[wpvideo UFYkeID7] Warning! This post contains chook-talk. Not much of it, as I am not the resident chook fancier of Milkwood, but still a bit. In short, we have started breeding Blue Langshans, a heritage dual-purpose (ie good eggs and good eating) chickens, hopefully in quantity. Wish us luck.
DetailsI can now proudly report that the beetroot and radish kimchi has been a success. And it tastes delightful. Kimchi is normally a spicy cabbage-based Korean ferment, but Rose decided to get a little radical, and use what we had in season. Previously in Spring, Rose had tried making bok choi kimchi, which did work,…
DetailsJust a note that we’re running a part-time Permaculture Design Course in Sydney that starts on the weekend of the 17th March. It’s in a one day a week format (you chose from Saturday or Sunday class, no class on the Easter weekend), and it’s going to be great. This will be our third part-time…
DetailsHere come the potatoes! This is the first year we’ve grown them en-mass, and we are now (finally) starting to harvest. Duch creams, Ruby Lous, Nicloas…. mmm fresh organic potatoes roasted in our own olive oil and rosemary – om nom nom… This story starts with an encounter with a potato nerd (self proclaimed). His…
DetailsHere’s a great video of Craig Sponholtz explaining his guidelines for watershed restoration. As with much of permaculture design, it’s all about expanding the edges of fertility, and starting with what you have. Which, is the case of re-hydrating a landscape, is the wet spots! It’s important to have options for fixing erosion and repairing…
DetailsOk this is a downright divergent post, but what the hey – it’s Saturday. I just found a bunch of Hey Girl meme entries on the important things in life – beehives, seed catalogs and compost…
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…
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…