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 in Australia successfully. Which we can share with you, so you can learn too…
As if Melbourne Permablitz crew weren’t cool enough already, they’ve now outdone themselves. They’ve released a series of organizer’s guides for running a successful permablitz really, really well.
These in-depth guides cover all the essential aspects of a great permablitz: designing, facilitating, hosting and documenting. They’re comprehensive documents and a great asset for anyone doing this sort of thing, or wishing they knew how. Read More
© Happy Earth
Happy Earth are a great little crew down in Wollongong, proving that you can create an abundant urban homestead. And they’re just created a really awesome community resource in the form of this garden guide, which is free to all.
Regardless of whether you actually live in the Illawarra region or not, make sure you have a look at this. It’s a super example of localized knowledge, small, slow solutions, and fair share. Read More
Colour plate from the back of ‘The Farming Ladder’
This list of books by organic market garden expert Eliot Coleman was given to us by the Allsun Farm crew. Apparently these are the 12 books that most influenced Eliot during his transition from school teacher to organic market gardener extraordinaire. They’re pretty radical! Eliot writes:
“In order to understand the present and prepare for the future, it helps to understand the past. So when I was asked what books would be best to help someone understand what a biologically based agriculture is all about, I put together this collection, which I nicknamed “The Fertile Dozen”.
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 environmentalist capitalist lunatic farmer, Joel Salatin is one of a kind. His family enterprise, PolyFace Farms in the Shenandoah Valley of Virgina, USA, is a unique example of profitable family ‘beyond organic’ farming. But that’s not what this book is about. Read More
Here’s a bunch of Forest Garden books and resources we’ve put together for the students of our Food Forest Garden workshops. There is so very much to learn, read, think about and absorb here! And it’s all incredibly useful and exciting information.
Many thanks to Milkwood Farm’s resident plant-whisperer Dan Harris Pascal for putting these resources together for everyone…
Perennials, perennials, perennials. It’s all about perennials. Throw a stick near anyone enthused about permaculture or regenerative agriculture and they’ll squeak ‘perennials’ before they even duck.
This book is a very old, very readable, and very good edition to any library. It’s first edition came out in 1929, it reads like a combination of Foxfire, Joe Bageant , Joel Salatin and Bill Mollison, and it’s packed full of darn fine information relating to, yes, perennials. And hogs. Read More
Permaculture Pioneers is a new book looking at the trajectory of permaculture in Australia from the 1970′s until right now. It’s an amazing and humbling read. And it’s launching in Sydney next week on August 25th, with David Holmgren presenting.
At the same event there will be the Sydney premiere of Anima Mundi, a new doco on the future of this planet of ours. Anima Mundi features Vandana Shiva, Noam Chomsky, the Melbourne Permablitz crew and many more thinkers and doers. Sounds like a good night to me! Read More
So we’re sitting at the kitchen table, planning our market garden with Joyce and Mike from Allsun Farm, and Joyce suddenly looks at me sharply: “you’ve seen our vegetable growing CD ROM, haven’t you?” Erm, no?
With forewords by Eliot Coleman (international edition) and Peter Cundall (Australian edition), I’m not quite sure why I’ve only just come across this comprehensive resource. It’s Allsun’s self-published guide to growing vegetables, covering everything from tools and planning through vegetable varieties and harvesting. Wow. Read More
Martin Crawford’s forest garden in Devon might not be in a biosphere anything like the climate at Milkwood Farm, but it’s a project that’s been an inspiration to me for a while, nonetheless.
Martin’s forest garden is a poem of time and space and the seasons – or a big jumbly mess of green stuff, depending on how you look at it. But one thing is not debatable. That forest garden of his produces a lot of very edible food, in a very stable, resilient and low-energy input system. Like. Read More
