Easy Peasy: Gardening for Kids
We have a new book! Easy Peasy: Gardening for Kids is a do-it-yourself book for small people to explore the natural world around them, and grow and eat it, too.
Here’s a collection of our best articles about how to build everything from a strawbale chicken coop to a hurricane-proof tinyhouse.
Featuring info on everything from earthbag, strawbale, wattle-and daub and cobb to light earth, and also backyard DIY projects using recycled timber…
A year of seaweed, jungles and campfires (and a book)
Looking back, I obviously should have gathered a lot more seaweed last winter – to feed the curious, the enthused and the yet-to be convinced who all came to our many book talks in spring. But I was in a jungle at the time, side-stepping marching ants and dodging falling coconuts – which made it…
Beeswax DIY: making beeswax wraps + how to render your own wax
Beeswax is one of our favourite gifts from the hive – and perfect for making your own beeswax wraps. At this gifting time of year, no-waste, home made presents make all the sense in the world – so here’s how to make them. And how to render your raw beeswax down too, if you’re lucky…
Milkwood Book events: September (all of them!)
The Milkwood book tour is off and running – and we’re all over the place, from Brisbane to Melbourne. Join us at a free mushroom demo, an intimate author talk, or a seaweed show-and-tell somewhere? But firstly, we officially launched Milkwood on the first day of spring, at Pocket City Farms. And it was a…
The Milkwood Book
It is with much excitement that we can finally share with you – the Milkwood book is coming. Hooray! Many years in the making, our little labour of love will be out in all good bookstores on September 1st. We are SO looking forward to sharing a load of feasts, extracts, explorations and events that…
Permaculture Futures: Emmanuela Prigioni, Lyttleton Stores
Lyttleton Stores is a little piece of Blue Mountains magic, with community at its heart. A super inspiring example of what a small-town cooperative can be – local organic grocery, community gallery, kitchen, workshop space… you get excited the minute you walk in the door. This collective-turned-co-operative sits just off the highway at Lawson in…
RetroSuburbia: the downshifters guide to a resilient future
This book is dangerous. In its essence, RetroSuburbia invites and inspires us all to stay right where we are. Turning our suburbs upside down, to make the world we want. No need to be moving to the country, to the coast or to the hills for a happier, greener life. That idyllic community? It’s probably…
Making an Off-grid DIY Mushroom Fruiting House
Here’s how we made a DIY off-grid mushroom fruiting house – for creating a humid forest simulation chamber, to grow LOTS of mushrooms right on our back porch. You can grow mushrooms in lots of different ways. We grow them in reusable containers – buckets and jars, and also in gardens, on logs and stumps…
27 Life Hacks for Permaculture Living
Want to design a better, earthier and more rewarding life with permaculture? Solutions-based thinking is not just for big design projects. Permaculture can also be used to improve the everyday, the little things, to create a happier you. Over the last 10 years, we’ve been gradually using permaculture principles to create better daily lives for…
Winter: Feijoa harvests + bioluminescent mushrooms
The dams are full and the soft green winter grass in the orchard has returned. There’s been feijoa harvests by day and bioluminescent mushrooms by night. The landscape is slowing down. The frost confirms that this place is finally in Winter, after a long, long Autumn. At the end of this month, we will have been at…
Creating Community: The Growing Abundance Project
From collective fruit harvesting to skill sharing to school lunch programs… if you’re looking for inspiration for creating community, the Growing Abundance project in Castlemaine is a treasure trove. The programs run by Growing Abundance are many, but they all centre around food, and what a really truly local food system could look like. A local food system that was…
Natural Building: Passive House, Active People
Building a well designed, passive solar house can mean comfort in both summer and winter, with minimal energy inputs. On the hottest day of summer, it’s comfortable and cool inside. On the coldest night of the year, passively collected solar heat warms your bones. Enjoying a simple passive house does require participation from its residents, however. Even well designed passive…
Mid Summer: Berries, plums + treehouse builds
It’s mid summer here at Melliodora. The days are hot and the cicadas sing in the trees all around. It’s a time for berries, plums, treehouse builds + giant zucchinis. We rise early before the heat starts – to water precious plants, to twine climbing tomatoes so they can reach high, to just sit outside with a…