Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 18 i Pip Magazine

DAVID HOLMGREN David is best known as the co-originator, with Bill Mollison, of the permaculture concept following the publication of Permaculture One in 1978. Since then he has developed three properties, consulted and supervised in urban and rural projects and presented lectures, workshops and courses at a wide variety of events and venues in Australia and around the world. David and his partner Su Dennett live at Melliodora in Hepburn, central Victoria, where he’s the vegetable gardener, silviculturalist and builder. JEFF DONNE Jeff is a carver, writer and woodcraft teacher in Pambula, New South Wales. His well-known Travelling Spoon School has roamed across much of Australia, spreading the word of sustainable crafts and happy slowness to thousands of people. The challenges of 2020 have meant Jeff’s woodcraft school has re-emerged…

The Little Veggie Patch AN A-Z GUIDE TO GROWING FOOD IN SMALL SPACES A useful reference for anyone interested in growing vegetables at home using organic methods. Useful to apartment dwellers and backyard roamers alike, the book covers everything you need to know to get the most food out of your space. This amended edition of the best-selling Australian gardening book covers everything from understanding soil, creating beds, successful composting and productive worm farms through to natural pest and disease management, and saving and sowing seeds. Written by Melburnians Fabian Capomolla and Mat Pember, this latest edition is a great start for anyone wanting to grow more food in their own backyard. $27 www.littleveggiepatch.com.au ROAD TO REGENERATIVE RINGER TEE Fair-trade certified, this lightweight t-shirt from Patagonia is made from regenerative…

Vicia fava – vicia was the name for vetch in Latin and fava for the bean itself. ORIGIN Broad beans have been cultivated since prehistoric times in Europe. They were unearthed in the ancient city of Troy, found in Egyptian tombs as well as with Bronze Age artefacts in Switzerland, so their exact origin is difficult to determine. It is recorded that Romans used them as voting tokens and they reached China by the first century CE. DESCRIPTION Broad beans are a hardy frost-tolerant plant. They are also called horse beans, fava beans and, in northern Africa where a smaller version is common, tick beans. CULTIVATION Broad beans respond well to the addition of compost and moderate soil moisture. May to July is the best time for planting in most…

What to sow NOVEMBER Beans, cucumbers, melons, pumpkin, zucchini, capsicum, chilli, eggplant and tomato seeds. Bush beans need succession planting, climbing beans like being direct sown. Citrus, passionfruit and other subtropicals, such as avocadoes and mangoes, can be planted. DECEMBER Fast-growing vegetables like climbing beans, melons, pumpkin and zucchini, as well as repeat plantings of tomato and corn. Basil seedlings are ready to go out around the tomatoes and eggplant, and capsicum and chilli seedlings can be planted. Coriander and baby spinach need frequent small plantings and longer shade periods. JANUARY Beans, corn, cucumber, gourds, melons, pumpkin, squash and zucchini from seed. Summer seedlings of capsicum, chilli and eggplant are best planted now, taking care to choose a location that will receive sun well into autumn. Sweet potato slips (rooted…

What to sow NOVEMBER Barleycorn, capsicum, cowpeas, eggplant, galangal, ginger root, mustard greens, spinach, okra, sweet corn, coriander and turmeric. Snake beans and pigeon peas grow well in the wet season. Crowns of sweet potato can also be planted, so plant a new row every couple of weeks for harvesting throughout the year. DECEMBER Soybeans are best planted in early December. Summer greens such as okra, pea eggplant, red and green mustards, silverbeet, sorrel and tatsoi. JANUARY Sow seeds for Asian greens, Komatsuna mustard, marigolds, okra, peanuts, snake and winged beans. Plant corms for taro and rhizomes for galangal, ginger, sand ginger, temulawak and turmeric in a shady spot. FEBRUARY Planting is difficult when the rains are torrential. Lotus seeds can be germinated in a bottle of water, but they…

