Innholdsfortegnelse for Issue 21 i Pip Magazine

DANI WOLFF Dani is a building designer, permaculturalist and educator, and one third of the collective Make Hearth. Make Hearth is an architectural design studio based in New South Wales’ Northern Rivers region. Make Hearth runs educational workshops relating to earth building, and designs residential homes using vernacular architecture principles. She’s the Northern Rivers Chapter coordinator for Young Farmers Connect and currently lives in the Byron Shire with her partner and their baby daughter. RANDA MUSHCAB Randa is a practitioner who has worked in local government for five years, educating the community on ways to reduce their waste and live sustainably. In 2018, she flew to Jordan to complete her permaculture certificate, 10 km north of the Dead Sea. Randa saw firsthand how permaculture can reverse desertification and bring food…

INTRODUCING 2021’S PIP PERMIE AWARDS! Nominations are open for the 2021 Pip Permie Awards which recognise the individuals and organisations working tirelessly to create positive change. As Australia’s leading permaculture title, Pip will reward the businesses, people and projects who best demonstrate permaculture’s three key ethics of earth care, people care and fair share. There are three coveted awards up for grabs this year: 2021 Ethical Small Business of the Year, 2021 Permie Project of the Year and 2021 Permie of the Year. Both the Permie of the Year and the Project of the Year will be featured in a 2022 issue of Pip magazine, while the Ethical Small Business will receive a complimentary advertising package through Pip Media. To nominate a project or person doing amazing things, head to…

https://www.facebook.com/groups/2107261809589521 https://www.instagram.com/pipmagazineau/?hl=en Donna Stapleton I think if it’s hanging over a fence onto public domain, then it’s free to pick. Kirsty Sharp My philosophy is to ask first, and only take a few. It annoys me when people strip a tree. Leisha Hain I take a few lemons and leave a couple of dollars in the letterbox. JOIN OUR COMMUNITY Stay connected at Pip Magazine Community, our closed facebook group, where you can share ideas, information and inspiration for earth-conscious living.…

This prolific weed has an instantly distinguishable aroma, outing it as a versatile substitute for leeks, onions and even garlic. Onion weed (Allium triquetrum) is pretty edible which has many uses in the kitchen. All parts of the plant are edible; from the flower right down to the bulb and they make an excellent alternative to young leeks, or while you’re waiting to harvest the first of your garlic. Onion weed thrives in wet and shady areas and is often found along creek edges, roadside drains and backyards. Onion weed reproduces two ways, which is why it’s so prolific in some areas. It spreads by seeds which form after flowering and also vegetatively, by the production of numerous underground bulblets. HOW TO IDENTIFY IT Also known as three-corner garlic or…

Growing your own food from such a tiny seed can be really empowering, but many people find it challenging. Successful germination is about providing the right environment for particular seeds to flourish. And once you get the hang of it, a whole world of new varieties will open up to you. There are so many reasons why growing your own plants from seed is better than commercially available seedlings. For the small cost of a seed packet, you can grow a huge amount of food. The number of varieties which become available to you increases enormously and, if you go one step further and save the seed from plants which have acclimatised to your individual conditions, you’ll produce plants which are healthier and more robust than anything you can buy…

Because the floor is primarily made from natural materials, these floors are great for human health Earthen floors have been used in buildings for thousands of years. As well as an effective way to passively heat and cool your home, they’re aesthetically beautiful, kind to the environment and delightful to walk on. It’s estimated between ten and 30 percent of the world’s population still live in earthen structures. Earthen floors range from bare and dusty earth all the way through to perfectly levelled modern versions with a gloss finish. Earthen floors connect you to the natural environment and can be used in most construction situations that would otherwise call for a concrete slab. There are three main reasons you’d consider one in your home; an earthen floor’s response to passive…

“The difference in living conditions between pigs raised on pasture and pigs raised in sheds is massive” Getting access to pasture-raised pork is far harder than it ought to be, but there are two young Victorians working hard to make a living out of ethical farming. Will and Emma’s work is really important for humans and animals alike. If you were a pig you would go to extraordinary lengths to live on their land, for they raise pigs on pasture as opposed to dark concrete sheds. Will butchers the meat they grow and it’s sold it through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model. They both have off-farm jobs; Emma works full-time as an environmental campaigner and Will works at a nursery. Their Pig & Earth Farm is located on Dja Dja…

