Here’s our best resources on all things related to permaculture design and whole-systems thinking.
Forage below for designs, processes and resources for creating everything from forest gardens and solar-passive houses to water harvesting systems and urban rooftop edible gardens.
As the weather heats up, the bees get busy. We’re all hoping for a great season. But the hotter weather also brings with it possible bee pests including small hive beetle, especially if you’re beekeeping in wam-temperate Australia. Here’s some tips for dealing with small hive beetle, naturally. All about Small Hive Beetle Small hive beetle was…
At Melliodora, the goat forage system is designed to support this permaculture smallholding in numerous ways, while closing the loop, keeping happy goats and making tasty cheese. Every morning, Pip and Willow make their way up to the milking shed in readiness for their morning milking. When it’s my turn to milk in the morning,…
It’s 2 years since we started transforming a bare patch of city rooftop into an award-winning, thriving community garden space. Now seems like a good time to look back at what worked, what didn’t and what’s growing now. The 107 rooftop garden, incase you haven’t seen it, is a 140m2 patch of rooftop in inner Sydney. It’s lined…
Rarely have two books landed on our kitchen table at once that have been so different, yet so similar! The Art of Frugal Hedonism + Grown and Gathered encompass deep urban frugalism (for hedonists) to dreamy-yet-muddy farm life+kitchen. With pictures. In a current climate where lots of folks are wanting to downsize, downshift, simplify radically, barter + trade, go no waste,…
Learning how to establish a profitable urban farm takes a LOT of planning and thinking – it’s certainly not just about land access and good seedlings. So we’re very happy that Curtis Stone, author of The Urban Farmer, has launched this excellent online course. Some of you may have seen + learned from Curtis when we…
Scoring a patch of dirt to start an urban farm in Sydney is no mean feat. But Pocket City Farms have done it, thanks to their passion, green fingers and ability to adapt. Just the skills you need for farming. Perfect. Pocket City Farms is a small group of normal folks with a big dream – to grow good clean…
Greywater is a fabulous, though often underused, household resource that should be used wherever possible. Here’s a home made 3 bathtub greywater system that’s simple but effective. If you live in an area where water is precious at certain times of year (and when is it not?) then catching, storing and using every drop you…
The future of small scale organic farming belongs to those who are willing to find a way to grow, regardless of where they begin from. Linda Machon is a perfect example of a farmer who has made the most of what, and where, she has found herself. The concept of the multi-enterprise small farm makes…
Retrofitting the suburbs – imagine an ordinary Australian suburban street full of houses, whose front and backyards are dripping with food, catching and storing all the water they need, and generating some of their own power. Imagine using your immediately available space to provide for your family’s needs, in a way that creates community, more…
Recently we had the honor to steward a beautiful bunch of people through Permaculture Design Certificate training in the rainforest at Otford. The insights, mushrooms + wallaby tracks were many. As is usually the case with our PDCs, there were folks from all over this planet in attendance. We were especially happy to provide a full scholarship…
Its a strange thing, how simple tools like compost, forking techniques and biointensive plant spacings might just shape our futures. And also, not so strange at all. The killer thing that we love about biointensive growing is it’s attention to ensuring immediate productivity, while ensuring long-term soil health. In permaculture design, this is embodied in the…
In less than a months time we’re hosting a Permaculture Teacher Training course with Hannah Moloney, Rosemary Morrow, Nick Ritar + Brendan Morse. It’s not just for teaching Permaculture, though. It’s for top shelf communication skills, of all kinds, for all situations. Effective communication, as we all know, is key to passing on skills of all kinds. The…
If you listen to just one podcast on permaculture, regenerative agriculture + Australia this year, let it be this one. Last week, Bruce Pascoe, author of Dark Emu, joined David Holmgren at the Dayelsford Town Hall in Victoria for an evening of discussion. The topic was Australian regenerative agriculture, and it’s long pre-white history. Something…