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You’re connecting with nature in the form of the microorganisms hanging out in your kitchen More than just a food fad, sourdough is an ancient practice of breadmaking that has captured our imaginations for centuries. Among many things, a sourdough starter bubbling away on your kitchen bench means you’re taking care of your gut health through the proper preparation of grains. You’re connecting with nature in the form of the microorganisms and wild yeasts that are hanging out in your kitchen, and you’re slowing your life down in a nourishing way. WHAT IS IT EXACTLY Sourdough is the way people have made bread for centuries. Before commercial yeast and the quick-rise industrial loaf, bread was made using three simple ingredients: flour, water and salt. A sourdough bread culture – or…

NOOSA FOREST RETREAT Noosa Forest Retreat offers residential and online permaculture courses as well as education and techniques around syntropic farming. There’s a free online introduction to permaculture course and a fun design certificate from $49 per week. www.noosaforestretreat.com (07) 5409 7599 ONLINE PERMACULTURE LIVING COURSE Join David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture and the Milkwood crew to get the skills, expert knowledge and know-how to kickstart your permaculture life. Learn online from wherever you are, at your own pace. www.milkwood.com.au (02) 5300 4473 ROBIN CLAYFIELD’S DYNAMIC GROUPS Held at Crystal Waters Permaculture Ecovillage in south-east Queensland, Robin offers a wide range of permaculture and leadership courses. Next up is the Social Permaculture course over 28–29 November, with Teacher and Facilitator Training over 21–26 March 2021. www.dynamicgroups.com.au (07) 5494 4707 PERMACULTURE…

This long, enclosed and wearable towel is the perfect project to give new life to tired towels. Great for coming straight home from the pool or the beach without getting changed and ideal for when you need to discreetly change out of your bathers somewhere public. Treat you or your family with a practical addition to the beach bag this summer that will both reduce waste and save you money. Using the towels from the back of your cupboard, or some bright-coloured or patterned towels picked up in an op shop, this wearable beach towel means the kids can stay in the water for longer. And with enough room to be able to get changed within it, accidentally exposing yourself is a thing of the past. WHAT YOU NEED You’ll…

Q WHY DIDN’T ANYONE LAUGH AT THE GARDENER’S JOKES? A BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO CORNY! CORNY FACTS Six things you probably didn’t know about corn 1 Corn is a type of grass. 2 One cob of corn has around 800 kernels. 3 The world record for the highest corn plant is over 10 metres. 4 Most corn is yellow, but can also be grey, purple, blue, green, white and red. 5 Corn is also used to make fireworks, plastic, paint, glue, fuel dyes and soap. 6 There is one strand of silk for every kernel of corn. Q WHAT HAS LOTS OF EARS BUT CAN’T HEAR? A A CORN PATCH FIND-A-WORD How many of the 24 words from this issue can you find hidden in this box? BREAD BROADBEAN CALENDULA…

“We need to build more reliance on ourselves and our communities” Who could have imagined a year ago how the world would look right now. Never would we have thought that overseas flights are all but cancelled, businesses shut down, people would be forced to stay at home, wear masks to go out and that we’d be banned from gathering with friends, family and loved ones. It shows what is possible in a crisis. In my previous editorial, I wrote about how this crisis has returned some positive changes for the environment and I would love to think this is so, but how we fare into the future all depends on how well we come out of this at the other end. Government really needs to lead on this but…

Considered a godsend by many a weary outback traveller, the bright scarlet-coloured fruit of the quandong tree – also known as the desert peach – has many beneficial uses. Quandong (Santalum acuminatum) trees are widely dispersed throughout the arid inland and coastal regions of southern Australia including Western Australia, South Australia, Northern Territory, Victoria and New South Wales, with remnant communities in remote areas. A relative of the sandalwood, the quandong grows to a shrubby tree between four and five metres tall. It has long, narrow olive-coloured leaves which taper to a point and its golf-ball sized fruit turns from a greeny-yellow to a bright crimson when ripe. GROWING Germination requires patience, but having a productive quandong in your garden is well worth the effort. Seal a one-year-old quandong seed…