Young people like myself found themselves coming home from climate strikes and wondering, what can we do now? A teenager who’s more interested in social justice than social media is a rare and great thing, but having the confidence and backing to turn that interest into real and positive change is something else altogether. Fifteen-year-old Maia Raymond isn’t your average teenager. As the eldest child of permaculture educator Morag Gamble and a resident of Crystal Waters ecovillage, Maia has been gifted with firsthand permaculture experience most adults spend decades trying to obtain. With a Permaculture Design Course completed at the age of 12, and a network of well-connected contacts, Maia is making the most of her experience to forge her own world-changing path. And it begins with the youth. TAKING…

“Think about the security seeds give us in the face of an uncertain future” In the face of climate change and all that is currently challenging our world, planting and saving seeds to grow food is one of the most powerful actions we can take. An act of radical hope, it is taking control of how the food you eat is grown, you are actively reducing your food miles and you are stepping away from a system that values profit over the environment. But you are also creating hope for the future. A future with greater food sovereignty, where food is produced more locally and shared among households, where we aren’t reliant on big companies that are destroying our soils and our environment in a bid to produce food at…

I studied permaculture at Central Queensland University and my major project was to design a food forest for an impoverished village in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi. I was fortunate to be able to spend several years implementing my design before Covid forced me back to Australia, and I’m proud that my work has since inspired others to take up the challenge of developing their own regenerative farming project. With the help of villagers, we started putting the design into practice in early 2018 by carving swales and planting living fences. It was brutal work in the tropical heat – and a kilometre walk back to our accommodation. The lessons I learnt and passed on to the small community is that good design must work with nature. This means we planted appropriate…

As both predators and prey, frogs are an important link in the food chain. Encouraging them to take up residency in your garden is beneficial and easy to do. Of nearly 8000 species of frogs worldwide, Australia is home to more than 230. Hugely diverse, they can be found anywhere from the top of a tree in an inner-city backyard, to a metre underground in the desert as burrowing species look to escape the summer heat. But all frogs play a really important role in maintaining a healthy ecosystem, both on a global scale and within your own patch. With numbers declining all over the world, it’s a good time to start thinking about building a safe and appropriate habitat to encourage Australia’s amphibians into your garden. WHY THEY’RE BENEFICIAL…

By using native Australian ingredients in your kitchen, you can prepare food that is better for our environment, is more sustainable and celebrates truly local food. Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan are a South Australian couple who, through their company Warndu and book Warndu Mai, aim to regenerate culture, community, tradition, health and soil. Warndu means good in Damien’s traditional Adnyamathanha language, which is native to the Flinders Ranges country, with mai meaning food. Rebecca has completed her Masters in International Rural Development and Sustainable Agriculture and is currently undertaking another masters in Food History. Damien is a teacher, an artist and proud Adnyamathanha and Dieri man. Together they’ve produced a cookbook that makes native ingredients accessible for all Australians through otherwise familiar recipes. The foreword is written by Yuin…

COMING SOON! http://grow.pipmagazine.com.au/ Soon every article Pip has ever published will be live and searchable online. Whether you need a hand in the garden, help in the kitchen or advice on your latest project, Pip’s ideas, information and inspiration will be at your fingertips. Accessible on any device, membership will include monthly giveaways, exclusive access to content, sneak peeks of upcoming issues, Pip partner discounts and plenty more! https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ https://pipmagazine.com.au/ DISCOUNTED ACCESS FOR CURRENT SUBSCRIBERS!…

GREEN CONNECT Our award-winning farm just south of Sydney is 11 acres of scrub transformed into one of the largest permaculture farms in the world. We grow chemical-free fair food and run tours and workshops all year round. Spring workshops coming soon. www.green-connect.com.au/visit 0437 038 151 POCKET CITY FARMS Pocket City Farms uses urban farming environments to cultivate food, community connections and knowledge through education. It offers tours, workshops, volunteering and a hands-on, urban-focused PDC. www.pocketcityfarms.com.au 0411 274 838 QUANTUM LEAP WORKSHOPS Working with the intelligence of nature, Quantum Leap workshops demonstrate how to identify and clear stress in food systems for optimal health, growth and prosperity. Understand your landscape’s energy fields through enhancing intuition and divining. www.rcsaustralia.com.au (07) 4939 5255 OUR PERMACULTURE LIFE Morag Gamble is the host of…

