Adam Grubb and Dan Palmer are some of the most accomplished urban permaculture designers I know. Aside from being the founding forces of the Permablitz movement, they also design professionally – creating functional, edible awesomeness in small suburban spaces through their Melbourne Permaculture business, Very Edible Gardens (VEG). We’ve snared Adam as a special guest…
DetailsOn occasion, our two big water tanks at the very top of Milkwood Farm overflow. What to do with the intermittent extra water? It’s too precious to just drain away. Time to design a water catchment and planting plan to make the most of it. Since solving this problem is both necessary and interesting, we…
DetailsSpring is slowly but surely springing at Milkwood, and our new forest garden is beginning to wake up from the cold and grow, grow grow!
A quick note as I haven’t mentioned our upcoming Intro to Holistic Management course with Kirk Gadzia that starts on the 1st of November. >> Holistic Management with Kirk Gadzia: 1-3 November @ Milkwood Farm, NSW Having worked side by side with Allan Savory for many years, Kirk knows a thing or two about using…
DetailsThanks to the amazing efforts of many forces, I can officially say that we are now feeding everyone at Milkwood Farm from the Organic Market Garden each day! Starting with feasts of fresh rocket, lettuce and pak choi. It’s been an adventure of epic proportions to get to this point. But thanks to our amazing…
DetailsWant to come and get your hands dirty while skilling-up for a future in permaculture and regenerative agriculture? Our next intern program might be just the ticket! >> Summer/Autumn internships: 25 Jan – 18 Apr 2012 at Milkwood Farm Big fat plug? Yes. But applications close on November 7th! And we think these internships are…
DetailsThis idea combines two of my favorite urban food growing solutions – vertical gardening, and aquaponics. Can they be friends? Of course they can! Charlie from Ecolicious in Sydney has been trialling a funky combo of these techniques in various urban gardens he’s been designing of late. Vertical growing space of edible vegies and herbs,…
DetailsWe’ve all been a bit in love with bees around here, ever since we met Tim Malfroy. Actually I liked bees before that, but Tim got us seriously hooked. We’re now aiming to create a truly fabulous Warré apiary at Milkwood Farm that can showcase small-farm natural beekeeping at its best. And produce many buckets…
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So here we have it. Folks, this ain’t normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World. At last, after 7 self-published books on everything from ground-breaking poultry systems to inter-generational farming strategies, Joel Salatin has finally written a book aimed fair and square at the mainstream. A self-professed Christian Libertarian…
DetailsMeet our new woolshed kittens. Their names are Dave and Bill. They’re actually girl cats, but they’re such best friends that we needed two names that went together. Muffin and Puffin didn’t quite fit, so we went with Dave and Bill. It’s a bit of a permaculture thing. Dave and Bill’s chief responsibility in our…
DetailsThis Spring we’re lucky enough to have six new permaculturalists living at our farm. Our Spring 2011 permaculture interns are here for 12 weeks of designing, doing and digging. And they are some of the most amazing folks I have had the pleasure to meet since we’re been here. Apart from being formidable individuals, these…
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Why was Joel Salatin so excited when we took him to visit Col Seis’s pasture cropping farm last year? I think it had to do with Joel wanting to close the loop on his regenerative farming enterprise by plugging one of the biggest holes Polyface Farm has: grain inputs for animals. The idea of truly…
DetailsMud is the most amazing building material. It’s beautiful, it’s local, it’s completely non-toxic, and it’s free! And perhaps the best bit is that your house takes on the colors of the hills around you, as you wrap your home in the clay of that particular place. As outlined previously, our experimental wattle-and-daub walls haven’t…
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