Last weekend we ran an Aquaponics workshop in the middle of a landfill site. But a landfill site with a difference. Kimbriki is a strange little valley on the north shore of Sydney that is at once apocalyptic and regenerative. It’s a landfill site, it’s a massive composting operation, and it’s a recycling center. With…
DetailsThe second week of our Winter 2011 Permaculture Design Certificate, we were lucky enough to have David Holmgren, co-originator of Permaculture, presenting for the whole day. I don’t think anyone will forget this day in a hurry. Apart from walking us through his 12 principles with elegance, enthusiasm and what is clearly an extremely deep…
DetailsLast Monday we arrived at a soggy sports field early in the morning. We had a trailer-load of lucerne hay, 6 fejoa trees, masses of herbs and cuttings and one thing on our minds. Permablitz. Would anyone else show up on such an unfriendly, rainy public holiday in winter? Unlikely. But in our heart of…
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Last summer, when Joel Salatin was at our farm, we asked him a question or two. The first one was: what’s your advice for young-uns who want to farm but don’t want to get into debt? You see, at Milkwood Farm we’re very committed to positive balances. Positive natural balances, and positive (if only slightly)…
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At Milkwood Farm we love both our rocket stove water heater and our mini rocket stove, but with winter taking hold I’m dreaming of new ideas, so I thought I’d review what else is out there. DIY rocket stove technology is exploding world-wide at the moment – here’s a couple of the treasures I’ve come…
DetailsWant to come and get your hands dirty while skilling-up for a future in permaculture and regenerative agriculture? Our Spring internships might be just the ticket! >> Spring internships: 12 Sept – 6 Dec at Milkwood Farm Big fat plug? Yes. But applications close on July 6th! And we think these internships are a downright…
DetailsWithin the Gravity Chicken Run, we needed a place for our chickens that was warm in winter and cool in summer. We also wanted it to be super easy to clean, cheap to build, and easy to keep our chickens healthy long term. So we came up with a design called the RawBale Chicken House.…
DetailsJoin us for a fabulous day of digging, planting, learning and growing, with our annual Alexandria Park Permablitz! 10 – 4pm: Monday 13th June: Alexandria Park Community Garden, Alexandria, Sydney. Everyone is welcome, with light lunch and organic fruit provided. Bring your gloves, your boots, your kids, your dad & your water bottle, and expect…
DetailsI never thought we would get excited about, let along plan to do, the whole market garden thing. But while I’m all for no-dig polycultures like our domestic-scale kitchen garden, I’m also a pragmatist. These days, we need more vegetables than we currently produce, especially from Spring through till Autumn. Way, way more. So I…
DetailsThe permaculture school garden at Cringila public school is an oasis, in both the literal and metaphorical sense. Cringila is a suburb perched above the Port Kembla Steelworks, south of Sydney, and has some of the worst pollution in Australia thanks to the industrial fallout. Which is ironic, because the permaculture school garden here is…
DetailsReviewing your own online video archive is a bit like reading back through your diary. Except it’s all public. Eeek! Nevertheless, here is our new video page. This page is a collation of our sporadic video diary (you might notice the hiatus that coincided with parenthood). If you’d like to see the accompanying articles that…
DetailsSchool gardens are enjoying a growing revival currently, which is great because they have the power to be pretty transformative places. Since meeting Aaron Sorenson, I’ve begun to understand just how a good school garden can truly intersect with more aspects of learning than perhaps anything else that happens in a school day. At this…
DetailsThis is the first post in a series explaining how we built our very first earthbag dome at Milkwood Farm. So if you searched for earthbag building australia, you’ll come to see that this is a natural building technique that uses bags of earth to build structures that have incredible tensile strength and a very low…
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