven they helped her get a few chickens and start selling…

What do you do? I am a qualified horticulturist and landscape designer with permaculture training and values. I am also a holistic manager. Everything does something and has a purpose. I also felt, spin and am in a band with my husband and some great friends. My motto is ‘it starts with a dream for it to become a reality’. Give anything a go because it will lead to another and another. Tell me about your farm. Myself, my husband and our three children have been on our property of 93.7 acres for going on twelve years. Having grown up in the Bega Valley it was a place I dearly called home. Our mixed farm enterprise is mainly undulating granite hills with some basalt and a 1km winding creek with…

What do you do? I design practical, productive gardens, help people get the most out of their existing gardens, and sell organic and heirloom seeds through my market stall. What are you passionate about? It’s a cliche these days, but empowering people to live more sustainably is what drives me. I love learning about others’ dreams and visions for how their garden could work, and applying design skills and gardening experience to help them turn it into reality. I get a huge buzz as I see people gain the confidence to get growing. What inspires you to do the work you do? I love the Arthur Ashe quote, ‘Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.’ I don’t have all the answers or experience, but I…

Part memoir, part manifesto, The Simple Life arose from Hetzel’s passion for sharing and storytelling. Central to her simple life is the role of the home, and how it can have a profound effect on the way we view the world outside it: spending more time at home – cooking, cleaning, growing produce, knitting, mending, creating – made her ‘kinder, calmer, and more patient’. No longer did she need the money-sapping thrills of outside of the home – such as shops and cafés – to feel happy. She realised that happiness can exist in the simple things, and that producing is much more rewarding than consuming. And that the home should not be relegated to the status of ‘that place you spend time in at the beginning and end of…

BEANS Saving seeds is magical, economical, political and essential, all at the same time. It projects us into a future of abundance and security by nurturing our local food supply. It’s spring! So it’s a great time to start with a small handful of beans. Check out www.grow-it-organically.com/green-bean-varieties.html if you need help to choose a variety. And then follow these simple steps. Decide what quantity you want to save – for seed for next year, for eating green and maybe some for putting aside for a winter stew. Choose a non-hybrid variety. If your local seed savers don’t have what you want, see the big range at www.aussieorganicgardening.com/2011/11/open-pollinatedseed-suppliers/ Set aside a number of plants in the row for seed only. At the end of the season when the plant has…

The aim of this article is to explain why sometimes actions fall short of professed high ideals, or even contradict them. It’s about psychological processes rather than just competence, some at a subconscious level, which can disappoint and lead to cynicism over time. I believe it is important to prevent subconscious interference from undermining the theory and practice of permaculture. It became clear to me, many years ago, that most practitioners were held back by ‘unhealed psychological stuff’. This was affecting their creativity, and led to unfortunate tendencies to: promise too much, postpone action, blame others, fail to collaborate, and eventually suffer from burnout. So I started offering workshops on ‘Permaculture of the Inner Landscape’. PSYCHOLOGY BASICS Everyone is psychologically ‘wounded’ during their lives, and few recover properly. Meaningful action…

A regular part of our work at Good Life Permaculture is based around community development and social permaculture principles. We’ve found that when you work with people to improve knowledge, skill, health and wellbeing, other problems are also solved or lessened; and this can ripple into the community and the world beyond. You get the idea: from little things, big things grow. Live and Learn is an adult education program initiated by Sustainable Living Tasmania (SLT), which focuses on providing practical skills in living sustainably, to decrease the cost of living and increase the quality of life. The course usually runs over six weeks, covering a different topic each week including: gardening; transport; water; waste; health and wellbeing; and building and energy. In early 2014, SLT partnered with The Phoenix…

What was it that initially drew you to the principles of permaculture? I’ve been involved in local bush regeneration projects, seed saving and sustainability for more than two decades. I came to permaculture because I was committed to making a positive change to my local environment by participating in earth remediation projects. Permaculture deepened my understanding of taking personal responsibility for my actions, and that meant considering personal sustainability and contributing to community resilience. Permaculture provided an ethical thinking tool that informs practical solutions for a world in transition; that still resonates with me. How has your garden at the Wollongong PCYC (Police Citizens Youth Club) evolved? The garden first sprouted in 1999 as a place for the rental community to see permaculture in action. Our initial focus was growing…

M any of the original followers of permaculture left the city and became owner-builders on far-flung blocks of land; creating lives for themselves which were free of debt; allowing them to focus their time and energy on what they felt was important. Land was still cheap up to the late 1990s. Building regulations were minimal and, with help from local LETSystems and keen WWOOFers, many young families built their homes without having to rely on banks for a mortgage. The children of these families are now young adults, and it is a very different world they face when it comes to choice in housing. Land is much more expensive, making saving for a deposit almost impossible. Building regulations have escalated, adding to costs. And major banks are hostile to lending…

HOMEMADE CHORIZO RECIPE Chorizo is a sausage that you can eat at three different stages: the first is fresh, and cooked on a barbecue as normal; the second is hung and cured for a couple of weeks, and then sliced and fried and eaten inside fresh bread; the third is hung for four weeks until it is hard, like a good salami. Try the different stages and see which is best for you. Makes about seven to nine sausages. Making your own chorizo is really exciting and satisfying but you must be aware that there are risks associated with it, especially to the young, the elderly and the infirm of constitution. Do your research and understand the process. Cooking cured meats before you eat them, however, reduces that risk to…

In Feb 2014 Brett and Nici Cooper along with farming neighbours Ken and Carol Maddocks set up Two Men and a Pumpkin farmgate roadside stall along the Bucketts Way, six kilometres north of Stroud, NSW, seventy km north of Newcastle. Why did you decide to set up the roadside stall? Our location offered an opportunity to bring our permaculture strategies full circle, providing a financial return that then would support the costs associated with regular farm inputs. The farmgate stall benefits our local community and travellers from afar as an outlet for chemical free, farm fresh produce at market prices direct from the farms that grow it. Our customers can see our Perma-Market Gardens from the stall and upon request can visit the garden and even taste test some of…

A few years ago we thought up examples for parenting (and other systems) to illustrate the principles of permaculture and how they can be applied to all systems. When we did this our own children were young, so most of the explanations were for parents of small children. This article expands those ideas for parents of older children; it is a mixture of practical and philosophical examples of parenting according to permaculture principles. 1. OBSERVE AND INTERACT Look for signals from your children about what developmental stage they are at, and support them to learn what they need in this stage. Observe your children’s behaviour to discover what they love and engage in these activities with them – this will facilitate greater connection and better relationships. Observe your children in…

WHAT IS A PRODUCE SWAP? Produce swaps are community driven events where growers come together to share excess seeds, plants and produce; they involve no direct exchange, or any form of payment. They are also places to meet and exchange ideas and information and, consequently, encourage and inspire local food growing. WHY SWAP PRODUCE? For me produce swapping is permaculture in action, it is: ‘earth care’ by encouraging local food growing; ‘people care’ by bringing community together over good wholesome food; and ‘fair share’ by providing growers with an opportunity to share their excess, without having to organise a place at a market or an honesty box at the front gate. GETTING STARTED It’s easy – just a matter of setting a place and a time, and getting the word…