Is it bean season where you are? At Milkwood Farm we’re awash in them. Green beans, purple beans, borlotti beans, scarlet runner beans… it’s one big bean-athon. Down in our market garden is a strange and extensive structure called The Bean Banjo. The Banjo is our bean growing trellis of sorts, constructed from polypipe and…
DetailsIt is with great excitement that we’re announcing an upcoming Advanced Watershed Restoration course at Milkwood Farm, with Craig Sponholtz. Huzzah! As part of RegenAG, we’ve managed to haul Craig out to Australia for a couple of weeks to skill us up on some ground-breaking, doable techniques in erosion control and passive water harvesting, as…
DetailsAt the Permaculture Design Course we just finished in Sydney, Adam Grubb got everyone truly inspired about the power of Permablitz. A good permablitz is an valuable opportunity to participate in design, community, digging, growing and learning, all in one day. Following on from Adam’s excellent ‘How to run a Permablitz really well’ talk that…
DetailsSo it turns out that mushroom cultivation is really easy – once you wrap your head around all the intricacies, that is. And setting aside all the ‘wow’ moments you’ll have as you begin to delve into the wonderful world of fungi. But apart from that, it’s simple! We just hosted a mushroom propagation course…
DetailsWettest year on record. That’s what they’re saying… Which means (amongst many other rain-related things, most of them good) that our erosion control Zuni bowls are consistently full of water. And they make fabulous tiny oceans for setting sail…
DetailsSo here we have it – two weeks of our recent urban Permaculture Design Certificate, in 160 seconds! And what an amazing two weeks of learning and thinking and designing and digging and tasting and doing it was… Over the two weeks the PDC students worked their way through an intense curriculum of permaculture theory…
DetailsPermaculture and Regenerative Agriculture are fortunately two fields that have lots of great resources. Books, DVDs, you name it. But where do you start? Which to read first? I thought I’d share our most-thumbed favorites. We have this crate of books that travels to each Permaculture Design Course as the ‘student library’, and those books…
DetailsAnd I think all in all, it went pretty well. Ever since the gazillions of tomato plants (in numerous heritage varieties) were planted in the Milkwood Market Garden, we’ve been waiting for this great day. The inaugural squishing of the harvest. And check out our new, fancy-pants passata machine! In the spirit of multi-function, it…
DetailsGuess what? We’re hosting a great evening talk with Michael Reynolds, that world-leading sustainability pioneer of Earthship Biotecture, in Sydney on the 26th Feb. Do you want to come? This community event is going to be a uniquely inspiring & informative evening of radical architecture, ideas and discussion about Earthship building and living. >> Book…
DetailsSo just over a year ago, our house dam filled for the first time. And then went into scary nearly-melt-down. So we pumped the water out, fixed it, and then waited for it to fill again. And waited. For a year. Do excuse multiple soggy shots of muddy pools, but this is big news at…
DetailsWe have been searching for seeds of the Siberian Pea Tree (Caragana arborescens) for years. Permies in North America and Europe rave about this plant for it’s hardiness, growth, nitrogen fixing and forage capabilities. But find it in Australia, we could not. Until we found Phoenix Seeds! Phoenix Seeds is a little seed company in…
DetailsMore beautiful shots by Cathy X from our current Urban Permaculture Design Certificate that Nick is teaching in Sydney. Featuring Michele Margolis’ amazing urban permaculture garden, Adam Grubb teaching soil, and permaculture design! And mini bulldozers, of course…
DetailsOnce you’ve harvested your natural honeycomb from your Warré (or other kind of top bar) beehive, it’s time to make get some of that goodness into jars! Fortunately, like many other aspects of natural beekeeping, getting the honey out of natural comb is easy and simple, once you know how. We’re just at the start…
DetailsThe Milkwood newsletter is an occasional publication that’s a treasure trove of writings, free DIY guides, gardening tips, permaculture hacks, special newsletter-only posts and giveaways, and lots, lots more…