Recently Nick was lucky enough to hang out with David Holmgren for a couple of days at Melliodora, the superb small-acre permaculture site that David has established with his partner Su Dennett in Hepburn Springs, Victoria. Being in the thick of a super-productive, comfortable and energy efficient permaculture system at harvest time was inspiring, to…
I feel a little bit guilty about this. I am a committed Vacola preserver, like my mother before me, and her mother before her. We don’t can, we preserve. What is this pressure canning thing anyway? Autumn is about preserving the harvest. Autumn contains many large and bubbling vacola units, and results in beautiful preserved fruit and…
No room to grow? Your options for vertical gardens are expanding by the day. Some are big, and some are small, some blend in, and some stand out. Like this one. Here’s a funky little home growing project by the crew behind Calanthe Artisian Loft, a homestay in Melaka, Malaysia…
The act of mushroom foraging is a treasure hunt combined with meditation. You go tramping through the forest, focussed on the ground beneath your feet, and regularly pause to give thanks (and pick a mushroom or three). The wind is above, moving through the trees, it’s oh so quiet, and all there is in the…
Nearly time for our next Intro to Permaculture course! It’s coming up fast on the 13 – 14 April in Sydney. Nick teaches this course as a two day intensive that aims to give students a solid grounding in permaculture theory as applies to the everyday. It’s all about taking the big ideas, concepts and advantages…
What to cook, right now! Last week we held a Masterclass down at Allsun Farm in Gundaroo, and the marvellous Olivier Sofo did the cooking. Using primarily ingredients from Allsun Farm, Liv had the class in raptures and yes, recipes were promised. In the interests of stacking functions, we thought you might like these excellent…
Ashar Fox is 4 this week, which I guess means that Milkwood Permaculture is also officially 4 as well. Though we started Milkwood just over 6 years back, it was Ashar’s birth that woke me up. Something went click or snap at that point, and I switched from ‘hey, living in the country is kinda…
The other day Tim Malfroy, our mate and esteemed Warré beekeeper, came over to talk bees and check the Milkwood hives. We had hoped to split our two Warré hives into four colonies this season, but it looks like we’re sitting on that idea now. Why? Erratic flowering patterns – the eucalypts around here are…
Damsons are a much-loved preserving variety of plum, and with good reason. They’re intensely beautiful with their indigo skins and pale bloom, and their astringency means that the jam they make is divine. I was at Allsun Farm this week hosting our autumn Organic Market Garden Masterclass, and the damson tree by the back door…
Biochar is a type of charcoal, made and used for specific purposes – most often as a soil amendment. To make Biochar, you burn biomass using pyrolysis – a low/no-oxygen burning environment that prevents combustion of the biomass material, and therefore produces charcoal. The attributes of biochar as a soil amendment seem pretty significant –…
Give me your tips. This wood fired family needs some love. So we’re about to embark on our first full Winter of cooking on a woodstove. In particular, a Rayburn Royal. It has hot spots, cold spots and an oven that cooks everything really well on the left side. I know there’s HEAPS to learn…
This short documentary is about a weekend workshop hosted recently by Ampersand Sustainable Learning Center. Watershed Restoration: The Cutting Edge was taught by Brad Lancaster, Amanda Bramble, Jan-Willem Jansens, Steve Carson, and Craig Sponholtz. It focused on catching, sinking, storing, and using water where it falls. So good to see this knowledge gaining ground spreading…
Recently we welcomed a crew of budding market gardeners to Milkwood Farm to start learning the craft of organic market gardening. The crew was a mix of city folks dreaming of rooftop farms, enterprising suburban folks, small farm owners looking to diversify and keen-but-landless growers looking for opportunities. All of them left full of good…
The Milkwood newsletter is an occasional publication that’s a treasure trove of writings, free DIY guides, gardening tips, permaculture hacks, special newsletter-only posts and giveaways, and lots, lots more…