In-kitchen worm farm design
Ok 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…
Mushroom Cultivation: Good books for Aussies
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…
DetailsWatershed Restoration: Constructing a Media Luna
Recently 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…
DetailsA weekend of chooks, raw milk and urban agriculture
[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…
DetailsCelebrating the Summer that was, and the Winter to come
The 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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Egg Mobiles I Have Loved…
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…
DetailsThe dark and the light: eating different honeycombs as part of natural beekeeping
Once 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…
DetailsDave and Phoebe’s DIY Yurt
Over the Easter weekend we had a little shindig at Milkwood Farm, with camping and artists and lots of food. Dave and Phoebe brought their yurt, which they made themselves, from scratch, for under $2,000. It was an amazing and a beautiful thing. ‘Oh yes’, i thought, when Dave said they were bringing it… ‘I…
DetailsTalking tiny houses with the Telegraph
So about 5 months ago we got interviewed about the process of building a very small house… and last weekend the resulting article finally made it to the paper. Apparently we’re part of a ‘backlash’… I just thought we were trying (trying as opposed to necessarily succeeding) to build something simple and within our means……
DetailsMilkwood Easter: first of the carrots, last of the eggs
Carrots! Purple ones, orange ones, cream ones, yellow ones… they all make for rainbow salads, just at the point when the summer of colors coming out of the market garden is starting to wind down for winter… So while we have a kind of anti-spring festival here in the southern hemisphere every Easter, we do…
DetailsGenerosity as a strategy for survival
‘On The Anatomy Of Thrift: Harvest Day‘ is a video by Farmrun and Farmstead Meatsmith about honoring the the pig, the whole pig, and everything inside the pig. This is the next generation of charcuterie, done with respect for the animal and unashamed enthusiasm for the results. This is also previous generations of charcuterie – the…
DetailsRendering our Earthbag dome… first coat (bring on the cow poo)
While I have heard from multiple sources that cow poo is a fine and admirable structural component for cob render mix, I never thought we’d try it. But thanks to Harris, we have finally given the Earthbag dome we started building in February 2011 it’s first complete outer render, featuring mud, sand, silt and cow…
DetailsSoil blocks: how to transplant seedlings without going potty
Soil blocks are a great technique for getting a heap of seedlings started without pots. The basic concept is that you make blocks of soil with a mold and then plant seeds into the block, and raise the seed to seedling size. When you’re ready to transplant the seedling to your garden, you simply plant…
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