What to sow NOVEMBER Basil, beans, beetroot, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, chives, coriander, cucumber, English spinach, kohlrabi, leek, lemongrass, lettuce, marjoram, mint, onion, oregano, parsley, parsnip, pumpkin, radish, rosemary, silverbeet, swede, sweet corn, tarragon, thyme, tomato, turnip and zucchini. DECEMBER Asian greens, beetroot, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, cucumber, leek, lettuce, parsnips, potatoes, pumpkin, rocket, salad onions, silverbeet, sweet corn, tomatoes and zucchini. JANUARY Asian greens (e.g. rocket, mizuna, mibuna, mustard, cress), beetroot, bush beans, carrots, lettuce, radish, silverbeet, spring onions and turnip. If you live in a warm spot, try seedlings of late zucchini, cucumber, small pumpkins like Golden Nuggets, sweet corn and more tomatoes. FEBRUARY Plant winter vegies including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, Florence fennel, leek and parsnip. Garlic is good to…

Sweet and juicy, dried and ground, grilled, boiled or popped, it’s easy to understand why corn is a favourite all-round staple. Fresh, frozen, ground into flour or made into porridge, polenta and tortillas. Hugely versatile, you can snack on corn raw, feed it to livestock, turn it into syrup, even convert it into ethanol. Originating in Mexico and spreading rapidly through the Americas, the humble grain has established itself as an essential in gardens and kitchens all around the world. VARIETIES There are two main types of corn, field corn and sweet corn. Field corn varieties can be ground into flour, used for stock feed and other applications, while the fresh corn we all recognise is called sweet corn. Corn (Zea mays, also called maize) is from the grass (Poaceae)…

“No amount of fancy tiles or designer kitchens can ever make up for how nurtured you feel when you live in a passive-solar home” It was 13 years coming, but couple Mara and Ralph have created a sustainable, efficient and loving home that was well and truly worth the wait. I was singing Italian folks songs at the Boite Singers’ Festival when my partner Ralf asked for a second time ‘can we move to the country?’ Thirteen years earlier he’d made the same proposal but I wasn’t ready. On this occasion however, I craved change and the timing was perfect. So by the end of the festival weekend we had found a completely bare 15-acre grazing paddock just a 10-minute drive from the gorgeous town of Daylesford in Victoria’s Central…

A rise in interest in permaculture during the pandemic has highlighted the important role its practices play in building household and community resilience. Faced with limited access to goods and services, many Australians turned to permaculture practices as a solution to the pressures associated with the coronavirus pandemic. From the early days when panic buying cleared supermarket shelves, to the recent higher-level lockdowns, more people are recognising the benefits a more sustainable and self-reliant lifestyle can have during a crisis. GROWING FOOD The importance of growing your own food has been highlighted more than ever during the both the pandemic and bushfire crises. The interruption of large supply chains combined with panic buying left supermarket shelves empty and people began to question just how secure the industrial food system really…

Growing your own medicinal garden is easy and the benefits of having fresh herbs on hand – both medicinal and edible – are immeasurable. It’s difficult to know the age and viability of dried herbs, so growing varieties which are suited to both your climate and soil conditions will ensure you have the highest chance of gaining the best therapeutic and culinary outcomes. While germinating seeds and striking cuttings in a greenhouse will deliver great results, you can also have a lot of success by direct seeding and planting cuttings straight into the ground. As well as allowing the plant to establish a stronger root system by not disturbing it when transplanting from seed trays, being in the ground means seedlings require less-frequent watering in hot conditions. Prepare the beds…

