How do we actually design + implement a secure future for our communities? One that’s resilient, regenerative, positive, healthy and inter-connected. It’s a big question, and one that comes up (multiple times a day) at our Permaculture Design Courses, where a group of students from all over the world are grappling with this very challenge.…
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You know how it is – in the middle of Summer, both culinary + medicinal herbs are everywhere – there’s so many that you forget to see them. And then, before I know it, it’s Autumn, with the cold weather closing in – and we’re coming up to the season of sniffles, coughs and colds. Which…
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Recently we found something we’d always wanted to see – Glow in the Dark Mushrooms. No really, we did. Ghost Fungus, or Omphalotus nidiformis is actually quite common throughout southern Australia. Omphalotus nidiformis distribution, via Atlas of Living Australia Omphalotus nidiformis – Ghost Fungus Pronounced Omfa-lotus nidee-form-iss, this is probably Australia’s best known luminescent fungus. This type of…
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Bushwalking. Rambling. Tramping. Whatever you call it, it’s one of my favourite things. A day filled with new forms, terrain, the colours, the smells. A waking, walking, day long dream. But a dream with snacks, sweat, new discoveries, and the occasional blister. But here’s the thing. I’ve found fitting rambling and motherhood together a fairly…
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And we just thought we’d let you know, incase you want to come along. She’s giving a talk in Surry Hills of Friday 20th February called PLANET ON A PLATE, and she’s being introduced by the one and only Joel Salatin. Who is Dr Vandana Shiva? Only one of our all-time heroes and seed freedom…
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We’re very excited to announce we’ve figured out a learning path for all of you remote + time-poor folks who want to get the nitty-gritty knowledge of setting up regenerative + ethical animal systems for small farms. Joel Salatin webinars! In these intensive webinars, Joel will go straight to the heart of the matter and discuss…
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Here’s another of our gourmet mushroom cultivation students who’s off and growing! Marita Smith lives in the Morton National Park just behind Milton on the South Coast of NSW and over the last year she’s been setting up an awesome local food initiative. We caught up with her to take a peek inside her emerging organic mushroom…
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Silently eyeing the crostata off, I did briefly think of eating it all just there and then. No one else was home you see, they didn’t know I had made it. Still eyeing the tart off, I paused for just a moment longer… did they really need to know? I gently poked the pastry edging…
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Every now and then we get to visit a small organic farm that truly blows our socks off. Old Mill Road, and the family who farm it, are one of those farms. I think I should let the images speak for themselves here, so in summary: Old Mill Road is a diverse biological farm supplying vegetables, eggs,…
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If you’ve been hanging out in many of Australia’s cities this last week or two, you may have noticed a lot of rain about. Falling off roofs, gushing down gutters and along stormwater drains, those droplets that sound so glorious on a tin roof are often a lost resource in cities, washing down our hard…
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I’m getting cosy with the seaweeds that grow near our place. It seems only fair – I’ve always made a point of understanding what wild land plants and animals are particular to wherever we live – what they indicate, the conditions they prefer, and what niches they hold in the ecosystem. But up until now, I wasn’t…
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Think making your own aquaponics setup would be too hard and costly? Think again my friends. Here’s a straightforward and easy way to grow some waterwise greens in your home system. We made this super easy and downright cheap aquaponics system for the 107 Rooftop Garden in Redfern, Sydney, because we wanted to show folks how…
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The definition of a weed is subjective, I know. They’re simply plants out of place, after all. And one person’s weed might be another person’s harvest, or food, or medicine. It’s true. However, when it comes to our current backyard veggie patch, we’ve been laying down some ground rules about what plants get to stay,…
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