Recently we held a Serious Backyard Veggies course at Buena Vista Farm in Gerringong, south of Sydney. It was not what your would call a calm, sunny and dry weekend – but the learning was great, the setting most beautiful and the food most scrumptious. So nobody seemed to mind.
DetailsJust a head-up that Common2us, an organic market garden at Dural on the northern edge of Sydney, is offering an on-farm ‘residential’ volunteer position. If you’re interested in learning about organic agriculture, specifically market gardening in a real ‘hands in the dirt, feet on the ground kinda way’, this might just be the opportunity you’ve been looking for…
DetailsAn organic market gardener’s toolkit is their best friend – the right tools can turn a 50-minute job into a five minute one. There’s a huge range of tools that can be put to valuable use in a market garden, but there certainly seems to be a certain bunch that tend to get pulled out…
DetailsAnd here’s where we’ve landed – in the rolling hills and hidden coves of the South Coast. We’ve dived straight into exploring, foraging and getting a feel for the lay of the land…
This Autumn was a special one at the farm – after a year of dry everything was suddenly green, the bees were buzzing furiously, the market garden was pumping and the chickens were laying. And then we held our Autumn Permaculture Design Course and, along with a beautiful crew of students, turned the farm into…
DetailsThose of you who have been around these parts for a while might remember a review we did a few years back of one of permaculture’s essential reads, Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture by J. Russell Smith. Some say it formed part of the basis of permaculture’s origins, as a concept. And so it goes without…
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So we have a little bit of news. After 7 amazing years of growing, building, designing, digging, planting, watering, re-planting, driving to and from town (a lot), laying pipes, fixing pumps, teaching, harvesting, sharing and learning… we’re ready for the next phase. We’ve decided, after much deliberation, to decamp from our rather remote little farm…
DetailsWe want to support and grow more teachers – people that will grow to be like dandelion seedheads, distributing seeds of knowledge far and wide. Seeds that will one day put down roots, hold the soil in place, decrease compaction, increase biomass, provide food and medicine, and help to regenerate the landscapes and communities around them.
DetailsRight now, multiple communities in NSW, QLD and beyond are in uproar and blockade mode against Coal Seam Gas (CSG) exploration – but you won’t see it on the news. Why not? It’s hard to say – mainstream media is a many-horned creature. But there’s plenty of reporting going on about this citizens uprising all the…
DetailsIt’s the time of year to shell the beans for saving (and eating), to pick the last of the rocket, to take the tomato trellises down. Time to make compost of the in-edible bits of the harvest’s tail end, in order to cycle nutrient for next season’s growth…
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We’re loving learning the techniques of getting living foods into our diet, and one of the easiest to master is the fast-turnaround ferment of water kefir (also known as tibicos). This yummo probiotic soda requires very little effort, minimal waiting time, and is just asking for some experimentation with the huge range of flavors you can…
DetailsWhat do you get when you leave a paleo, a gypsy and a South African alone in the Milkwood Farm kitchen for 5 minutes? Plans for making Biltong, that’s what. Biltong is a South African delicacy composed of salted, spiced dried meat that is super easy to make at home. And now we’re all a…
DetailsSuddenly, here, the nights are colder and the air crisper. As we ease on into another winter we’re getting ready to plant greens. It’s good fortune really that the abundance of greens that we can grow in the colder months are full of nutrition!
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