Our Urban Permaculture Design Course is coming up fast in July, and is shaping to be pretty special. Leading the learning will be the awesome Hannah Moloney, supported by Nick Ritar and none other that the co-originator of Permaculture, David Holmgren.
The great thing about this teaching team is the breadth of experience and enthusiasm they bring to share with students of urban permaculture design – Hannah is a long-time urban community cultivator, Nick’s focus is the small farm / urban permaculture resurgence, and David Holmgren, well, he’s David Holmgren. Need we say more. But we will. Read More »
‘Catch and Store Energy’ is one of David Holmgren’s twelve permaculture principles. It’s a far-reaching theme that can be applied just as effectively at the home scale as it can be at the larger level of communities and society.
So what are some of the ways we catch and store energy in our home system at Milkwood Farm? I’ll walk you through just a couple… Read More »
At Milkwood, we spend the majority of our time focusing on positivistic strategies for an uncertain future. This is mostly because the other way of looking at the future has a big flashing ‘here be dragons’ sign on it.
Like everyone else, we know what’s happening out there in the big wide world. We know that there’s many gigantic problems, that the climate is changing, and that our granchildren’s world will definitely not look like this one.
It’s scary stuff. And yes, it does sometimes keep me awake at night. But then it’s morning again. Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. Read More »
So who would like a copy of this fabulous book? It’s one of the favourites of our permaculture library, and also the textbook we give out to students at our Intro to Permaculture courses.
The reason for choosing this as our introductory textbook is simple: it’s a great introduction to permaculture theory and practice. It’s also a good choice as a gift, if you’re looking to get someone excited about ecological design… Read More »
Recently Nick was lucky enough to hang out with David Holmgren for a couple of days at Melliodora, the superb small-acre permaculture site that David has established with his partner Su Dennett in Hepburn Springs, Victoria.
Being in the thick of a super-productive, comfortable and energy efficient permaculture system at harvest time was inspiring, to say the least. To add to that, the purpose of the visit was for Dave Jacke to spend time with David and Su while he was in Australia. You can imagine the intensely wonderful conversations that went down! Read More »
No room to grow? Your options for vertical gardens are expanding by the day. Some are big, and some are small, some blend in, and some stand out. Like this one.
Here’s a funky little home growing project by the crew behind Calanthe Artisian Loft, a homestay in Melaka, Malaysia… Read More »
When we moved in to the tiny house last August, our design plans for our edible courtyard were vast, and immediate. It would be a riot of color and flavor in no time – citrus trees ripening in the microclimate of the east-facing gabion wall, feasts of greens, herbs everywhere, scenting the air as pollinators buzzed, and my child laughing and playing, surrounded by an oversupply of butterflies attracted by the many small flowers that would be springing from every crack we could see.
I expected all this to take shape by mid spring, or early Summer at the latest. Hey, we’d lived through the build and we had moved in. What more was there to do but garden?
Well, there was life and a farm and permaculture education to run, and egg-cup dinosaurs to make, as it turned out. We hope to realise the design next winter in our quieter months. But in the meantime, bring on the glory of potted interim gardening! Never have I lived in such a happy space. Read More »
Wow what a January. Thank you to all the amazing Permaculture Design Course students that joined us at Milkwood Farm for two weeks of Permaculture design training, and the hottest January in Australia on record. It was all happening at Milkwood Farm!
Yes the heat was intense. But because of our elevation, we never saw the 40+ degree temperatures suffered by the rest of the country. Many watermelons were devoured, many swims were had. Much designing was done and concepts learned, resulting in some beautiful work. Read More »
The Urban Farming Guidebook is a free pdf resource for helping local governments to plan the growing of food in their cities. Given that we’re all about bottom-up action, we feel that it’s best placed in the hands of potential growers, so they can get on with creating local food systems!
And that means you. This guide was written for Canadian councils in BC, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting, or useful, for the rest of us. There’s 4 case studies of successful urban farms in BC, and plenty of inspiration and workable ideas for more… Read More »
What better soundtrack for Christmas than combining two essential ingredients for a good life: permaculture, and ukulele. Permaculture: A Rhymer’s manual is a set of songs based on David Holmgren’s 12 permaculture principles, created with the idea that education and learning resources come in many forms, so why not. We love em.
This week at Milkwood Farm we kicked up our heels with The Barn Dance at the End of the World, with special guest Charlie (aka Permaculture Ukulele). Charlie was so much fun we thought we’d share a bit about his project Permaculture: A Rhymer’s manual as the ultimate Christmas soundtrack…
