Category: Permaculture
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Family Bonding Day
Today was a huge family bonding day, although we didn’t all spend it together. Megan and Grace went up to Sydney with the Peterborough school for the Rotary Club of Turramurra and Pathfinders Jumbo Flight. Qantas donated the use of a jumbo jet, pilots and cabin crew donated their time, and Rotarian volunteers provided ground…
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Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge
We have signed up for the [Sustainable Illawarra Super Challenge](http://www.sustainableillawarra.com.au/The-SuperChallenge.html), and Monday night was the official launch of the programme. The idea is for 120 households across the Illawarra to spend the next 12 months moving towards a more sustainable lifestyle. Sustainable Illawarra provides participants with information, workshops, guidance and resources (as well as some…
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Wicking Beds
**NOTE:** I have moved this post to my other blog, [Green-Change.com](http://green-change.com), as it fits in better with that blog’s theme of suburban sustainability. For futher updates check out [Wicking Beds – Water Efficient Gardening](http://green-change.com/2009/05/01/wicking-beds-water-efficient-gardening/). A wicking garden bed uses a waterproof container or layer below the soil surface to form an underground reservoir of water.…
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Growing Mushrooms From Mushroom Compost
In July I took my trailer up to the mushroom farm to get a load of mushroom compost. It was $2.60/bag, and I got 16 bags for $40. I was really just thinking of using it on the garden as a mulch layer at that stage. When I got home, though, I realised there were…
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The Chicken Ark
An updated version of this post is available over on my suburban green living blog, Green Change: [Chicken Ark Plans](http://green-change.com/2008/11/17/chicken-ark-plans) When thinking about a coop for our chickens to live in, we wanted something practical, non-permanent, and space-efficient. Looking around the net, the [‘chicken ark’ or ‘chicken tractor’](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tractor) concept seemed the best for our needs.…
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The Good Podcast
It might sound daggy, but lately I’ve been watching the old BBC series [The Good Life](http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/goodlife/index.shtml) (a friend at work lent me the DVDs). Megan thinks I’m getting old. You’ve got to admit, though, that there’s something about Barbara Good (Felicity Kendal). It never sat right with me that that Tom guy wound up with…
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Video: How To Make Compost (Milkwood)
Another great video series from [Milkwood](http://www.milkwood.net), this one explaining how to make compost without too much effort. Don’t these videos have great music? I also really like the way they use the “Benny Hill effect” of speeding up the video, so you get a good idea of what they’re doing without needing to sit around…
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Video: Soil Food Web – And Nature’s Soil
##Notes – Manzano Mountains, Central New Mexico, USA – Michael Martin Melendrez, founder of [Soil Secrets](http://soilsecrets.com) – Michael is also well known for his coining the phrase and writing the first paper ever on the Soil Food Web titled ‘Soil Ecology and the Soil Food Web’ in 1974 – sugar maples, drop leaves to provide…
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Video: Fallen Fruit
Here’s an interesting video about [picking public fruit](http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/sustaining/fallen_fruit.php). – Fallen Fruit is a group that maps local fruit trees and encourages sharing through group plantings and “forages” – take people on walking forages to collect public fruit growing in the neighbourhood – fruit growing on public property or hanging over fences onto public property is…
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Video: Edible Estates
Watch the video at KCET, [Edible Estates](http://kcet.org/explore-ca/web-stories/sustaining/edible_estates.php). ##Notes – why are people growing lawn? – Fritz Haeg converts homeowners’ front lawns into working vegetable gardens – Descanso Gardens invited Fritz to build a demo garden to show people what he does – one third of the garden is planted as plain lawn – two-thirds is…