January 17, 2012 – 6:00 am
On 28-29 Jan 2012 we’re running a intensive mushroom workshop at Milkwood Farm with Will Borowski – we’ll be learning how to cultivate oyster and shiitake mushrooms, cultivate mycellium on agar, make grain spawn, set up mushroom gardens, inoculate logs and more! Please join us.
For this workshop we’re sticking to getting the basics of mushroom propagation and spawn creation right. Once we’ve all mastered those, we can expand into the more advanced mushroom cultivation techniques. We’ve got big plans for all sorts of fungi cultivation in our forest garden… Read More »
January 15, 2012 – 6:00 am
It seems unbelievable that only 5 months ago our now abundant market garden was a scruffy bare creek flat. But it’s true! And now we’ve got produce coming out our ears, thanks to many fabulous folks coming together to make it so.
Up in the hills as we are, it’s a bit of a harsh climate for growing stuff. About 4 frost free months for growing only, poor soils, 600mm annual rainfall, crazy dry winds, etc and so on. We’re not complaining, but I’d just like to flag that this is a garden created in non-ideal conditions. Except for gumption. We’ve got plenty of that.
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January 13, 2012 – 3:14 pm
Right now Nick’s in the the middle of teaching Milkwood Permaculture’s annual summer Urban Permaculture Design Certificate in Sydney, which is always a fabulous two weeks. This year, we have the wonderful Cathy X as one of the students, and she’s documenting the process in pictures.
I love this course. It’s so similar, yet so different to the PDCs we run at Milkwood Farm – same core curriculum, principles and Nick’s fabulous + infectious energy, but realized in the middle of the city, instead of way out in the backwoods. And once again we’re blessed to have an awesome group of students to work with for 2 weeks. Read More »
January 6, 2012 – 6:00 am
Bit of a mid-summer treat yesterday: Tim Malfroy came to help check our Warré beehives and bliss us out with amazing discussions on pollination, super organisms and honey. We got some amazing photos of summer in beeland.
Summer in the Australian bush (in a good year) is like nirvana for honey bees, thanks to the abundance of flowering eucalyptus. So much nectar. So much pollen. The Milkwood Farm bees are going nuts!
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December 28, 2011 – 6:00 am
From the cult of done manifesto: 1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion. 2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done… sound like farming, growing food or establishing a permaculture system to you?
In fact, almost all of the 12 tenets of the cult of done manifesto strike a chord with me as far as learning to farm goes. Especially the last one: Done is the engine of more… Read More »
December 24, 2011 – 7:40 am
Here is our Forest Garden in December 2007, four years ago. You might notice there’s nothing there. There wasn’t anything anywhere, at Milkwood Farm. Just out little caravan, and us, dreaming of turning this rocky hillside into a kick-ass permaculture farm.
We knew we wanted to create a rocking Forest Garden as part of Milkwood Farm’s design. And it’s taken four years but, thanks to good friends, good design, gravity fed water, and a certain amount of gumption, we’re now well on our way… Read More »
December 21, 2011 – 6:00 am
The super-organism of the honeybee (apis mellifera) is not only awe-inspiring, it’s worth understanding. Both for your own personal gratification, and for the pollination of your nation.
This list is a part of the notes we provide to students at the Natural Beekeeping courses we run with Tim Malfroy. It’s a list of Tim’s favorite books on bees, garnered from a lifetime of active research, practice, and discussion. Read More »
December 19, 2011 – 6:00 am
It’s actually quite hard to sum up 2011. It was so big. So vast. So amazing. Such a learning curve, in so many ways! But I’ll try.
I started off with one iconic image per month, but that just didn’t cut it. How do you chose between making a pig tractor, and working with Joel Salatin, when both happened in August? I had to take liberties here and there. Read More »