When it comes to fermented drinks, most people think kombucha or water kefir, but good old-fashioned ginger beer can be just as beneficial for gut health and really easy to make yourself. It might seem unintuitive, but the link between fermentation and good health is bacteria. And they’re everywhere, from the start of a fermentation process to the insides of your stomach, and responsible not only for digesting things inside our intestines, but things outside them, too. Not content with breaking down our food for digestion, bacteria reduces it into molecules more easily absorbed by our bodies: this is called bioavailability. Besides that, the microbial community makes vitamins, breaks up toxins and medicines, and strengthens our immune systems. All things which are a great advantage for our health and wellbeing.…

Our kids patch winners for this issue are two-year-old Wilde from Bright in Victoria and five-year-old Ryann from Geraldton in Western Australia. Congratulations, you’ve both won a copy of Grow Do It by Formidable Vegetable Sound System. Next issue we are giving away a copy of The Runaway Dandelion by Jill Regensburg. To be in the running, parents can email a photo to editorial pipmagazine.com.au along with your child’s name, age and suburb, or post the picture on Instagram using the hashtag #pipmag SHOW US YOUR GARDEN Craigburn Primary School Name Sophia Hanna What year are you in? Year two What are your favourite things to grow? We love to grow green beans, carrots, broccolini, strawberries, potatoes, apples and sunflowers. What are your favourite jobs? Lots of things! Our favourite…

470 BY LINDA WOODROW (MELLIODORA PUBLISHING 2020) Review by Robyn Rosenfeldt A novel set in the 2030s in a future where the effects of climate change and global warming are starting to have serious effects. Set in both Melbourne and Northern NSW, this book follows the journey of one family and their communities’ experiences in a climate-changed world. Melbourne has been ravaged by heat waves and bushfires, Northern NSW has been cut off by a cyclone with swathes of beach and homes washed away, leaving the communities with food supply chains cut and with a dire shortage of basic necessities. By coming together as a family and community, by bartering, growing food and drawing on their combined skills and resources, they are able to not only survive but also thrive.…

CREMA JO Crema Joe is a family-owned, Aussie business passionate about helping you get more from your daily cuppa. Its range of planet-friendly coffee pods are designed to be reused, giving you the freedom to brew freshly ground coffee beans with your coffee machine. The refillable capsules are compatible with Nespresso, Aldi K-fee, Dolce Gusto, VertuoLine and Caffitaly machines. www.cremajoe.com.au SOLIDTEKNICS On a mission to reduce the number of disposable, synthetic-coated pans piling up in landfill, Solidteknics’ patented one-piece pans have no synthetic coatings or heavy metals. Currently the only production cookware made in Australia, it offers world-class performance and built to last for generations. www.solidteknics.com FORMBOSS Australian-made FormBoss offers a large range of commercial-grade steel garden edging solutions. Quick and easy to install, FormBoss allows you to create flowing…

1 OBSERVE AND INTERACT By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation. 2 CATCH AND STORE ENERGY By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need. 3 OBTAIN A YIELD Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work you are doing. 4 APPLY SELF-REGULATION AND ACCEPT FEEDBACK We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems continue to function well. 5 USE AND VALUE RENEWABLE RESOURCES AND SERVICES Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumption and dependence on non-renewable resources. 6 PRODUCE NO WASTE By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.…

What to sow NOVEMBER & DECEMBER Beans (dwarf and climbing), beetroot, broccoli, cabbage, capsicum, carrot, cauliflower, celery, chicory, chilli, Chinese cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, endive, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, okra, parsnip, potato (tubers), radish, rhubarb (crowns), shallot, silverbeet, spring onion, tomatillos, sweet corn, sweet potato and zucchini. And the herbs: basil, chives, coriander, fennel, Gotu Kola, heliotrope, lovage, mint, parsley and tarragon. JANUARY At the end of the month plant capsicum, cherry tomato, chilli, cucumber, eggplant, lemongrass, pineapple, rockmelon, watermelon and zucchini. FEBRUARY Again, at the end of the month, plant avocado, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, bush beans, cauliflower, celery, leek, silverbeet and spring onions. Basil is happy to go in now so try some purple, Thai, lemon and sweet varieties. Nasturtium, verbena, petunias and marigolds are great at attracting pollinators and beneficial…

