This morning I woke up to a delayed Mothers Day of pancakes, sticky kisses and… a bag of pink oyster mushrooms, just starting to fruit! How amazing are they? The reason for the delay was that Nick was in Sydney teaching a mushroom cultivation workshop. But it was worth the wait to gaze apon such…
DetailsThis one is for all the heirloom corn fans out there (and this completely includes me). The genetic diversity of maize is intense. It’s also the most widely grown crop in the Americas. About 80% of maize grown in the USA is now GMO, and that makes the heirloom varieties even more precious. Thankfully, there…
DetailsThere is nothing quite like a feijoa – they are simply the most amazing fruit. Fragrant, pungent, sweet yet sour, gooey in the middle and grainy round the edges. The original yum in a small green torpedo. They also tend to appear as a surprise in large quantities when ripe, probably because they’re so darn…
DetailsI’ve been hearing it more and more – questions asked about why folks are looking at self sufficiency, stand-alone power or disaster preparedness, which are answered with the off-hand response of “oh, I’m just preparing in case of a zombie apocalypse”. On facebook, a picture of a small island with high cliffs and a caption…
DetailsYesterday Ashar and I went mushroom foraging at our local pine forest, just to see what there might be after a rainy day in Autumn. And look what we found! Slippery Jacks. Yum.
Nick was asked by International Permaculture Day 2012 to video his take on permaculture, so here it is. Recorded stealthily during naptime, to avoid the otherwise ever-present soundtrack of a joyful 3 year old. This International Permaculture Day we’re heading to the city to run an Earthbag bench workshop, but there’s a lot of other…
DetailsOk perhaps I’m having a rabidly bright-green moment, but i rekon this artwork is pretty cool. An in-kitchen wormfarm, with built in chopping board! Nutrient cycling beneath the bench…
The further we get into mushroom cultivation, the more I realise just how useful and amazing fungi is. I’ve also found that it’s sometimes a little hard to find info that relates to growing edible mushrooms in Australian conditions. Finding local knowledge is crucial! Luckily, there’s lots of resources that relate specifically to growing culinary mushrooms…
DetailsRecently at Milkwood Farm, Craig Sponholtz led a course in Applied Watershed Restoration, and taught us all a bit about how to tackle on-farm erosion control with human-scale solutions. One of the things we constructed as part of the workshop was a media luna, a simple but effective rockwork structure that can be used to…
Details[wpvideo Paa7ABcC] Last weekend I went on a rare road trip to see Michael Ableman speak down at Mulloon Creek. While I was there I squeezed in a quick peek at Mulloon’s free-range egg operation… I was also lucky enough to stay on farm with our good friends (and comrades in permaculture farming aspirations) Cam…
DetailsThe first frost has arrived and the last tomatoes and capsicums harvested. The last course has been hosted and the cups all put away. Tis officially the end of the year for our seasonal courses and crew at Milkwood Farm. At this time of year our focus shifts from welcoming many students, woofers and friends…
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An Egg Mobile is a movable chicken house designed to house laying hens at night, who by day cluck around on open pasture. Joel Salatin made them famous at Polyface Farms, but who invented the concept I do not know. Egg mobiles are different from chicken tractors in that they are designed as part of…
DetailsOnce you start natural beekeeping you’ll soon be introduced to eating brood honeycomb – comb that has had baby bees (brood) go through it, and now contains honey. In many traditional cultures, this dark honeycomb is the most sought after – it is riddled with extra enzymes and traces of pollen from the brood rearing…
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