With a bit of nous and some recycled materials, you can make a seed-raising box perfectly suited to your needs Successful seed germination requires three important things: warmth, light and moisture. With some recycled timber, you can create the perfect seed-raising environment. As we wait for the soil to warm up this time of year, there are many places around our homes well suited to raising seeds for spring planting. The goal is finding a place which is nice and warm to promote germination and protect your young seedlings from the elements, but still with plenty of light to guide the new shoots to the surface. A sunny indoor windowsill offers both warmth and natural light, but it’s when we start adding the third important element – water – that…

Our kids’ patch winners for this issue are Harvey and Clancy Howe from Palm Beach in Queensland, you’ve won a packet of permaculture action cards by Brenna Quinlan and Charlie Mgee. Next issue we’ve got the 2021 book Bee Detectives to give away. Written by Vanessa Ryan-Rendall and illustrated by Brenna Quinlan, it’s for any aspiring bee detective who wants to learn how to attract native bees to their backyard. SHOW US YOUR GARDEN Howard, Queensland Name Jarvis Pohlmann How old are you? I’m ten years old. Where do you live? I live on Terra Tribe Farm, it’s 12.5 acres of land on the Burrum River and near the rural town of Howard on the Fraser Coast in Queensland. Describe your garden Our food forest is still young, but we…

Mel Baxter – AKA Moonshine Madness – is a talented illustrator based in Queensland. Inspired by botanical illustrations, retro calendars and Australian tea towels from the 1960s and 70s, her intricate line work and warm colour palette captivates a genre of retro Australiana which has earned her a strong and welldeserved following. Now working from a wood cabin surrounded by the Queensland bush, she treads lightly on the earth and is a staunch supporter of sustainable Australian businesses. Mel studied Visual Arts at Queensland University of Technology before becoming a full-time freelance designer and illustrator in 2009.…

LETTER of the ISSUE Start where you are Thank you for sending me a copy of your first magazine. I loved every page because Pip speaks to everyone who wants to live sustainably and not just to those who live on acreage. I was listening to David Holmgren way back in the 70s and I wanted to live his way then, but it wasn’t to be. Now, at 74, I can and at last I am starting to put together a new and better way to live. It will take me a few months to get into the growing and habits of my new life. I have so many ideas, I have just finished a course with Milkwood and I learned so much. I’m so glad I’ve found Pip to…

I want to talk about special quality of my people, one I believe to be the most important, and our most unique gift. In our language, this special quality is called dadirri. It is inner, deep listening and quiet, still awareness. Ngangikurungkurr means deep water sounds. Ngangikurungkurr is the name of my tribe. The word can be broken up into three parts: Ngangi means word or sound, kuri means water, and kurr means deep. This is about tapping into that deep spring that’s within us. Many Australians understand that Aboriginal people have a special respect for nature. The identity we have with the land is sacred and unique. Many people are starting to understand this more. There are many Australians who appreciate that Aboriginal people have a very strong sense…

Using spent coffee grounds is one more way for us to turn so-called waste into a useful and valuable resource around the home. An average cafe collects around 320 kilograms of coffee grounds each month and if it gets put into landfill, where it breaks down anaerobically, it converts to harmful greenhouse gases. IN THE GARDEN Spent coffee grounds contain a whole range of useful things for gardeners, like nitrogen, potassium, calcium and trace minerals. While coffee grounds can be sprinkled sparingly – no more than one handful per square metre – straight onto the garden, they can be acidic, so you’re better off adding them to your compost or your worm farm to break down and neutralise the acid. If you do opt to use them directly on your…

Biting into a sweet, crunchy pea pod straight from the vine is a highlight of any gardener’s year. As diverse as they are versatile, the humble pea is a nutritious and easy-to-grow annual that deserves a space in every home vegie garden. Peas belong to the Fabaceae family of flowering plants, grown for their pods and seeds for thousands of years. Domesticated in Egypt and the Middle East before spreading throughout Europe and Asia, evidence also suggests their pea-predecessors may have even been eaten by our Neanderthal ancestors. Aside from being delicious, peas are a great source of fibre and protein and are high in vitamin C, iron, potassium and magnesium, making it easy to see why they have been included in both ancient and modern diets. VARIETIES There are…