What to sow NOVEMBER Artichoke, beans, capsicum, celery, cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, melons, okra, onion, potato, silverbeet, squash, sweet corn and tomato. Basil, chives, coriander, fennel, lemongrass, mint, parsley and tarragon. DECEMBER Amaranth, basil, beetroot, spinach, cape gooseberry, capsicum, cassava, cherry tomato, chilli, choko, cosmos, cucumber, eggplant, beans, garlic chives, ginger, kangkong, lettuce, luffa, marigold, melons, mustard, okra, passionfruit, pawpaw, peas, pumpkin, radish, salvia, shallots, sunflower, sweet corn, tamarillo, tomato, turmeric, watermelon and zucchini. JANUARY Artichoke, beans, capsicum, celery, cabbage, cucumber, eggplant, kohlrabi, leek, lettuce, melons, okra, onion, potato, rosella, silverbeet, spring onion, squash, sweet corn and tomato. Basil, chives, coriander, fennel, Gotu Kola, heliotrope, lemongrass, mint, parsley and tarragon. FEBRUARY Broccoli, cabbage, capsicum, cauliflower, chilli, leek, lettuce, silverbeet, sweet corn and tomatoes towards the end of the…

Australia is home to more than 150 native species of fruit fly, but only a few of them pose a threat in the garden. There are two main types of fruit fly. The Drosophilidae family, often called the vinegar fly which is the one you see around compost bins and fruit bowls. It’s tiny, between two and four millimetres in length, and can range in colour from pale yellow through to black. The other is from the Tephritidae family which includes the two main flies affecting Australia’s backyard gardeners and commercial growers. There’s the Queensland fruit fly (Bactrocera tryoni), which is found on the east coast of Australia and, although it can’t fly too far, spreads easily by jumping from backyard to backyard. It’s hugely adaptable to its environment, so…

There is a bounty of culinary and medicinal plants ready to be put to good use Becoming an urban forager means tapping into a resource of free and abundant food. But whether it’s foraging edible weeds, redistributing excess produce or even diving into a dumpster, there’s far more you can gain than just a free meal. The savvy urban forager can dine out on gourmet cheese, berries, herbal teas and locally grown olives without ever stepping foot into a shop. But the philosophy goes further than just eating for free. You’ll reconnect with nature, save food going to landfill, learn plant names growing in your yard, parks and bikeways and connect with your neighbours. Wild harvest Wild harvest means collecting food that is often unknowingly growing around us and many…

We need a massive increase in research on fuel reduction by decomposition Fire is an intrinsic part of the Australian landscape. With the opportunity to both reduce carbon emissions and build community resilience, Australia should be leading the world in transitioning to renewable energy to reduce the severity of bushfire. Fire has become more destructive since European colonisation. And due to climate change and changes in land use, Australia has experienced even greater destruction over recent decades. Australian landscapes were once effectively managed by Indigenous cultural burning practices, but stopping this has left us with denser forests more vulnerable to fire. Traditional land uses of grazing and forestry which have contributed to both the prevention and control of bushfires have declined in recent decades. They have been replaced by residential,…

‘The power that artists have today is unprecedented’ A much-loved permaculture illustrator and educator, Brenna Quinlan’s drawings guide communities away from consumerism and towards living a life brimming with meaning, beauty and community connectedness. Brenna lives at the idyllic Melliodora property established by the co-originator of permaculture David Holmgren and his partner Su Dennett, where she practises, educates and illustrates permaculture. Her articulate watercolour paintings have been used in numerous books including Holmgren’s newest Retrosuburbia, as well as Milkwood: Real Skills for Down-to-Earth living and Farming Democracy: Radically Transforming the Food System from the Ground Up, and in just three short years has cultivated an Instagram following of more than 25,000. VALUES AS BEACONS Every illustration Brenna creates is completely different. What unites her work is her hand-drawn style and…