This understated star of fermented foods has been around for centuries, providing extraordinary bacterial assistance to the human microbiome. If you’re into living, probiotic foods and you already have a sourdough starter bubbling away on your kitchen bench or a kombucha ‘mushroom’ gracing a dark shelf, then dairy kefir will need no introduction. Known as dairy kefir, milk kefir or simply kefir (pronounced kef-fear), this unlikely fermented food is thought to have appeared many thousands of years ago in Central Asia, when people began domesticating and milking animals. While the culture itself looks like innocuous little cauliflower florets, it packs a big punch in terms of probiotics, with a list of beneficial bacteria and yeasts as long as your arm, far outweighing anything you will find in the highest-quality commercial…

In the midst of a pandemic and a rapidly changing climate, holidaying might not spring to mind as a positive or necessary activity. But getting away can have profound benefits to your mental health and, viewed with a different perspective, it’s far easier – and closer – than you think. Despite early predictions the technological revolution would lead to an increase in leisure time, things in the western world haven’t exactly gone to plan. Back in 1930, John Keynes, one of the founders of modern economics, predicted five-day weekends would exist by 2030. Nine years out from that date, we are working more than ever. In fact, economist Juliet Schor estimates pre-industrial workers had more time off than modern workers do now. She hypothesises they had anywhere from eight weeks…

The best way to understand how to observe and interact, is by thinking back to how you saw the world as a young child Working smarter, not harder is a good way to create a resilient, high-yielding garden. And simple observation is the stepping stone for smart design. To observe and interact is the first of David Holmgren’s 12 permaculture principles and arguably the most significant. It’s nearly impossible to create a resilient permaculture system without careful observation. Nature is a living, breathing ecosystem and the only way to truly understand it is to get out there and immerse yourself in it. Permaculture educators Angelo Eliades and Kat Lavers share their insights on how observing and interacting with their backyards over the years has led to the success of their…

The list of chemicals used in laundry products which can be harmful to both humans and the planet is long Homemade laundry detergents are more sustainable, better for your health and significantly less expensive than storebought options. Not surprisingly, commercially available laundry products aim to do two things well in order to attract returning customers. They’re designed to get your clothes as clean as possible as efficiently as possible, and they’re two results many of us are well accustomed to paying a premium price for. To produce the best results in a way deemed efficient by consumers, that is with the least amount of powdered or liquid detergent, often means a cocktail of harsh chemicals. These are not only harmful to our waterways and the environment, they can be harmful…

Q WHAT DID THE TREE TO SAY TO SPRING? A WHAT A RE-LEAF YOU’RE HERE! THE SCOOP ON SEEDS Six things you may not already know about seeds 1 Some Australian plants rely on fire or smoke to germinate, while others need insects and animals. 2 Some plants, like ferns, don’t produce seeds. They make spores which form in rows under the leaves. These drop off and make plants where they land. 3 Animals often eat seeds, which isn’t bad, because when they poo the seeds out, it gives them a great environment for germination. 4 The ‘spots’ on the outside of strawberries are their seeds – there’s an average of 200 seeds on each one! 5 Some seeds form with air inside them so they can float – a…

SOIL THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF WHAT KEEPS THE EARTH, AND US, HEALTHY BY MATTHEW EVANS (MURDOCH BOOKS 2021) Review by Emily Stokes Even if you think you know a lot about soil, by reading Matthew Evans’ tome on the good dirt you are guaranteed to find out more. Starting with a history of how the earth formed and created the soils we grow our food in, Soil proceeds to explain just how much we have neglected, over-ploughed, over-grazed and depleted the earth’s thin layer of topsoil that keeps us alive. Not all doom and gloom, the book also imparts plenty of positive ways we can all contribute to a healthy, functioning microbial soil life. It explains how we should use weeds as indicator of soil health, the benefits of biochar…

WOOLLYKINS Using organic merino and other renewable fibres, Woollykins has your family covered from top to toe. From nappies and towels through to slipper and tops, Woollykins has Australia’s largest range of ethically produced organic wool garments. And there’s a wide range of wool-care and mending supplies, too. Use the code PIPKINS for a 10% discount. www.woollykins.com.au SEEDMART Seedmart Australia offers you a hand-selected range of bulk organic and open-pollinated heirloom vegetable seeds. Microgreens are a fast-growing and profitable crop which are easy to grow; find out more on Seedmart’s website. Mention this ad and, for a limited time, receive two free packets of microgreen seeds with any order over $99. www.seedmart.com.au THUNDERPANTS Thunderpants produces undergarments which aim to improve the lives of everyone involved from the cotton growers through…